When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I need a new set of recovery boards. Will likely never use them, so don’t need super expensive ones to hold up to repeated use. However, I would like them strong enough to serve as bottle jack stands. Any recommendations?
I’m no expert on this but here is my 2 cents, FWIW. Since you actually don’t intend on using them, and their ‘corrugated’ profile could be problematic when needing a stable platform for a bottle jack, which with its small footprint would concentrate all its force on a small area, and not being spread on a wider surface area like a tire tread. I would feel more confident using a few short lengths of pressure treated 2 X 8 or 2 X 10’s. Curious to see other suggestions.
if you’re going to buy recovery boards get the best. They are damn near indestructible and a fantastic useful bit of kit.
don’t waste money on other brands.
don’t buy any boards you don’t need.
I have used my Trax as a platform for a jack. Works well with some dirt/gravel but a bit of lumber would work just as well if not better at a fraction of the cost.
MaxTrax are excellent as pictured above. I opted for ActionTrax (Wichita, KS was enroute to a drive to Kansas City to visit family) and then added their Stabilizer Plate accessory to serve as jacking surface (bottle jack or implement of choice). The plate surface sits proud of the traction nubs so it's effectively a flat, uniform, surface. Surface conditions will obviously dictate whether it's necessary to double up (triple up?) the traction boards to take the jack load without deflection. I've used a single ActionTrax+Plate on firm surfaces below my trailer jack and it work well.
A 3/4" piece of plywood drilled out to the hole pattern of any traction board might well do the same trick: unclear if or how well it would last as traction boards have flex. I have used a 3/4" piece of plywood cut to fit the recessed area of my
. With the plywood insert, the hi-lift jack stand base works as a bottle jack base. Not as much surface area as a traction board but... better than a jack in the mud. As an aside, I now also use a hi-lift jack stand base as a support for the foot of my trailer jack ( http://www.huc.ca/misc-pics/IMG_0136.jpeg ) which works very well on a variety of surfaces.
A few follow up comments, I do need them just in case I get stuck, but that is infrequent and hopefully never.
i do have a Hi Lift Jack base, would rather just not need to always have it with me.
Many of these come with a jack base molded in, just curious if anyone has had success with “off brand” models such as Bunker Industries, X-Bull, Rhino USA, etc. Even if they get beat up the first time I use them I will still be ahead by replacing them (vs. top of the line models), as long as they get me out I’m good.
Disregarding all the other points on the suitability of a traction board as a jack base, with a bottle jack you will be placing amongst the highest load on the boards that they will likely ever see in normal use. You can get more than half the vehicle's weight on the (very rigid) base plate of the jack if you get the right 2 tires off the ground.
And the difference between a cheap traction board and a premium one is the ability to survive exactly something like this - which the cheaper ones don't.
If you want to go this route, do as Gavin said and get a set of MaxTrax, though I'd even augment those with a board along the lines of Huc's sugesstions so as not to destroy those after a few uses.
Taking this a bit further: I am a huge fan of cheap Chinese tools. I can now justify buying everything from an engine hoist to a magnetic drill press to copies of JLR specialty tools that allow me to do things exactly as JLR specifies. And I can justify the purchase even if I only use them once. But I am careful to use them as such: I allow electric motors to breathe every now and again so as not to overheat, I don't use 6 ft cheater bars on wrenches, etc etc. Traction boards are an item where you'd have a really tough time exercising mechanical sympathy. You're operating the vehicle on the edge of what is doable if you need traction boards - there is no using them gently. And that's not even counting the bottle jack.
There's enough trash (and micro-plastics) in the world as is.
I personally use the el cheapo Amazon boards because I bent some maxtrax like a pretzel with my big heavy truck and I consider traction boards a consumable, often one-time-use commodity - but with a lighter weight vehicle like the Defender the maxtrax definitely would do the trick without failing.
But as others have said, if you're only using it as a jacking base, then just toss a piece of 3/4" hardwood plywood under the cargo floor lid and use that.
The Red Winches traction boards we sell have a spot in the center designed to be a jack pad. It was designed to accommodate a Hi-lift jack.
Here is the LINK
Recovery boards?
