Vet

Just received my new C6 today! Extremely excited to say the least. I will soon make a celebratory post with pics and a review etc, but have a quick question in the meantime.

Drove the car about 60 miles today and the CAGS was driving me crazy. It came on at least 50% of the time. Yes, I'm breaking the car in very gently. I already bought a CAGS eliminator and plan to throw it in before taking the car out again. Thank goodness CAGS can be defeated.

I've seen other posts that showed various acceptable jack points for the C6. However, I prefer to use only the jack points shown in the owner's manual.

My question... in the rear of the car, there are two jack points described in the owner's manual. Both areas have aluminum ribs, and the manual says to jack under at least two of the ribs. The problem is that the areas that they want you to jack from are not level. When using a jack with a flat pad, there is really no way to catch more than one rib. Looks like you'd need a custom angled jack pad if you want to really support a nice wide area and catch multiple ribs.

So what do you guys do? What is recommended? I took a chance and placed small pieces of 2X4 on top of my jack pads and just positioned them right under the recommended areas on the car and it worked. I figured that the 2X4 blocks were soft enough to conform a bit to the alumimum. Hope I did not stress or damage the aluminum framing. The blocks were still not truly supporting more than one rib on each side.

I then attached my urethane jack pucks in the two rear puck spots and eventually lowered the car / pucks onto my two new 7-ton fork-lift jack stands that seem to work REALLY well with the C6 and the C6 pucks... stands are nice and short and have wide top pads. Will post pics and info soon.

So... in sum, when jacking the front or rear of the C6 in the locations that the owner's manual recommends, how to you support more than one rib of the aluminum framing, and/or, if a block of wood (or similar soft material) is used under the framing, is it ok to just place it right under the frame and jack away, even if it is visably not touching more than one rib?

Can't wait to get the CAGS eliminator in!

cerino2000

Block of wood for me too and it works fine. What I didn't like was when you set the weight down on the pucks on the recommended places is the flexing that goes on. Made me a little nervous but it worked fine.

Vet

Yes, lots of flex. I was a little nervous at first too. After having the rear of the car come down on the pucks / jacks, the rear section of the car dropped another what seemed like 4 more inches or so. But if those puck locations are indeed "official" service lift locations, then it should be fine.

cmb13

Question - you've already jacked up the car on the day you bought it? Why didn't you go ahead and put the CAGS eliminator at the time? Or did you not yet purchase it?

I use a block or wood, 4x8 inches, approximately and jack up from the center in the rear. I don't like the flex that occurs if you jack up from the center. I too use jack stands, but I'd love to see a photo of yours with the flat top.

Enjoy the ride!

Vet

Yes, I jacked up the car the day I got it (yesterday) in preparation to install the CAGS eliminator which I already had... ordered it from Mid America a few weeks ago. I jacked up the car, put it on the stands, then it got dark and cold so I figured I'd finish the job today instead... plus I wanted to ask the question here regarding supporting multiple ribs etc before doing anymore jacking.

I installed the CAGS eliminator today, nice piece, went right on very easily... and it works. Boy what a relief to now be able to simply drive the car and not worry about CAGS. It was definitely annoying me to a great deal. It's been tricky enough just getting used to this car (I haven't driven a stick in several years), but to then have CAGS throwing a monkey wrench into the whole experience... no good. Well, it's all fixed now.
It certainly must be easier to jack the car from the center of the rear with one jack, but it worries me a bit that the owner's manual does not specify that you can / should do this. That aluminum framing scares me a bit... crack it and it's going to be a serious headache.

Is there any official instructions (perhaps in the shop manual which I have not seen yet) that says you can jack the car from the center or either the front or rear aluminum framing members? Apparently a lot of people do jack from the center and I have not yet heard of a disasterous incident.

I'll indeed post some pics / info regarding the jack stands either later or tomorrow.

Thanks!

Vet

Below are photos of some good jack stands I found… Blackhawk Automotive Fork Lift Stands, 7 Ton, Model# BH5070. They work nicely with the C6 pucks… nice flat top pads. Also, these babies can go real low… minimum height just 9.5”, max height about 14”. They also have a good base, nice flat feet as opposed to the other cheaper type stands that have sharp points at the bottom that can sink into or crack what’s under them.

The only downside to these stands is that they have only three main height settings at roughly two inch increments. But I found at least two of the heights perfect for C6 work.

You can get these at Northerntool.com - $129.99 per pair - not cheap, but I think it's worth the dough in order to be 100% safe when under the car.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...27&R=200318727



Note: last pic shows how wood block on jack pad only contacts one "rib" of the aluminum structure. You'd need a custom angled pad in order to grab more than one rib.

Deep Silver C6 Z51

Good looking jack stands.

I am looking forward to using my RaceRamps to get under my car.

Of course they are useless if you want to remove a wheel/tire.

double eagle

Congrats on your new ride and thanx for jacking info/photos...

cmb13

I know what you mean about the recommended jack sites, but I'm not sure I'd like to use two jacks - might be hard to coordinate the lifting. While one goes up, the other loses contact (unless you do them both at the same time).

When I tried to jack at a corner, I didn't like what seemed like an unreasonable amount of flex in the body. That's why I go in the center.

Take a look at these links:
http://81x.com/bugman/c6

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1117639

Vet

Yes, using two jacks can be a little tricky. I sometimes raise (or lower) both at the same time... either that or raise / lower each one a little at a time so the car generally remains level in the plane across the two jacks. I never have the car solely supported by one jack and the other not touching. This takes a little time to do, but... if you only need to jack up the car a few times a year, it's not an issue.

I'd much rather jack in the center, this would be much easier of course, but I am still unsure if doing so is "officially" ok to do. The diagrams in the other post you linked to... I wonder where these diagrams are from? Are these from an official GM shop manual, or did some Vette owner just decide to create them based on what they felt was acceptable? I must admit, I'm really concerned about cracking one of those alumimum suspension members.

This reminds me of my Mustang... you are NOT supposed to lift the car from the center of the rear axle (says so in the Ford manual). However, on a Mustang forum a while back, somebody was saying that you COULD jack from there merely because they tried it and nothing broke. But then a few people started having axle issues and it was traced back to them jacking from under the axle. The point is, I'd like to try to stick to whatever GM recommends, even if it's inconvenient.

Even in the first diagram in that other post, it does not show that you can jack from the center of the rear aluminum member. One of the other diagrams shows that you can. ? I guess we really just need to know the source of those various diagrams. Jacking from the center may indeed be totally fine, I know a lot of people here do it, but... well, I just got my car and I'll admit, I'm exceptionally nervous about doing anything that might possibly cause damage.

It would be SO NICE to just have a full scale 4-point lift in the garage!

Here's an idea... can someone with an official GM C6 SHOP manual scan and post all info regarding lifting the car? (I plan to buy an `06 shop manual as soon as they come out... still waiting.) We all know what the owner's manual says, but I'd like to think that the SHOP manual would list ALL existing safe jacking points. I personally don't think I'd jack from any location that is not listed in an official GM manual.