I'm trying to get the car up to give the arches a good clean so I can then sand them down, prime and repaint where they've been damaged. However, the jacking point on the sill is pretty mangled and my emergency jack won't grip sturdily because the only floor I can currently use is pebble/gravel.

I have a trolley jack but don't want to use the mangled bit of sill, is the bit behind in the picture safe to use with a trolley jack? It looks like that's probably what it was designed for but knowing my luck with this car it would probably snap if I didn't check or something silly.

If that's the case for the rear, how can I jack up the front? The sill at the front is in even worse shape and there doesn't seem to be a trolley jack point like this one?

Thanks

Matt

i dont like jacking there , jack on the suspension or subframe , get some pics under there and someone can show you

If jacking up on the sill, i use a piece of wood with a slot cut out to put the sill seam in

be carefull what way you cut the wood too , mind it doesnt split and drop the car on you

I always jacked my 6Ns up on the rear beam or the subframe on the front.

What I do is look for a point that takes the weight of the car anyway.

If you're using one of the little driveway trolley jacks with the small cups on them I would always use a good strong piece of wood with it to spread the load a bit.

I used the precarious looking part in the end, as I was in a rush to beat the torrential rain!

It went okay, but I wouldn't do it again, I'll probably use the rear beam in future, would you just jack up from the rear end of the car then? It was a driveway trolley jack, but it's a bit heftier than the ones you see in Halfords. I did use wood, it did split and I did shit myself a little bit. After that I decided to just use the square area behind the sill.

I got it up in the end, started sanding down and it was pretty much all okay until I got to the bottom of the arch when I discovered this beauty!

I've fibreglassed it for now, when it's dried off I'll get a coat of primer on what I've cleaned. It's a temporary solution at best, but not really sure what else I can do. Just want to make it look a bit neater.

Edited 14 January, 201511 yr by mbusby993

A couple of safety points here.

A trolley jack is intended to run on its wheels as the the car goes up/ comes down - It would be unable to do so on a gravel base, resulting in the car moving on the jack, most dangerous.

The answer to this problem, is to use a sheet of plywood about 10 or 12 mm thick for the jack to stand/run on.

From a block of aluminium that I happened to have, I made a block to fit between the jack and the car sill seam - this is about an inch and a half thick, with a cross groove cut/chiselled out to fit the jack turntable and a slot on the other side to accept the sill seam.

I then drilled and tapped the top side of the block and screwed some plywood strips to it using countersunk screws - The plywood is more loving to the car bodywork than the bare metal would be.

As said above, DO NOT use 'normal' wood, as it is prone to splitting when under pressure.

Regards

ice hockey pucks are pretty common to be used on the lip , just hacksaw a suitable grove in them

The jack was moving on the gravel a bit, I assumed that was bad. Did everything very slowly and got axle stands under it as soon as possible. I hadn't really considered that though. Next time I'll see if I can find a bit of wood for it to run on. The piece of wood I used with the jack wasn't anywhere near thick enough and split, that was a scary second.

So basically wood to run on, thick piece of wood with a groove sawed in for the sill. If I were to jack on the rear beam, would I do so from behind the car? Only logical way I can think of. Not even thought about the front yet. Got plenty of time, the coilovers aren't here yet and my test is on Wednesday, so I may just do it on my mums tarmacked drive over my girlfriend's mums gravel one! We live on a main road so I can't really do it at ours.

wood isnt ideal it splits , its not just becuase yours wasnt.thick enough its just what wood does.then the car could come down and kill you

ebay has sill adaptors for £5-6 made from rubber

the other problem with gravel is id imagine its on top off mud , you dont want the jack sinking into the mud

Yeah, it's far from ideal. It's the only place I can really do anything at the moment.

I went to my timber merchant and he gave me an off cut from a 6" x 6" treated fence post and so far ( touch wood !!) it's been fine :)

My girlfriend's parents have a huge bag (waist height, 3 feet across) full of kindling and dried wood, sure I'll find an appropriate piece somewhere in it! :)

regardless of what you decide to use , its wise to put a spare wheel or two under where you are working then if the car tipples over for whatever reason the wheels will stop it killing you with any luck

regardless of what you decide to use , its wise to put a spare wheel or two under where you are working then if the car tipples over for whatever reason the wheels will stop it killing you with any luck

Makes sense!

I usually use an offcut of cls between the jack and car body work as its very resilient to splitting and never go under a car that's only supported by a trolley jack that's basics (doesn't matter what make age or size it is as it only needs the seal in the ram to go and its coming down). Never be tempted to use the manufacturers jack for maintenance either as its only designed for emergency use to change a wheel, always use axle stands and on firm level ground, use the handbrake/chock the wheels to prevent the car moving when raise as well, if I'm just changing a wheel I always have the spare one sat under the sill just in case and don't be tempted to jack on the front suspension track control arms either as they can bend, as back in the nineties cavalier mk3's used to suffer from these arms cracking and in extreme cases failing due to some people having jacked the front of the car up on these.

I had axle stands under there the second I could! My trolley Jack was doing okay, but I didn't trust it past just getting the car off the ground. Going to have to do it in a week or so when my Coilovers FINALLY arrive.

I'm still unsure as to where to Jack up on the front? As obviously I'll have to get it up at both ends to got my Coilovers! Not keen to do that on the gravel though.

cant you do it in the garage behind your car in the picture as I wouldn't do it on gravel either, I would use the jack on the front subframe going in from either side. what I used to do on a mk2 golf gti that I had on coilovers was to use the supplied car jack to lift it high enough to then use a trolley jack on the front subframe and the rear beam.

The garage behind is full of crap, that's why in the picture it's in front of the garage and not in the garage! It's not my garage either, it belongs to my girlfriend's parents, where the car is at the moment.

Okay, so subframe it is. And that makes sense about the emergency jack, I just didn't think of that. Cheers. :)

For the rear, you don't have to necessarily go in from the rear, you can lift just one side by putting the cup of the jack onto where the rear beam mounts to the body.

At the front I use the rails that go front to back as my jack is really quite big. Is this okay to do?

I hate using the sills as whenever I do this on other cars especially peugeots for some reason the sill just crumbles and folds in.

Best place for the front is as said under the subframe, but my jack is quite tall too and can't get under there and I can't be bothered most of the time to use the worm jack to raise it a bit as also said above.

Best place for the front is as said under the subframe, but my jack is quite tall too and can't get under there and I can't be bothered most of the time to use the worm jack to raise it a bit as also said above.

I drive my car's front wheels onto two pieces of fence post offcut about 3ins thick then use a lifting beam placed in my Jack's cup mounting hole (the cup being removed first) which then fits nicely on the part of the subframe the wishones bolt to. I can lift the car nice and high and put axle stands with wood on them with a groove cut in them at the sill jacking points. I glued strips of rubber onto the top of the wood so it didn't damage the underneath of the sill.

Edited 28 March, 201511 yr by fewkeste

Seems a fairly solid way to do it. I've been driving onto pieces of wood and then jacking, but places to jack without damaging seem to be few and far between. I just try to avoid it unless absolutely necessary.