RE: [DMCForum] Re: How to safely lift the car onto 4 jack stands
From: "timnagin" <timnagin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2004 20:05:34 -0400
Ryan,
One more thing I forgot to mention. If you have the car up on stands, take
a minute and remove the wheels and lay them under the edges of the car so if
it falls it will land on the tires and not you. It would be better to have
a few scratched rims and maybe some body stuff to repair than people find
you modeling for a pancake commercial.
Greg
-----Original Message-----
From: ryanpwright [mailto:yahoo1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 5:11 PM
To: DMCForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [DMCForum] Re: How to safely lift the car onto 4 jack stands
--- In DMCForum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Joe OBrien" <joeyoseppijoe@xxxx> wrote:
> Holy shit, my wort fear ever working on a car lifted with
> jackstands, and you experienced it. How did the car manage to
> sustain NO damage after slamming onto the ground? The flimsy front
> ground effects would have crushed, and smashed the radiator in the
> process. Let alone maybe going into the cooling fans. WoW.
Joe -
The front wheels were still on. It simply came down onto the wheels,
with the normal few inches of clearance from the ground - slightly
less since the back was jacked up, but the nose of the car did not hit
the ground. I reached under and pulled the twisted jack stands out
from underneath it without having to jack the front up at all. They
were loose under there, like you'd just parked over the top of them.
The drop was rather gradual. I believe the jack stands tipped
backward, and the car kind of slid down while moving back. The jack
stands crushed before they reached the "critical" angle where the car
fell off them completely, so that cushioned the fall quite a bit.
Probably couldn't have been good for my suspension, but nothing was
smashed. I can't even see any dents on the underbody in the vicinity
of the jack stands.
Can I safely assume that the jacking is the dangerous part and once
the car is jacked up and level on all four jack stands, it's
relatively safe to be under it? It's very sturdy. I always shake the
car a bit after I get it jacked up to ensure it's not going to move on me.
Another option - what about putting the front two wheels on ramps (@
~15") and bringing the rear up to ~20-22" with my new 6 ton jack
stands? That would give me plenty of room to work, and it's not like
the front will just "fall off" the ramps assuming I buy a decent set
of ramps with a nice indentation for the wheels.
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