Pinnacle product? The Land Rover Coram bottle jack
This photo could spawn a lot of really bad jokes: a jack for a Land Rover, made in Italy, sitting in a Land Cruiser.
Let me explain.
Few manufacturers pay much attention to the jacks they include for changing a flat tire. No salesman is going to pull one out during his pitch, and a lot of people these days simply call AAA if they have a flat, and surf the web on their phone until the truck shows up.
The typical jack on small to medium-sized 4x4 vehicles these days is a scissors jack, barely adequate for an unloaded vehicle and nearly impossible to use for some people if there’s a good load.
My FJ40 came with a bottle jack—a mechanical screw type. It was stronger, but limited in its rise to one extension of the shaft, and still a beast to operate if the Land Cruiser was loaded. Its top post was a simple circular disk and thus lacking in stability.
Land Rover took a different approach with the early Range Rover. Its jack was a bottle type as well—but hydraulic, made by Coram in Italy, with a 2,000-kg rating, which made lifting even a loaded vehicle much easier. In addition, they equipped it with two extra-long operating rods so you didn’t have to be stuffed sideways under the vehicle to work it. It had a double-extending ram for extra lifting height. Finally, the post incorporated a curved top piece that securely cradled the front or rear beam axle of the Range Rover.
The same jack came in early Discoveries as well, and possibly Defenders. However, I have heard that at some point (1995-ish?) the steel body was replace with . . . plastic? And later on a similar-looking jack was substituted, but made in China. All of these I’ve seen were black rather than the ketchup red of the Corams.
I found a nice one on eBay for $40, and it’s been my FJ40 jack ever since. They’re still easy to find, but beware—the downside to hydraulic jacks is that seals can wear and leak, rendering the jack useless (possibly why Toyota stuck with the screw type). If you buy one try it immediately; if it doesn’t work the first thing to do is check the hydraulic fluid level through the rubber plug. If filling it doesn’t help it will need rebuilding, which I understand many hydraulic specialty shops can do but have not confirmed. If at all possible, store the jack upright.
The Coram jack fits into ARB’s excellent jack base, which also accepts either a Hi-Lift or an ARB Jack.
