help with placement of axle stands

[71notout]

I am going to rustproof my 5, bur first i need to get it on axle stands.

The way my drive is, if i have it on the drive slabs, one side is too close to the fence to work on.

I can park it on one row of the drive and the other side on my path.

Either way negates using the box section ends as axle stand points as there is always one side off the edge of the slabs onto gravel.

I think i can get away with using the sill jacking points but my question is - the saddles on the axle stands are flat and wide with raised ends, how will the lip on the sill sit srcurely on these?

I eas thinking of using a piece of wood with a v cut in it but wanted to see if you guys had any advice.

Cheers,
Steven

[snotrag]

71notout said:

I eas thinking of using a piece of wood with a v cut in it but wanted to see if you guys had any advice.

Cheers,
Steven

That is exaclty how I do it - I have 4 chunks of wood shaped to sit into the flat saddle of my axle stands, with a groove cut it that the reinforced sill section sits onto.

[71notout]

Thank mate, ended up using the stands under the double skinned bits of box section.

Using a jack and spare wheels for protection as well!

My mate who is an Aston Martin mechanic came to advise

Cheers

[worldwidewebs]

Hockey pucks with a groove cut in them are ideal

[dylan0451]

71notout said:

ended up using the stands under the double skinned bits of box section.

you mean the two rails that run fore and aft about 6-8" in from the sills?

you're prob ok with axle stands but i wouldn't use them as jacking points - thats how they get squished and you start to loose rigidity

these: http://www.performance5.com/handling_stiffening.as... are apparently strong enough to jack from, with the major benefit being chassis stiffening

[J-Tuner]

snotrag said:

71notout said:

I eas thinking of using a piece of wood with a v cut in it but wanted to see if you guys had any advice.

Cheers,
Steven

That is exaclty how I do it - I have 4 chunks of wood shaped to sit into the flat saddle of my axle stands, with a groove cut it that the reinforced sill section sits onto.

Any chance of some pics of these? I have the same concern of buckling of the sill edge whilst resting on the axel stand face

Edited by J-Tuner on Tuesday 21st September 13:30

[71notout]

I just used the double-skinned ends of the chassis rails and it worked great.

Car was up there on 4 for 2.5 days without any issues.

[anonymous-user]

Mine too, it was up on them for a good couple of months when being rebuilt. I always jack it up using the diff at the rear and subframe crossmember at the front, then use axle stands under the double skinned areas of the chassis rails. I'm pretty sure both my workshop manuals say to do this. I use some thin wood on the axle stands then a doubled over piece of thick corrugated card on top to protect the rails.

I normally put another pair of axle stands under the sill jacking points to stop the car being able to tip sideways - these i set about 1/2 inch lower and stuff more pieces of folder card into the gap to protect the sills in case they touch.

If the wheels are staying on then I use a pair of Halfords metal ramps, they give loads of clearance to work underneath.