Axel Stands

Soldato
Joined
18 Nov 2004
Posts
3,577
Location
Bournemouth
I'm going to be painting my callipers this afternoon and i was going to put the car up on axel stands. Having just had a look under the car, i've realised that there's no clear point at which to use the stands.

Can anyone show me where to use them? Such a stupid question i know.....

[edit] Oh and no one say the axel....
 
Generally the best point to place them is the pivot point of the lower A arm of the suspension.

Naturally you want to put it on the stationary part, not the actual A arm!!

If you need pics, let me know what kind of car.......
 
Mickey_D said:
Generally the best point to place them is the pivot point of the lower A arm of the suspension.

Naturally you want to put it on the stationary part, not the actual A arm!!

If you need pics, let me know what kind of car.......

The car is a Hyundai Coupe (Tiburon in the US), doubt you'd be able to find a car specific picture though. I can see the A arm, but like you said, the bit i can see is the bit that actually moves and there doesn't appear to be an obvious stationary point :confused:
 
paradigm said:
can you get a pic of yours, im sure someone could draw an arrow to a "safe" mounting point.

Yeah that would be the sensible solution! Will try and borrow my brothers cam.
 
Not the exact car, but the suspension components should be similar enough for you to see where to put them on your car.

suspension.jpg


There should be a long housing between the two pivot points that looks like it encases the shaft of a bolt. Try not to rest the head of the jack stand directly on that housing only.

Another handy place to put them is directly behind the front tyres you will see a ridge in the bottom of the body panels. In that ridge will be a small section that looks like it has a notch built into it. That's actually the reinforced portion of your subframe that is one of the jacking points for changing a flat tyre. It's a little harder to find and can have mildly disasterous results if you don't get it right and "drop" the car using a hydraulic jack. Not so bad if you're using a screw type jack as you can control the car's descent much better. But if you find those "notches", they are the best point to put jack stands. But please, please, please be careful as you will crumple the bottom of the body panel if you don't get it right.
 
Also try and get a picture of the bottom of the body directly behind the front tyre, including about two feet back. I'll be able to point you to the jacking point from a pic of that......
 
Ok, in the pic below I've pointed to the two places where the jack stand's "head" should rest. Those are the part that attatch to the frame, while the part in between is the moving suspension part.

The head of the jackstand should be shaped like a "U". Put the two points of the U one on each of those places I pointed to, one on each side of the car.

Try to figure out how to lift both sides of the car simultaneously (borrow a parent's or friend's jack and have someone operate the other jack at the same time as you're operating yours). You don't want to put one under there, let the car down, then go around and lift the other side of the car to put the other one underneath. The car will fall off the one as you lower it down. You ALWAYS want to use jack stands as a simultaneous pair.

pic3.jpg
 
WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!!!

I just took a closer look at that pic!!!

You want to rest the head of the jack stand left to right in between the two arrows. Let me draw a quick pic to show you.......
 
pic4.jpg


Ok, the yellow part is what the head should look like when positioned properly. It should rest between the two "tabs".

Sorry about that. On closer inspection I noticed that the rear part of the lower A arm was in fact mounted in FRONT of that tab and not going all the way through it.....
 
Cheers Mickey, problem is, i only have one jack. I left the trolley jack at my nans :rolleyes:

Will it really slip off if i use one jack to do one side at a time?
 
Must be a neighbour that has a jack that will fit (or another member of your family).

I used my brothers jack alongside my own when I needed to lift the car at both sides at once.
 
paradigm said:
Must be a neighbour that has a jack that will fit (or another member of your family).

I used my brothers jack alongside my own when I needed to lift the car at both sides at once.

My mums jack from her Passat doesn't look like it will work. Going to run over to pick up the trolley jack. Cheers all.
 
Sorry to say, yes it will.

I'm pretty sure you've noticed already that you have to lift your car fairly high to get the jack stand to even go under the car, right?

If you stand back and look at the car while it's sitting on the jack you'll see it's sitting at a pretty steep angle. That's all well and good while it's on the jack because it's designed with some flexibility into it. The jack stands are not. They are VERY rigid and don't take too kindly to any sideways forces on them.

I guess if you're only doing one side at a time, you could use just one stand at a time, but it's putting an enormous amount of strain on your unibody leaving the car like that for any extended period of time. Want to see what I mean? Open one of the doors while it's up on the jack and then try and close it. Notice it sounded different? That's because the whole car has twisted slightly and the door doesn't quite line up properly.

Leaving the car in that twisted configuration for too long could cause permenant damage that I wouldn't want to be the one to pay for sorting out....

Personally, if it's only cosmetic stuff you're doing, I'd wait until you had two jacks to do the job with so as to create even stress loading on the car.
 
Serj said:
Going to run over to pick up the trolley jack. Cheers all.

Good choice.

When you lift it with the trolley jack, try lifting it from one of the engine mounts or something in the centre so you can put the jack stands where you had your scissor jack at. That's the best place to support the car from to begin with.
 
Would it be ok just to use the two jacks? The one from the Passat is ok, but the head on the axel stand is too wide to sit between the two rims of metal.

eg. It won't rest between the two 'tabs' as you put it....
 
Back
Top Bottom