[General] How to Jack up your car and put it on Safety Stands

[acarmody]

My stands don't sit snug on the chassis rails on the VS, unlike the VY where the chassis rails are not as wide. Don't really feel safe putting the stands U shaped top on a flat surface, feels like it could slip if it was rocked hard enough. Any other suggestions on where to put my stands? I'm going to be changing the diff mount bush and all shocks, and all front end bushes. I've only got two stands so where's the safest place to put them in the front and rear when I'm working on this?

What I do is actually get some olds sock that I never wear , fold them a couple of times and lay they in the valley of the stand. Sock will only compress so much and the car will be sitting on the sock. So all the weight will be straight down the centre of the stand. My car has never slid on the sock either.

Best place for stands is the rails for the front of the car. No stronger place on the car. And on the back is the big centre bolt on the crossmember.

 

[Azwellaz]

I'm a super freak when it comes to doing this, i use 3000-5000 kilo stands even on small cars and keep a 2.5 tonne jack under the car and just touching the cross member or similar just in case, this comes from being much younger and almost being crushed once, not something i recommend, the pants were very soiled that day lol

Cheers

 

[06Calais]

when I was a kid I'd always be tinkering around with cars. One day I jacked the car up and put some milk crates under it, did a bit of work then left it overnight. Came out the next morning the whole car was touching ground with no wheels on as the 4 milk crates appeared to have slowly crushed / collapsed. Lucky I wasn't under it. Used heavy blocks of wood till I finally owned a set of Jack stands :-S

 

[Androo]

when I was a kid I'd always be tinkering around with cars. One day I jacked the car up and put some milk crates under it, did a bit of work then left it overnight. Came out the next morning the whole car was touching ground with no wheels on as the 4 milk crates appeared to have slowly crushed / collapsed. Lucky I wasn't under it. Used heavy blocks of wood till I finally owned a set of Jack stands :-S

Lucky you didn't fall asleep under the car
How did you get it back up again ?

 

[neville17]

Some good info here and remember that many people have been crushed to death working under cars. I was jacking up my VR Commodore the other day and just as the wheel came off the ground the jack just collasped underneath it. Stock standard factory jack which came with the car. Looks like the threads at the end of the jack just stripped out. Gave me a bit of a fright. Maybe a timely reminder to never work under a car supported only by a jack!

 

[acarmody]

Some good info here and remember that many people have been crushed to death working under cars. I was jacking up my VR Commodore the other day and just as the wheel came off the ground the jack just collasped underneath it. Stock standard factory jack which came with the car. Looks like the threads at the end of the jack just stripped out. Gave me a bit of a fright. Maybe a timely reminder to never work under a car supported only by a jack!

Those scissor jack with their very fine thread are suicide to be under the car with. Look how fine the thread is, no strength at all, but need to be fine to raise the car up slowly with big torque multiplication so even weak people can jack up their car.

 

[Immortality]

A couple of island boys down the road seem to be running a bit of a workshop out of their (moms) home garage. When I walked past yesterday they were working on a car that was jacked up, they were using wheel ramps as axles stands under the chassis with a couple of blocks of wood in between. the bloody wheel ramp wasn't sitting very flat either. Can only hope things go well for them.

edit: came across this picture in an advertisement for brake pad replacement....

 

[pbax]

[/QUOTE]

^^^^What a 'tard!!

 

[MasterOfReality]

Hi guys,

What are my options if I have zero room at the front of the car to bring a trolley jack around and I can't push the car back because the driveway to the shed slopes up so then can't jack the rear?

Car has been sitting for around 5 years and not been started in that time. Tempted to throw some fresh fuel and a battery in it, fire it up and reverse it out of the shed and up to the top end of my driveway where I have heaps of space. But don't know if that's a good idea with the old oil.

 

[GMH-SV6]

thanks so much, very helpful thread!!