Each to their own and we all have our ways of doing things. I might add though that my procedure is just to get the car off the ground in order to put the axle stands in place.
General Trolley jack
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General Trolley jack
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Me too.
I don't go under the car with just the jack holding it up. main issue is jacking it level so the stands are at the same height. It's annoying when you can get at stuff one side only to find the other isn't high enough.
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I'm guessing a modified and simplified version of this is what is need.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263453420140?hash=item3d570c2a6c:g:MekAAOSw-RFaZjkH
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263453420140?hash=item3d570c2a6c:g:MekAAOSw-RFaZjkH
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I think you're right Yolanda. Over the years we all evolve our own ways of doing things and when we find they work we tend to stick with them. I'm sure I do things which others would probably not agree with but it's been years now since one of these practices have caused me any grief.
'Morning Fourbe. Yes I do have a couple of smallish trolley jacks but neither of these are as small as you find in the "hobby" range. However they do have quite small saddles which I overcome by using a hardwood block where necessary. They are very useful if I have to dash off to "rescue" a family member or friend in need as they can be lifted into the boot of the car with relative ease.
I also have a couple of much more heavy duty jobbies which are heavy and only just capable of being lifted by one person. I tend to use these at home and they do have much larger saddle heads. Here's a picture I took some years ago of the ones I then had:
In fact it's the larger red jack at the top of the picture in my previous post and my adaptor replaces the saddle when in use which is why you don't see the white saddle in the previous post. The wee blue one I bought over 40 years ago but unfortunately it's hydraulics failed about 5 years ago and I was going to "retire" it until I found that the hydraulic unit on one of Sealey's small jacks was a metricated version of mine and could be made to fit. What actually happened was that I spotted someone locally (Gumtree) who had one of the Sealeys as an "unwanted gift" and, when I rang, were prepared to sell it to me, new and still in it's box, for half the advertised price. I jumped straight in the car and collected it but was a little disappointed to find it's resting saddle height was quite a bit higher than my old Hilka and that the saddle itself was considerably smaller in diameter too. However when I looked closely at it I found that the hydraulic unit was identical to my old Hilka although the mountings were now metric. It took me about 15 minutes to swap the complete hydraulic unit to the Hilka, substituting the almost identically sized metric mounting bolts for the Hilka's imperial ones, and it's worked brilliantly - Which explains the red colour of the pumping lever you can see in the picture (the Sealey is all red in colour). Here's a picture of the two after I'd swapped the hydraulics over, you can see the old blue Hilka pumping unit in this picture top left.
My newest jacking purchase has been one of these: https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-ctj2qlp-2-tonne-quick-lift-low-profile/ Which I've had for a few years now and which I bought because so many cars now have air dams on the front and some have fancy sill covers too which mean that my older jacks were too high to get under, especially if trying to use a wooden block. This new jack is very "fancy" with it's sexy low access lifting arm, padded saddle and twin element "quick lift" pumping element. By the way, just for general info, I have quite a number of Clarke branded items, all bought from Machine Mart, and I've found their spares availability and MM "helpfulness" to be excellent. Not that I've had any great need to buy parts as I find reliability to be good, but when help was needed MM have delivered.
Bottle jacks do have their uses but they trouble me when used to jack cars up. In general I find they don't have a very broad base so tend to be quite unstable unless used on a really solid surface - like a concrete hard standing. Not much of an advantage over the "standard" scissors type which, if you're lucky, comes as standard with the car. I have wheel chocks in all 6 of the "Family Fleet" car boots and all family members know how to use them effectively when jacking the car to change a wheel - Although three of the women folk say they would never even attempt to change a wheel under any circumstances!
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I recognise those jacks as ones I have owned in the past and still have one just like the yellow one.
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I might pinch the idea of a wood block with a routed slot in it. However, it is irritating having to lift one side at a time. I tend not to use axle stands much. Generally I use ramps and these days the plastic ones in particular because they are lighter.
I won't drive up the ramps though. I have an automatic and this type of auto is particularly awkward when it comes to shimmying up ramps as it is so very easy to shoot off. I have some jacking ramps but they are high to start with. I used to have a set that dropped almost flat but they were too narrow for the motors I was driving back then until recent years with having smaller cars again as well as the bigger 4x4s.
Thus I like to lift the car high with a trolley jack and slip ramps under after.
I won't drive up the ramps though. I have an automatic and this type of auto is particularly awkward when it comes to shimmying up ramps as it is so very easy to shoot off. I have some jacking ramps but they are high to start with. I used to have a set that dropped almost flat but they were too narrow for the motors I was driving back then until recent years with having smaller cars again as well as the bigger 4x4s.
Thus I like to lift the car high with a trolley jack and slip ramps under after.
make sure the grain of the wood is the correct way
wood is very strong across but splits easy down the grain
Not so much of a worry on box sections - although common sense should be applied. Critical if you are using the hardened sill seam which many manufacturers seem to favour these days. Have to say though that i don't feel comfortable jacking on any sill seam hence the slotted adaptor.make sure the grain of the wood is the correct way
wood is very strong across but splits easy down the grain
I have an excellent and very old set of ramps which I extended to accommodate the low front bodywork on modern cars. I do sometimes use them but it's quite frustrating when you are half way through doing something and find you need to take a wheel off but can't because the ramp is in the way of where you want to put the jack. Consequently they really only see the light of day when only an oil change or tightening up an exhaust clamp etc is the job in hand. I also, like you, find it difficult to actually get the car up on them and I don't like the way it rather punishes the clutch.
A piece of old carpet doubled up on the saddle works fine as well on the box sections if you're limited for height.
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This one has awesome lift height and tremendously low minimum height
I mean to say, take a look at the length of that arm!!!!!
And it is only about a third up!!
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We had a number of jacks, like my older larger one, in our workshop and two like the one you show here. One of them was potentially quite dangerous to use because it was missing it's saddle which the boss was always going to replace every time we mentioned it but never did. They were used mostly on small commercials (J4 vans CF Bedfords etc). I note it's rightly being used on the subframe not the bottom of the power unit!This one has awesome lift height and tremendously low minimum height
I mean to say, take a look at the length of that arm!!!!!
And it is only about a third up!!
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Yes I needed it to reach because the frame was so bloomin far back on the Ignis. Pity is the Panda has not got similar.
Thing is it is a low profile jack and will go under a lot of low cars.
Thing is it is a low profile jack and will go under a lot of low cars.
Aye, you are certainly not alone there. Most of my spannering life I’ve wanted something to raise my vehicles up easily so it would be obviously easier to work on. Realistically it’s a bit too late for me if I’m honest.
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Back in the day building a pit was the solution and we had one where I grew up but that was years ago.
There are some good alternatives to a two or four poster for the DIYer but still costly enough.
The problem (apart from the cost lol) is not so much age but space. If I had the room and the money I'd get one if it was the last thing I did because I am still having to work on motors even now.:bang:
If you have to money but not space theseBack in the day building a pit was the solution and we had one where I grew up but that was years ago.
There are some good alternatives to a two or four poster for the DIYer but still costly enough.
The problem (apart from the cost lol) is not so much age but space. If I had the room and the money I'd get one if it was the last thing I did because I am still having to work on motors even now.:bang:
Are a great middle ground
https://www.costco.co.uk/Tyres-Auto...ck-2268kg-Capacity-Model-BL-5000SLX/p/1268102
Great fun "dreaming" isn't it jrk? I toyed, very briefly, with one I found second hand which was mobile on wee wheels so you could move it around easily. The big problem with these devices is you need a good headroom which the average home workshop doesn't have. This one got over that problem because I could have wheeled it out onto my hard standing when using it and wheel it back into the garage for storage. In the end it was still too much of a luxury to contemplate for the use it would get with me and, despite being mobile, it would still have had to be stored somewhere. I'm getting a bit like Jim, up in the highland, these days where I'm starting to realize I'm just not physically up to doing this sort of thing more than occasionally.
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