PSA: Always use jackstands.

Those wood ones would take up significant garage space. Although they do stack vertically unlike jack stands.

Now if the top were a flat/greased plate so I could use it for better toe adjustments...

Last weekend we were at my in-law's vacation home and my Father-In-Law somehow managed to drive over a giant boulder they have at the end of the driveway in his Toyota Avalon and it got wedged in front of the rear lower control arm after he dragged the damn thing about 20 feet.

His first idea to get it out before I was able to come out and help him was, get this, drive backwards over a bundle of firewood. I told him that would neither be safe or work.

Unfortunately being vacation, I didn't have any of my tools, so I jacked up the car using the factory scissor jack (luckily it had one and luckily it got the car up high enough so that the chassis/fuel tank/exhaust would clear the boulder when pushed out the back) and dreaded every time I had to jam my foot under the car or reach under the car to pull that stupid 75 lb boulder out. At least all four wheels were still bolted to the car so if it fell off the jack it wouldn't be too bad (at least my leg would probably be OK).

ProDarwin wrote: Those wood ones would take up significant garage space. Although they do stack vertically unlike jack stands. Now if the top were a flat/greased plate so I could use it for better toe adjustments...

When I built mine I made them so that when I put the scales on all four of them and turn plates on top of the front scales I have a level surface for chassis setup. The stands are labels so that I put them in the correct location and there are tape marks (I need to replace them with paint) so I put them in the same spot each time.

It's worth noting that I had a Honda scissor jack fail on me once. I used it around the garage a lot so it had a bit of wear on it. One day, it started to groan and then it quickly failed thread by thread. Fortunately I wasn't under the car at the time.

I had a pretty good scare one night right after I started driving. I was in my truck doing doughnuts in the dirt with some friends, in the dark, and had a blow out. Using a Zippo and cell phone (Nokia bar, forget the model but the very first cell phone with a color screen) for light, and the stock GM scissor jack, I learned how to change a tire. I just got the wheel with the flat off and was trying to get the spare on the studs when the jack just decided it didn't want to hold the truck anymore. Luckily, there were 2 lugs through the holes on the wheel, no lug nuts, but the studs stopped a bigger drop.

That was enough for me to keep jack stands and a real jack in all my vehicles that have the room.

I've been thinking about building a wooden set for in the car port though. They look like they'd be much safer and easier to level on gravel than stands are. It's not a fun feeling when the car starts rocking above me on the stands.

Ross413's neighbor broke his back when the jack failed while he had his head in the wheelwell doing a brake job, I think.

I have a smaller (probably 3000#) pair of older Craftsman stands, and a larger pair (probably 5000#) of newer HF ones. Both sets are heavy and solid and latch securely. But yeah, testing stability before you get under is still critical.

I'll agree that most factory jacks are pretty under-built and for last-resort emergency use only.

Don't just use jackstands, use them correctly, if they aren't on concrete they need a square of plywood under them so they can't sink in and tip. Personally I won't get under a car without redundant support unless we're deep into overkill territory (e.g. beefy ramps, cribbing, or 6 ton stands under a 1 ton car), jack+stands, stands+wheels under the rockers, etc. Shaving 5 minutes off the job is kinda useless if you end up crippled or dead.

I realized that the factory scissor jack the came with my Wrangler is no longer tall enough after I put 33s and a small lift on.

So I bought a 48" Hi-Lift. Which I hope I never have to use because is scares the berkeley out of me

Traded one sketchy jacking method for another...

stanger_missle wrote: I realized that the factory scissor jack the came with my Wrangler is no longer tall enough after I put 33s and a small lift on. So I bought a 48" Hi-Lift. Which I hope I never have to use because is scares the berkeley out of me Traded one sketchy jacking method for another...

Fun fact: My mom worked at Hi-Lift in high school. My parents have a couple of Hi-Lift wine glasses--the owners family friends of my mom.

Hi-lift jacks can be extremely useful tools. They can also kill you. I own two, and I regularly check the mechanism for rust, goobers, etc.

When I was a Medic, I transported a guy that had a hi-lift fail on him. The whole jack went sideways out from under the truck when it rolled, and it hit him in the head.

They say God takes care of fools and drunks, and it must be true, because he escaped with a headache and a fat lip...

In reply to ProDarwin:

Thats exactly what I did with one pair of mine. Two pieces of greased dryer sheet metal sit on a flat side of the cribbing. (The reverse side has two extra pieces of wood for tire chocks).

It's way better than trying to set the toe with the plates on the ground

What grease do you use? What do you mean by dryer sheet metal? Super thin stuff? What are you using as a limiter so you can't just push the whole front of the car off one side of the stands?

I was thinking of making a set, milling the top flat and then capping it with 3/8" aluminum then using a 3/8" aluminum plate. Or something like that.

In reply to ProDarwin:

I'm super low tech, and dirt poor so the sheet metal is thin like 20 gauge I literally cut 4 sections, 12in x 12in from the side of a dryer that went bad. It has some flex which might have some advantages over AL plate. I've used grease, salt, petroleum jelly... Anything slippery it doesn't take much just a thin coat.

The plates will slide as I drop the car down on "plates". I compensate by putting the bottom plate where the tire will roughly end up and the top plate where the tire is before lowering the car down.

I set toe one side of the car at time front/back. The alternate side gets cribbing with built in tire chocks. Obviously you don't want to lean on the greased side, but I also use wider cribbing than just the contact patch of the tire. The sheet will land on wood/friction surface before sliding off.

I also like to screw in a "picture frame" section of wood around the outer edge of the flat cribbing. It might be overkill, the cars don't slide too much but better safe than sorry.

The only thing I might change is to add a rivet to keep the plates together. (Maybe a short section of brake line flared on both sides).

Does anyone make a half-height set of jack stands that I can use when swapping wheels, but don't need to put the car in the air high enough to put a full-size jack stand under it?

After years and years of factory jacks and a bit of cribbing whenever I worked on cars I now have 4 HF jackstands and a pair of HF jacks (3 ton steel and 1.5 ton aluminum). It seems like a pretty good setup but I always double check stability and annoy those around me with my "caution".

I'm "that guy" in the shop I work at. Sure, it takes me twice as long to get a vehicle up on the lift as compared to the other guys in the shop but I'm making damn sure that vehicle is secure before I go under it.

Yesterday, I had to do a LOF on a 2005 Ram 2500 CC LB. I could only get the lift arms so far apart and still reach the frame. The rear arms only reached the end of the cab. The entire 8ft bed was unsupported (and there was a bunch of crap in the bed). I checked the stability and it was kinda sketchy so I grabbed the tall screw jack support and placed it under the trailer hitch. Much better, even if it just gave me a little peace of mind after being under that monster.

I'll be damned if I die for only $10/hr.

ProDarwin wrote: Now if the top were a flat/greased plate so I could use it for better toe adjustments...

OT, but if you stick a newspaper under each tire, that works great. I used to use an old 50-page catalog that I ripped in half.

It works remarkably well!

Knurled wrote:

ProDarwin wrote: Now if the top were a flat/greased plate so I could use it for better toe adjustments...

OT, but if you stick a newspaper under each tire, that works great. I used to use an old 50-page catalog that I ripped in half. It works remarkably well!

Yeah, those do work well. A couple of plastic shopping bags also works well.

tuna55 wrote:

poopshovel again wrote:

Andy Neuman wrote: Even when I use jack stands I'll have the wheels off and under the car in a spot that doesn't get in the way. Still I don't like being under the car.

THIS. A friend of a friend died several years ago under a car. He was too cheap to buy jackstands and his wife and kids WATCHED HIM DIE when a concrete block failed. His name was John Ingram. Don't die like John!!! Also: After this happened, I taught my wife how to use a floor jack, and if I'm wrenching alone, I always have the phone handy.

PSA: Concrete is really bad at being a jackstand!!

That was kind of my point.

For decades I got along with a couple sets of basic Asian jack stands. Not long ago, with a flywheel/clutch/driveline service job on my '98 M3 looming, I figured I'd finally pull the trigger on a set of Esco stands. This is the first time I've spent days under a car without any nagging worry a sh1tty, porous cast iron part would fail and I'd die. If your life is worth >$275, I highly, highly recommend buying a set.

On the subject of crappy cast iron stands... anyone have a record of one actually failing? I've never seen it. Every time I read about it, its due to improper use.

When my dad was a high school shop teacher in the early 80's his welding class students made at set of jack stands during the course of the class. He would load them into the hydraulic press and try to break them before they passed. Eventually they weren't allowed to use them in class because they weren't certified, but the kids kept making them because if they didn't want to use them at home there was a list of guys out in town waiting to buy them each year.

His preferred formula was a 12x12x1/4" plate, with a 2.5"x1/4" wall pipe welded to the center and braced to each corner with angle iron. A 2"x1/4" wall pipe went down the center with a 1/2" pin and a series of holes for setting the height.

I should build a set myself, thinking about it.

In reply to RevRico:

The one sketchy jacking incident I've had occurred right around the same time in my driving career. Buddy's ES300 got a flat in the grocery store parking lot and I had to go rescue him and change the tire. All that we had available was the scissor jack, though that wasn't the cause of the incident. Got the front end up in the air and the wheel off and for reasons I do not recall we were just standing there next to the car for a minute when I see it start to shift. Jumped back right before it came crashing down on the brake rotor. "Oh yea, the parking brake doesn't work." Thanks for telling me, dumbass.

So yea, that's why chocks are a good thing.

Sorry for your family's loss.

I've got 2 horror stories, one was a car on stands but too close to the center of the vehicle. I was leaning on the outside edge of the car and it tipped over on it's side. Luckily it was a very light car and I was younger (and quicker) then, so I didn't get injured.

The other, changing a tire on my wife's former Rogue, I just used the factory supplied jack. It failed right after I put the wheel back on (luckily) when I started putting the lug nuts back.

I am really not a fan of getting under a car, and I always use stands, and a wheel/tire when I have one available.