I’m sure they’d be happy to replace them with more Chinese junk. Buy some of those pin type or screw up type along with wooden blocks.
The sad thing is I purchased the jack stands and tossed out my wooden ones like these thinking the jack stands were safer.
I have a selection of wood blocks in my shop. Use them all the time, maybe not so much now that I got a lift.
I imagine that returning a set of broken jack-stands has a slightly different "ambiance"? than returning a broken wrench or something. You set the broken parts on the counter which elicits an "Ohhh...". And they give you a quick glance to see if you got squished.
So two of my jack stands that I use to lift my wheels off the ground in the winter are those exact ones. After seeing this they are as good as gone. So who manufactures a good quality "new" set of stands? Any recommendations?
When my wife’s Grandpa passed he left me all his tools. I found these Jackstands in his garage, no plans to use them but pretty cool.
Exactly. I have a dead man's lift in my barn, and anything I need under a car for I use that. I only use jack stands to remove wheels and storage. And I still stick an old tree trunk under it just in case. My car sits a few inches off the ground. I'd be a pancake in no time if it fell on me.
I used to have a set of those.... kinda glad they got stolt from me now. It'll serve some lowlife right when THOSE collapse on him. I like wood blocks now. And stuffing a wheel/tire under the raised end of the car jussincase
Redundancy is crucial. Use some spare steel wheels (weld two together, if needed) the tires/wheels from the car, or something that will support the car, if the stand(s) fail.
I wonder what the tonnage is on those? I lifted sections of my house with one [prob 100+ yrs old] to replace lolley columns. My father called it a house jack so I figured it would work!
Not sure, I think he used them on his tractors, but they may actually be Barn Jacks. Heavy duty and well made.
All this makes me feel lucky (or stupid) . I can't tell you how many times when I was a dumb ass kid that I worked under a car that was up on a bumper jack and nothing more....
That is a scary thing and I’m glad that you’re okay and unharmed. That has always been a long time fear that a car could fall on me. And any time I have a car up on them I always shake the living crap out of the thing with my Jack dropped a tad still under it just in case.
@Moriarity Statement about the bumper jack. He isn't alone in that statement, I am sure a lot of us, in our youth have done the same thing. It's a good thing to have a thread like this one, that can demonstrate, the usefulness of having a set of 12" X 12" wooden blocks !
I use stands with pins in them and I always leave a Jack raised to barely touch the frame on whatever side I’m working on.
Me too Mark. But in my 30’s pulling dead bodies from under those things made me realize how stupid I was. Thank you 34ratrod for scarying the shit out of us.
It's not the kind of stand that's the problem. It was badly made. But the advice to use a back up support of some kind is good advice. I've spent who knows how many hundreds of hours under cars held up by those kind of stands, but better made ones. I'll continue to do so. I had a few of the cheaper discount type several years ago, but got rid of all of them.
This^^^^^^^^ I don't think jackstands should even be considered a safety item, they're just another tool to accomplish a task, at a minimum, I'll leave the floor jack in place as a backup. I learned this fifty years ago using those cheap stamped pin type stands, the ones that have no plates under the feet. I pulled the rearend from a 1960 Pontiac Catalina four door, guessing a five thousand pound car, the day I pulled it the outdoor temperature was cool and everything went as planned, the next day it got extremely hot and I was about to crawl under the car to retrieve a wrench, I had not noticed that the sharp legs had sunk into the hot (uneven) asphalt, walking by the car, for whatever reason, I just gave a little push on the quarter panel and the car was on the ground in a split second, completely flattened those stands. Dodged a bullet that day for sure!
Whenever possible, when I was still in Charleston and had a good solid concrete driveway instead of this flipping flour sand they call dirt down here, I tried to always have my engine hoist as a belt-and-suspenders for my stands. I often have to shift heavy stuff around and that can get things shaking that shouldn't be. The hoist might not have been the greatest idea but I figured it gave me a couple of seconds to make peace with the Lord
Those "jack stands" from grampa are model T jacks. They work well on a 1500LB model T, used them many times, carry one in the T. Otherwise, wood blocks for me, don't own any jack stands except some cut off banjo ends that I never finished making. Got lotsa blocks, all different sizes. Glad the OP is ok, scary thing for sure
DO NOT EVER USE 3 LEGGED JACK STANDS AS THEY DO NOT PROVIDE ADEQUATE STABILITY. LOOK HERE: TECH Warning: 3 footed jackstands can kill you | The H.A.M.B. (jalopyjournal.com)
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