I haven’t had my '69 convertible off the ground yet, but I will need to get the front end up soon to check on a few things. I did a little searching around and it seems like there are many different opinions. The first thing I found was to place the floor jack under the round crossmember tube near the oil pan, but after looking around a little more people say this isn’t a good idea. It doesn’t seem like there is a good center point to lift both sides of the car at once and people do it one side at a time. The torque boxes seem like a good lifting point. Is that true and if so where should I place the jackstands once the car is up?
I lift one side at a time, lift under torque box. Put jack stand behind on the frame. I lift the rear under the pumpkin jack stands near front leaf spring frame.
Ditto!!
this is one reason I sell a bunch of crossmembers. My jack pad model has a central jack pad that lets you raise the entire front end in a single operation. No more dented frame rails or torque boxes.
Z
PS. as the OP mentioned, don’t try this with a stock crossmember. Even if they were equipped with a jack pad like mine, the stock tube is too flimsy to handle the car’s weight. You might get by using it for a jacking point a few times, but eventually it will get dented and begin to collapse. And it’s too easy for a jack to slip off the round tube and either way it slips, either forward into the oil pan, or backwards into the steering linkage, is disaster.
yesterday I only needed to get under the driver’s front so I jacked up by the torque box, nice solid jacking point for sure. When I was doing my research I read a few people say they put a jackstand under the frame at the lower a-arm mounting point since that is more of the “natural” spot where the car carries weight so I did it and seemed to work out well.
As far as the rear I usually pickup cars under the diff and put jackstands under the axle tubes, but I have seen people say to put the jack stands near the front leaf spring mount, are both good?
I like that crossmember with the jacking pad, might have to look into that one day in the future!
the rear jack stands should go under the rear end housing, also called the “axle tubes”. Jackstands should be placed as far apart as possible, at the very ends ( rounded) of the rear end housing for the greatest stability.
Z.
PS for additional safety, it’s always a very good idea to place a couple of steel wheels stacked on top of each other under the car in addition to the 4 jackstands. The wheel stack should be placed on the side where you are working.
yeah I put the jack stands as far apart as possible on the axle tubes on RWD cars with a solid axle.
Not a bad idea to keep a couple steel wheels around to stick under the car. If I have the wheels off I usually stuff them under the car, but I should get a couple steelies and always put them under the car for safety.
Very true. Never would have thought about a jack pad incorporated into the crossmember. Genius!
if there was any volume in the crossmember business, the jackpad could be patentable. As it is, a patent would probably take me 10 years to pay off. Not sure I’ll live that long
Z
The jackpad is made of 1/4" steel grid plate, 3.5" diameter . Very tough. For customers with engines moved to the rear, I’ve off-set the jackpad to the rear to clear the oil pan and supported it with two curved gussets .
I have one of those crossmembers. The jack pad is the bomb!
Yep, that’s where I placed the jackstand, what people were saying about it being a natural point that the car carries weight seemed logical and it worked out well so I will probably keep placing stands in that location unless someone tells me it’s not a good idea for some reason.
+1, makes a lot of sense to me… especially when jacking a convertible during long periods.