Jack for road use

[rms427]

My Cobra came with a screw jack. This came with the car from Shelby. The only problem is that it will not work if the tire is flat. I bought a cheap scissors jack and it works fine. It will go under the frame and pick up the front or rear end without a problem.

I found out the original jack didn't work on an ill fated trip to the desert back in 1970. I planned on having a picnic and do some target shooting with a 22 pistol. I had a blanket in the trunk with a bag filled with 22 ammunition sitting on top of it. On the trip out from LA my wife said she smelled something burning. I told her it was just the factories along the freeway. After a while there were no more more factories and we could still smell smoke so I pulled the car over and opened the trunk. Smoke poured out and when I yanked the blanket out (with the ammunition sitting on top) it burst out in flames. My car origanally had the under car exhaust and where it went over the half shafts there were fiberglass inserts. The exhaust had burned through the fiberglass and the blanket sitting on it had caused the blanket to smolder. We were lucky that the ammunition didn't go off. There was about 750 rounds. Later we stopped out in the middle of no where and had lunch. After lunch I noticed the tire was flat. I got out the jack and found out it wouldn't fit under the car. I flagged down a guy in a 64 Chevy and used his jack on the bumper and got the tire changed. We then decided that was enough fun and drove home. When we pulled into the garage and turned off the engine I heard a hiss and another tire was going flat. I put a block of wood under the frame and just left it. I later found out the person who had changed the tires had put the wrong inner tubes in the racing tires I was running at the time. This caused them to get pinched and eventually fail. So we were both unlucky and lucky. Had a fire and two flat tires on one trip but made it home safely.