QUESTION :-
Removing the Ram Foot.
The rear offside jack has leaked all the fluid. I have taken the jack off and read your paper on the MG Y website. I have bought a new seal as the leak appears to be most apparent at the base of the jack. I am struggling to remove the foot from the inner tube which I gather is not unusual! My problem is that although you use the phrase “brute force”, how do I hold the inner tube in the vice tight enough without damaging the integrity of the tube and future sealing please?
ANSWER:-
Aha, the catch 22 problem, to grip the jack’s tube. To undo my most difficult jack I put it in the vice laying on the bottom edge so when tightened the tube was gripped in four places. Then I used two BIG stylson wrenches (pipe wrenches) and held the tube still with one whilst I really pulled hard on the other. I had soaked the jack in a bucket of diesel before this for a few days. It undid eventually. The only other method is to use heat, but that will damage the old seal and the spring inside. In desperation you might try an agricultural firm who deal in tractor hydraulics who will have methods of undoing it.
QUESTION;-
Jackall Fluid
I have recently purchased a 1948 YA to go with my 46 TC (owned for 30 years). Its generally all pretty good, but when I received the car it came with a nearly empty 1 litre tin of original Jackall fluid (red tin). I have now emptied the last few drop of the red oil into the system and would like to know what I can use to top up in the future. Do you think it will be OK to simply add 20 SAE mineral based motor cycle fork fluid into the system in the future – will they mix OK ?. I understand the original fluid was closer to 5 SAE.
ANSWER;-
Yes, it was very thin, but its important to remember the system ONLY takes mineral oil (people have put brake fliud in it). SAE20 is ideal and the non-foaming forkoil is better. The jacks will probably leak (as mine do) but only when they are ‘up’. With pressure in the jacks the seals are forced hard against the ram and cylinder; they relax when ‘up’. Watch the rear ones, they often stick and will hit sleeping policemen and bend. A good strong bit of wood can be used to force them back up. If you find this only forces the other one down, the ball bearing in the pump has stuck, give it a few pumps to shift it (you’ll hear it click off its seal). I have great fun at shows with my YB up in the air, I tell adults its an anti-theft system, and children so it can tip-toe through deep puddles.
You ‘can’ use straight SAE20 but it sometimes foams up on releasing the jacks.
QUESTION
Relief valve
I took my Jackall pump to bits, and have a ball bearing that does not seem to have a home. Any ideas?
ANSWER
It is probably the relief valve, item ‘K’ in the diagram.
QUESTION
Pipe connections
I am a Wolseley 12/48 coupe from 1936 to restuareren. This vehicle is the Jackall system, I’ve read you stories and thus
revised the Jacks and pump, the pipes are not intensify and therefore my question is how are these connected to the manifold pieces seems to be soldered in hard but that even so, and you may repair a tip for me.
ANSWER
On the MG Y Type, all the pipes have loose ‘olives’ at each ‘joint’ with threaded unions; normal plumbing practice. Your Wolseley is pre-war so may well have ‘silver-soldered’ connections.
Question