Here's what I came up with, 2x4's x 16" & 12" long. Then I bolted them to my wheel skates. Then I cheated, I used my gantry crane to get it high enough, and strapped down. I set up the rolling chassis this way to build my exhaust system, it sure saved a lot of up and down.
Entire buildings are literally held up by criss-crossed wooden cribbing. I had a home that weighed 54 tons lifted and supported by 4 cribbing towers that were made from 10"x10" (?) lumber while its old foundation was torn out and replaced. Proper cribbing will be more stable than commonly available jack stands.
$100 can get me a lot of lumber that’s way more stable then those Erector Set legs those Monkeyward unit’s will ever have.
I use four, wide 15" steel wheels laying flat on the concrete for each corner, then stack four, 14" steel wheels flat on top of the 15's. The outer bead edge of the 14's tuck tightly inside the 15" rims. Placed inner side facing up, the 14's offset depth creates a good cradle for the car tires. This affair raises the car about 12". Even at that, I drop in jack stands as a backup. It only takes a minute. Glad to see that nobody is posting pics of their car on cinder blocks while stating they're perfectly safe. Please be diligent when getting under a raised car. Give the car a preliminary shake test and have a secondary such as jack stands or at least a couple of rim/tire units. Have a buddy present or at least let the Wife know what you're up to. Had a sobering reminder some years back; Lost the old guy across the street. In retirement, he had just finished restoring his long waiting 57 Chevy conv. doing all the work himself. He and the Wife had the 8 yr old Grandson over and Grandpa and him were working on a golf cart project. He somehow had it jacked up, was laying flat on his back working on the underside when the entire cart came down on him. Couldn't bench press it and the kid couldn't help. Ran for Grandma. She called 911, couldn't move it. Kid ran down to the street hollering for help. Trash truck stopped, driver said "I hear the sirens, they'll be right here" and drove off! He was DOA. I was at work, but had the previous day off and was in my driveway right across the street, literally all day doing an engine swap on my tow rig. That really ate at me. Yeah, I called the trash co, and laid into the manager about their driver's inactions to help a child. His mind was all too set on running and gunning his route so he could take a long lunch.
Or , the driver was aware that in this litigious society we have created , that all to often , No good deed goes unpunished !!
I see minimum use of such things. In most every case when I have a car raised I need a wheel off as well for light, or access, or service, or whatever. Yes, I'd seen the jackstand failure too. We're all car folk (at least mostly) and should be able to tell a forged stand head from cast iron. ESPECIALLY suspect imported cast iron. Those were akin to the "master body set" hammers and dollies....IN CAST IRON! WTF?!? Yeah I want the hammer to chip and shoot a chunk of iron in my face or eye or even worse, my balls (!) but no thanks. "But Jocko you should always wear safety glasses doing hammer work." Fuckin eh, like we all stop everything and go get the foggy old safety glasses and try to see the head of that pin you're tapping out. Nah, gimme a forged hammer and reduce the risks to just short of infinity. Are the cribbing gigs a good idea? I can think of a few singular uses that I seldom do. Or maybe a special trans is gonna be weeks away from going back in and you might need your stands in the meantime. Good idea at that point, but I have so many commercial duty stands I never needed em, yet at the same time I won't piss on the idea for the rest of you. For the record I hate ramps too. Just something about em gives me the willies. Maybe because the majority of the cars I've worked on are 2 1/2 tons and up. Yes, a Packard 12 tips the scales well over 5K, I'll take my truck stands under those all day. Just be safe kids. Glue those fuckers too. Even the majority of deck screws which are generally pretty tough can still be made with more of those suspect import metals. Show of hands, how many of you had the heads snap off when you're screwing shit together? Gives me pause, and maybe I worry too much about some stuff and not enough about others. I don't claim to be a super hero and my prosesses have developed over decades of yes and no decisions. Little funny back story, I recall the warnings from our faithful brethren when I stuck cinder blocks under some rockers on a 4dr HT roof replacement. Was that sketchy? I didn't think so, the car was still on it's suspension and I didn't want it to sag when we cut the roof off. The sincere concerns expressed were appreciated even if totally unwarranted. All 4 doors opened and closed perfectly thru the whole job and the new roof dropped right on. Risk factor was zero, total load was maybe a cpl hundred lbs at best. Sometimes that coffee and smoke break thinking things thru pays off. I was told I was over doing it on a body stand/cart, sort of along the same line of thinking. What do you think? The casters are scaffold wheels, the whole thing comes apart and stands against the wall when not used. What does scaffolding weigh? "You shoulda used wood! Waste of money and material!" Ok, maybe next time. Yes, that's a Duesy Murphy Roadster body, currently there's Deuce 4dr body on it. Safe n effective.
I was surprised by all the negative comments on my stands since they seem to be very sturdy and I prefer them to jackstands. But since I am not a structural engineer, don't want to be a candidate for the Darwin award, and you guys might be right; a recall was in order. I have added some straps.
Looks plenty solid to me goldmountain, your initial posting got a poor review because of the sun glare & casting shadows & like myself many I'm sure were scratching their heads, good to see you heeded the word with regards to fastening in the end grain.
Not with soft wood! You guys seem to be missing this critical detail. The wood used in the cribbing you cite is hardwood. Big difference. There is no way in hell those buildings were braced up using pine or doug fir. They use exclusively hard woods. I used wood cribbing all the time when working on heavy equipment, but NEVER using soft woods.
I'm sorry man, I don't want to criticize you, but those straps aren't going to do shit. Think about it, if you have 4000 #'s of car sitting on those stands and they start to go, do you think those little straps are going to do any bit of good at all?
Think diagonal sway braces, like shelving or scaffold. Completely loose the horizontals. They will twist right out when it parallelograms over. No horizontals, strips of flatbar. Your car is light. Mike
I jumped from perfectly good fixed wing aircraft and choppers but I would never place my cars on some of these home made stands. I may be dumb, but I ain't StoOPit!
@AccurateMike is right. Those straps aren't doing much, because the horizontals they're holding aren't doing much. You need something to resist lozenging, i.e. deformation into a parallelogram shape. Flatbar could work, as could diagonal wooden braces in both directions, wedged between the uprights. They obviously don't have to be in the same plane. 2"x2" should do it.
Just add a small piece of 2x4 under each cross bar in the stack, you now have solid wood top to bottom. Using an online calculator, Douglas Fir has a .003" deflection rate at 10" span with a 1000 lbs on it, laying flat. Half that with two pieces of wood. The tire also spreads the load out across the span. If it makes you feel better, add one layer of 3/4" ply wood in the center of the stack. https://woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/
My dad always built his out of 2"x12" boards, and built them as a box with bottoms open. He made a bumper of 2"x2" at each end on the closed tops to ensure the tires didn't roll off. These worked great, and as a bonus he would turn them over and toss the tools he needed for a job inside to haul boxes and tools out to the car and back. Then when they were stored in the garage he'd use them upside down to store stuff in also until he needed them again.
Or as I mentioned in a previous post, just sheet the ends with some plywood tying in the top, bottom and both uprights to triangulate everything. Just ditch those 2xs that are strapped alltogether
@goldmountain, there is still the option of mixing up a wheelbarrow full of concrete and pouring that in . Am i the only one who stacks rims ? Not the same size on top of each other but start with 16inch, then lay a 15 inch in there , then lay a 14 and then lay a 13, finally a 12 inch from a old Opel. Still a problem that i have then stacked 20 steel rims under the car ( 5 on each corner ) and my back is fucked for the rest of the day
That came up years ago when I was building my shop. Because of fumes, fire issues and safety concerns it seems many homeowners insurers won't touch a pit for residential use
My problem with this set up is no diagonal support, like you mentioned! That space in-between the 2x4s should be filled in with a 2x6, to prevent sideways collapse. As for the car setting on the two 2x6/8s , that should not be a problem. I regularly drive my 30,000 lbs motorhome up on one short 2x8s like this and have never broken one! There are two ,here , supporting one wheel on a heavy car would only be 500 lbs per board. My motorhome puts close to 8000 lbs on the boards. Granted the span is not quite as far as this…..but close. Bones
Ah, the K.I.S.S. method applied in real life. I use two 6x6s when needed, and while not a ton of lift height, they work and will never collapse. Sometimes simple and safe is the best choice.
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