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This sounds dumb, but is there a trick to jacking the car up? I bought a low profile race jack yesterday and I have never jacked the car before. I bought new rims and tires and I am going to switch them myself. Is it pretty obvious where I need to put the jack to do it correctly?
Thanks in advance.
If you have just one jack, you could just lift one corner of the car at a time using jacking pucks on the side frames.
I have two jacks, and lift a whole side, or the front from both side jacking points. You can use a 2 x 6 under the center of the rear crossmember to lift the two rear wheels at the same time without having to lift the whole body.
I use a set of aluminum jacking pucks. I prefer them over the plastic or rubber versions since they are not going to break or distort under load.
Last edited by TEXHAWK0; Oct 24, 2006 at 10:36 AM.
I first drive my car up onto 2" extruded styrofoam. One piece for each wheel. I then use 2"X6" under the sub-frames and get the whole car off of the ground. I've tried the jacking locations but really don't like that procedure. The first time I did it from the sub-frames it took 1/2 an hour or so. Now that I've done it a few times it takes a couple of minutes and the car is off the ground. Another good thing about the styrofoam is that it's great for the winter to stop your tires from flat spotting. I cut bevels on them to make it easier to drive up onto them. The rear ones have bevels on two sides so that I can drive up and over them and onto the front ones.
I used 2x6, but agree foam would be better. Took a hand saw and trimmed to corners to make little ramps. Set them in front of tires and rolled right on top of them.
TADA!
My jacks fit underneath perfectly. I also used 4x4x1 inch MDF cut boards to go in between the jack stands and the frames.
The way JCGRCYA suggested is best if you don't have access to a lift. I just jack up my car using http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rworkm...e2.jpg&.src=ph
Just don't forget to slightly loosen all your lugnuts before you jack the car.
The way JCGRCYA suggested is best if you don't have access to a lift. I just jack up my car using http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rworkm...e2.jpg&.src=ph
Just don't forget to slightly loosen all your lugnuts before you jack the car.
Stick with the foam.. the lift sounds too expensive.
on the frame rail on each side you will find 4 slots, one behind each front wheel and one ahead of each rear wheel.
That is the point where jacking pucks are intended to be used.
The pucks are effectively a spacer to prevent the jack from damaging the SMC rocker panel. The extension on the top gets inserted into the slot and then the puck is rotated 90 degrees to hold it in place. Position the jack under the puck and raise the jack until it contacts the puck, then jack away....
The way I prefer jacking is via the front and rear cross members..
follow this link