'most' small bottle jacks do not have enough travel to get a wheel off
the ground jacking on the frame of a vanagon.
sounds like the original poster has figured that out.
Jacking on the a suspension arm 'can work' ....but is not that very
advisable really.
Just get a proper stock vanagon jack.

On 5/20/2012 4:30 PM, Jim Arnott wrote:
> You can't use it to jack up the control arm rather than the body?
>
> Jim
>
> Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of
> a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
> --Franklin D. Roosevelt
>