Supporting safely.
This means axle stands. However I usually leave the jack under the sill and/or slide the wheel under the sill when I've removed it from the vehicle. Anything handy which will stop the vehicle coming down and crushing me! Don't take a chance on bricks, breeze blocks or other such solutions. Not stable or strong, they can crumble.
So, Axle stands? We're talking about these things:
Over the years I've collected 3 pairs and I'm showing you two here. I like the sort that has removable pins like you see here. You can buy a type with different pin design but I just don't like them. I prefer the simplicity and inherent safety of a simple pin. Also worth noting is the large foot size on the left couple. The one's on the right, you'll notice, has much narrower feet. The ones on the left are the first ones I bought - back when I was in college - I welded the larger feet onto the ones on the left because in hot summer weather I found the straight angle iron ends would sink into the tarmac if I had to leave a car up on them for more than a few hours. Now that I work mostly on concrete or slabs I never bothered making feet for the yellow ones.
Now we've got some stands how do we use them? This is the bit everyone gets a bit nervous about. Choose the wrong place to site them and you can seriously damage or even wreck a car.
Lets look under the Panda - this is the FIAT Forum after all!
We've looked at jacking points on the sills but the stands can't easily be located there, or if you do you're likely to damage the seam or paintwork and also sills are notorious for rusting so better left alone. All right we're talking about box sections here These are reinforced "boxed" structures which give the car's structure strength. Here's a few examples:
N/S (passenger side) just inboard of the sill - you can see the back end of the front sub frame on the left of the picture where it bolts to the box section:
Longitudinal (front to rear) just behind the previous example:
And now at the rear, just in front of the rear wheel:
These structures are all repeated on the other side - O/S - of the vehicle.
Before positioning a stand and letting the car's weight be taken on it, do a visual examination for rust etc. If badly rusted it'll probably be incapable of supporting the car's weight. Then you've got a problem because it's going to fail it's MOT so that needs to be fixed first.
If all looks good then get a wee bit of wood and place it on the top of your axle stand - this helps protect the vehicles paint/underseal and also tends to stop the stand slipping as the metal of the car tends to bite into the wood.
Here's one located under the first image of a box section shown above. We're looking from the front of the vehicle now, under the engine:
So, if we put another in the same place on the other side and pull back a bit, it looks like this:
Oh dear! have you noticed my "deliberate" mistake? Yes, that's it, I haven't put any chocks behind the back wheels have I? Ok, let's sort that:
My driveway slopes slightly away from the house so blocks behind the wheels works well. on the flat you might want to put chocks both in front of and behind the wheels which are not in the air.
Chocks? what chocks? Well, as I used here, some bits of 2x4 work well enough but I also carry a set of red collapsible chocks in the Panda and yellow fixed ones in the Ibiza, as here:
The yellow chocks were actually part of the wheel changing kit in a Datsun I owned, which I thought was a nice touch. Notice the bit of wood under the jack? It's a thick piece of marine 14 ply just in case I'm forced to attempt a puncture change on a less than perfect surface so the jack doesn't sink into the ground - actually never needed to use it.
You can also support the vehicle on the subframe if you think the box sections are too weak to take it. Here's the Panda supported on her front subframe:
These subframes are usually pretty strong but, if you're going to do it this way then try to position the stand so the weight is born up through the subframe mounting vertically to the vehicle structure. It's not too clear in the above picture but look here and you'll get a better idea what I'm talking about:
At the bottom you can see the saddle of the stand with it's bit of wood and above it the subframe sitting on it with, at the top of the picture the subframe mounting bolt holding it to the car's body. You can see the forces are acting pretty much vertically up into that mounting bolt - very unlikely anything will get deformed.
At the rear we have similar box sections and you can use the stand on them in the same way:
If you're going up a lot in height it's best to go in stages. Maybe half way on one side, position the axle stand and then do the other side before coming back to the first side and going up to the full height. If you're going to attempt to take all four wheels off the ground be very careful what you're doing as it's very easy to destabilize the whole thing with disastrous consequences. Better to work on one side or one end at a time, so no more than two wheels up at any time. I also don't believe in jacking up in the middle of the rear axle. People have done it and suffered no consequences, but if you bend the axle it means the rear geometry will be compromised and a new axle is really the only way to sort the problem properly. Even more importantly never try to jack the car up under the sump. It's just not designed to take the entire weight of the front of the car and even quite a small deformation can have serious consequences. It's very likely the oil pickup will be obstructed if you deform the bottom of the sump which could lead to premature engine failure later
What I've been talking about above can be carried over to most modern cars. Take a look at the Ibiza's nether regions:
This picture was taken whilst she was up on the ramps I mentioned at the beginning and you can see how good the access is using them - of course you wouldn't be putting it up on the ramps if you were intending to use the stands. The engine subframe can be clearly seen and the same logic applies - look for where it's bolted to the body structure and put the axle stands, or jack, under there. On this one the square holes you can see (sorry, the one on the right is obscured by that blob of rain water on the lens) are actually the bottom of the vertical element that bolts to the body frame work. You can see all the plastic cladding along the bottom of the car? luckily it doesn't obstruct the bodywork box sections at the front of the sills so I've got good access there for jack or stands if I want. Some modern cars have so much of this plastic cladding you're toiling to find a solid place for stands or jacks.
So, Axle stands? We're talking about these things:
Over the years I've collected 3 pairs and I'm showing you two here. I like the sort that has removable pins like you see here. You can buy a type with different pin design but I just don't like them. I prefer the simplicity and inherent safety of a simple pin. Also worth noting is the large foot size on the left couple. The one's on the right, you'll notice, has much narrower feet. The ones on the left are the first ones I bought - back when I was in college - I welded the larger feet onto the ones on the left because in hot summer weather I found the straight angle iron ends would sink into the tarmac if I had to leave a car up on them for more than a few hours. Now that I work mostly on concrete or slabs I never bothered making feet for the yellow ones.
Now we've got some stands how do we use them? This is the bit everyone gets a bit nervous about. Choose the wrong place to site them and you can seriously damage or even wreck a car.
Lets look under the Panda - this is the FIAT Forum after all!
We've looked at jacking points on the sills but the stands can't easily be located there, or if you do you're likely to damage the seam or paintwork and also sills are notorious for rusting so better left alone. All right we're talking about box sections here These are reinforced "boxed" structures which give the car's structure strength. Here's a few examples:
N/S (passenger side) just inboard of the sill - you can see the back end of the front sub frame on the left of the picture where it bolts to the box section:
Longitudinal (front to rear) just behind the previous example:
And now at the rear, just in front of the rear wheel:
These structures are all repeated on the other side - O/S - of the vehicle.
Before positioning a stand and letting the car's weight be taken on it, do a visual examination for rust etc. If badly rusted it'll probably be incapable of supporting the car's weight. Then you've got a problem because it's going to fail it's MOT so that needs to be fixed first.
If all looks good then get a wee bit of wood and place it on the top of your axle stand - this helps protect the vehicles paint/underseal and also tends to stop the stand slipping as the metal of the car tends to bite into the wood.
Here's one located under the first image of a box section shown above. We're looking from the front of the vehicle now, under the engine:
So, if we put another in the same place on the other side and pull back a bit, it looks like this:
Oh dear! have you noticed my "deliberate" mistake? Yes, that's it, I haven't put any chocks behind the back wheels have I? Ok, let's sort that:
My driveway slopes slightly away from the house so blocks behind the wheels works well. on the flat you might want to put chocks both in front of and behind the wheels which are not in the air.
Chocks? what chocks? Well, as I used here, some bits of 2x4 work well enough but I also carry a set of red collapsible chocks in the Panda and yellow fixed ones in the Ibiza, as here:
The yellow chocks were actually part of the wheel changing kit in a Datsun I owned, which I thought was a nice touch. Notice the bit of wood under the jack? It's a thick piece of marine 14 ply just in case I'm forced to attempt a puncture change on a less than perfect surface so the jack doesn't sink into the ground - actually never needed to use it.
You can also support the vehicle on the subframe if you think the box sections are too weak to take it. Here's the Panda supported on her front subframe:
These subframes are usually pretty strong but, if you're going to do it this way then try to position the stand so the weight is born up through the subframe mounting vertically to the vehicle structure. It's not too clear in the above picture but look here and you'll get a better idea what I'm talking about:
At the bottom you can see the saddle of the stand with it's bit of wood and above it the subframe sitting on it with, at the top of the picture the subframe mounting bolt holding it to the car's body. You can see the forces are acting pretty much vertically up into that mounting bolt - very unlikely anything will get deformed.
At the rear we have similar box sections and you can use the stand on them in the same way:
If you're going up a lot in height it's best to go in stages. Maybe half way on one side, position the axle stand and then do the other side before coming back to the first side and going up to the full height. If you're going to attempt to take all four wheels off the ground be very careful what you're doing as it's very easy to destabilize the whole thing with disastrous consequences. Better to work on one side or one end at a time, so no more than two wheels up at any time. I also don't believe in jacking up in the middle of the rear axle. People have done it and suffered no consequences, but if you bend the axle it means the rear geometry will be compromised and a new axle is really the only way to sort the problem properly. Even more importantly never try to jack the car up under the sump. It's just not designed to take the entire weight of the front of the car and even quite a small deformation can have serious consequences. It's very likely the oil pickup will be obstructed if you deform the bottom of the sump which could lead to premature engine failure later
What I've been talking about above can be carried over to most modern cars. Take a look at the Ibiza's nether regions:
This picture was taken whilst she was up on the ramps I mentioned at the beginning and you can see how good the access is using them - of course you wouldn't be putting it up on the ramps if you were intending to use the stands. The engine subframe can be clearly seen and the same logic applies - look for where it's bolted to the body structure and put the axle stands, or jack, under there. On this one the square holes you can see (sorry, the one on the right is obscured by that blob of rain water on the lens) are actually the bottom of the vertical element that bolts to the body frame work. You can see all the plastic cladding along the bottom of the car? luckily it doesn't obstruct the bodywork box sections at the front of the sills so I've got good access there for jack or stands if I want. Some modern cars have so much of this plastic cladding you're toiling to find a solid place for stands or jacks.
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