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Jacking up the car to work underneath


Caterham Kid

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I need to get underneath the car to drill out 3 or 4 broken rivets and re-rivet the floor pan on the driver's side. What is the best and safest way to jack up the car?

I have 4 axle stands but it is stated that you shouldn't use 4. I have done so in the past just to get the car up high enough to get a drain pan underneath so I can carry out an oil change etc but not sure it would be safe enough for anything else. Would it be safe to put the car up on 4 wheel ramps instead? What other options are there?

Any advice would be gratefully received!

 

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  • Leadership Team

In the past I've raised the rear of the car onto the top level of a pair of ramps, applied the handbrake and then raised the front onto axle stands, very stable.

However when I did my rebuild a couple of years ago I invested in a pair of mobile axle stands ... really wish I'd done it years ago! Particularly if you're working in a confined space it helps that once the cars on the stands it can be moved around quite easily. Definitely recommended.

Stu.

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I’ve always put mine on 4 stands but my floor is pretty level. The only reason to recommend 3 is for stability. 

I jack mine up at the rear unser the A Frame/de Dion joint,  and put stands at the outer ends of the chassis rail just behind the de Dion. Lowest hole in stands.  

Then I jack up the front, under the cruciform, with a wooden spreader on the jack, and put stands under each end of the central tube there. 2nd position on the stands. 

Then I jack up the rear again to lift the stands to the next position. 

If I wanted it higher I’d do it one hole at a time, alternating front/back, because I’ve found that if you get the angle of the car too high on the jack the stands at the other end may tilt a little. Depends how easy your jack rolls. 

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I've always used 4 axle stands but as Scott says you have to keep an eye on the end already up when lifting the opposite end.

This is my sequence, as I struggle to get the jack and two axle stands under the front.

1) Jack the rear up, each side in turn, using the forward / outer A frame location point and put a bit of 9x2 under each rear tyre. 
 

2) At the front position the jack under the towing eye, at 90 degrees to norm ie in line with the radiator, and lift it up. Put axle stands under thicker centre tube of crucifom using a bit of carpet / cushion floor as chassis protection. Lower onto stands slowly as chassis moves in an arc and axle stands may need repositioning. (Also why I raise the front first)

3) At rear, position jack under diff (the 2" joist under the tyres enables this)and raise it slowly keeping an eye on the front stands. I try to apply a bit of forward pressure to the jack so it moves rather than pulling the body. Position axle stands under dedion or rear transverse chassis rail outer edges (NOT the one with the ally skin attached!!)

Regards

Ian

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Thanks very much for all your responses. It gives me confidence I can safely use 4 axle stands. 

However I should have mentioned that my garage is too small to do this so I have to do it on the drive which has a very slight slope. Would that be an issue?

I might pick up some wheel ramps and go for the ramps at the back and axle stands at the front option.

 

 

 

 

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Do be careful using 4 axle stands especially if you are going under the car or using 'force' on components. In reality it is NOT safe practice so do it at your own fully assessed risk.

If you do go ahead then leave the jack under and slide the wheels under there as well just incase.

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Not all axle stands are equal but if you draw an imaginary line between from the top where the car will sit to the midpoint of two of the feet, that's the line which if tipped beyond vertical would cause a disaster, ie. NOT to the foot itself. The higher they're set the worse it'll be. DEFINITELY NOT SUITABLE FOR A SLOPE.

Stu.

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Ok, having asked around as well as on here it would seem that 4 axle stands is not advised especially with a very slight slope. Advice seems to be ramps at the rear with Axle stands at the front with a single axle stand leg pointing forward (direction of slope). I don't actually have to go under the car but I do need to fit a drill under.

 

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I do use four axle stands if bleeding the brakes, changing pads etc. If I'm going under the car, I'm happier to have some blocks of wood I have made under the wheels, it seems much more stable.
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Four axle stands are OK as long as they are on a level firm surface. Chock the appropriate wheel. I use a square of four inch sq timber cut diagonally.

As stated earlier jack up the rear first using the A frame de Dion join & place stands under the rear bar just outboard of the two rear exhaust mounting plates.

The front can be difficult as some cars have too much clutter to utilise the cruciform which personally I would not advocate without a really extensive load spreader. Otherwise the towing eye is fine. Although an offset lift the chassis should not twist much if at all as it is supported at the rear corners.

Progress upwards one stand hole at a time back & front but do not over extend the number of holes as the car will become unstable. You will know how far you can go  from personal experience!

When lowering the car go down one stand hole at a time then front first on the ground. Don't forget the chock(s)

Try jacking up a 100 ton aircraft & then sitting underneath it while the main undercarriage cycles *yikes*

 

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On the front, jacking on the towing eye I can never get the axle stand in the right place due to the wheel of the jack. All with bogo standard machine mart tools. I've thought about making a lifting plate with a routered hole for the jack and raised glued and screwed timber to fit the cruciform!

I saw a program where they jacked up a big plane - all the people at the various jack points had to be synchronised / within a tolerance to the others to avoid twisting the air frame (lots of jeopardy build up!!)

Ian

 

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Caterhamkid, also it's worth mentioning, I have a piece of old tyre tread which i always put between the head of the jack and any point i use on the chassis or the A frame to de-dion point. Similarly I protect the heads of the axle stands, with some 3 mm thick rubber this prevents damage to the powder coating.

Rivets, I think I'm right in saying, the rivets that hold the floor in, are steel.

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It turned out to be less of an issue than feared. I went and got a set of car ramps and I put the rear wheels on those. That was more than enough to get access to the rivets so I didn't need to jack up the front at all.

I only had 2 issues. Firstly since the beginning of the lockdown my garage had become a bit of a dumping ground so I had to spend a few hours clearing up before I could get access to the axle stands and my trolley jack!

Secondly, I can't remember how I jacked up the rear before but there was no way the trolley jack was going under the de Dion joint so I had to jack up a rear corner, put an axle stand under that to give me enough space to get the trolley jack under the the de Dion joint. I could then jack up enough to place the ramps under. There was no way, especially on my own, that I would have been able to drive up on to them!

Anyway, there were 4 rivets that needed re-doing and that only took 5 minutes!

 

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Caterham Kid.  There is a good article on this website which covers jacking the car in detail.  Just go onto the home page and scroll down to "Popular Guides" and "Getting to know your Seven".  Here is the link:

https://www.lotus7.club/sites/default/files/images/Docs/GTKY7-1.pdf

As many of the others have said the critical part of raising the car onto axle stands is to progress gradually in height i.e. 1 hole or click on the vertical adjuster (depending on axle stand model), working from the back (starting point) to the front until the minium height is reached for you to work under the car.  I use a Machine Mart Low Entry Jack (same as in the Guide) which is necessary to go under the A Frame centre mounting at the rear.  What is very important to bear in mind is that the Jack, in the motion of lifting the car has to be able to move on its wheels towards to fixed point (the chocked grounded wheels or axle stands) of the pivot (as the arm of the jack raises vertically it moves thru an arc away from the fixed point so its "chassis" has to move towards the pivot point to compensate) Therefore the surface that the jack is sitting on needs to be smooth enough to allow it to roll and not on any slope to have gravity affecting its movement.

Once raised using this progressive method and 4 axle stands as per the guide I have found the car to be very stable, however I still place 2 old tyres which are a bit wider then me under the car before I venture there!

 

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A job well and safely done CK.

'Whats the issue with 4 stands? Is that a Caterham specific thing?'   No. Anything with three legs is basically unstable so extra care and thought needs to be taken in all circumstances. That includes sitting on a three legged stool !!!!!!!

I know, I know, I don't mind feeding the comedians on here.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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*rofl*

We do have one club member who shall remain nameless ... who drove forwards onto his ramps but failed to stop at the top! The result was a perfectly punctured hole in each of the flared wings complete with upturned ramps sticking through *yikes*

He might be brave enough to post a photo ...

Stu.

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Driving an old Fiat Abarth onto ramps scared me to death in 80s, my brother reported the ramps were a few inches in the air by the time I stopped *yikes* . Never again!

They came in useful for my build as my garage is tiny and my drive slopes, so I needed to level the drive to roll the car out before installing the engine and gearbox:

040_wheels_on_1.thumb.jpg.14bd9f2f65fb043aaf6cd5806b2627c4.jpg

I'm not sure health and safety would have been impressed, but I wasn't under it and if the wood broke, it would have just dropped a few inches *thumbup*

Duncan

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Caterham Kid - It is not advisable to jack up the car even a short height utilising any of the thinner gauge bars on the chassis rear corners. Could result in distortion. Buy a low entry jack.

I remember on here many, many years ago a member moaning that the rear lateral chassis bar of his car was bent upwards. It turns out that the centre of this was the go to point for jacking up..........

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