capucinebuddy

Hi there,

I've been doing some work on the steering and such and needed to be working under the nose of the car so I jacked it and had two stands essentially under the mirrors on the frame. I come back tonight and can't open the door and assumed the door handle assembly stopped working on me as I just replaced it all until I saw the massive gap in the door. There must have been roughly a 1/2'' gap running down the rear end of driver door to the point where it would not open. The passenger one seemed fine and as soon as I got it off the stands it went back to normal. I assume its frame sag? Should I be alarmed?

Tiger Joe

derekderek

Pick the car up as close as possible to where suspension hits the frame. If it flexes, you don't want to flex it. Under mirrors is just about worst point to put stands.

JimT

I have jacked my '72 up many times from every possible frame location and never had issues. Is your vette a convertible? I've heard the convertibles tend to flex. I would check things out just to be sure!! can you tell if the car sags if both seats are occupied?

0Willcox Corvette

Seems to me that they all flex to a degree... coupes (ever so slightly), and convertibles. So our rule here is that all doors are open to the first click before the car is put on any 2 pole "non flat bed" lift.

Willcox

kansas123

derekderek

Some frames are thinner than others. If your-not OP, any you- car flexes, DON'T PICK IT UP THAT WAY!

Rescue Rogers

Im guessing you have a convertible. My convertible is about 3/8 ths gap on the lift, maybe more. My doors open but dont want to close well. The gap always closes up when it hits the floor

ronarndt

My 68 convert flexes if the jack stands are put toward the center of the frame. DUB has commented many times about how the frame flexes.

derekderek

The car will flex some while driving, but at no point (I hope) will the car's weight be supported by the frame between the front and back wheels with the suspension hanging in space pulling downwards while driving. And when the center does flex upwards, it is for a couple 10ths of a second til the weight settles on the wheels. Not 45 minutes to 6 months. The frame weighs about 600 lbs. You wanna pick a bare frame up in the middle? Fine. But the other near 3000 lbs hits the frame at the engine mounts, suspension mounts, 8 body mounts, rad support and trans mount. Only the trans mount is centrally located weight. The OP picked the car up at the mirrors. All the weight is bowing the frame downwards at both ends from that point.

Rescue Rogers

If you can, I would place the jack stands in front of the wheels next time to simulate the weight on the front wheels. You wont have any issues and the stands may have less of a tendancy to slip.

jpatrick62

On my 69 convertible, I jack it up under the front engine cross member, then I put jack stands under the frame behind the front wheels on both sides. I then secure the front cross member with a jack stand. Once this is done, I get very little if any
flex and then can work on the front suspension. If you are not doing any suspension work, you probably can use the suspension points behind the front wheels on both sides. Just make sure both sides are equally raised and you should not
have an issue.

derekderek

Front engine cross member. Use a piece of wood. Crossmember itself is strong enough, but the surface the jack hits gets flattened and ugly. I think there is actually a repair piece to fix the jack dents there.

Rescue Rogers

theres a tool for that

Govette1975

Years back my friends windshield broke when he was jacking up his 66 convert hard lesson to learn.