My brothers friend was working under a 1964 chevy Impala. He had 2 rail road ties sticking straight out as a ramp and 2 rail road ties holding them straight up and drove his car on to it. I said no way was I getting under there. Lucky no one got hurt. Bruce.
Jack stands don't always work. A couple of years ago I was working on the rear suspension of my wife's ancient Toyota Corolla I had the wheels off and was lowering on to the jack stands when tops of the jack stands started to slowly disappear into the subframe
I wouldn't use cinder blocks. Concrete blocks are sketchy enough but cinder blocks are much weaker, that's why they're lighter.
The trick with a cinder block or a concrete block is the spread the load out. If you use a board on top of the block as a rule you will be fine. Remember they use cinder blocks to hold up house trailers. That said they are not cheap, and jack stands are not very expensive in the whole scheme of things. If you are going to play the game invest in the proper tools. Then do both of us a favor and learn the proper way to use the tools. Even the best jack stand available is not your friend if you don't know how to use it.
Two weeks after I got my first car, a '57 Chevy, the clutch gave up. I set the car up on four cinder blocks, the soft way, and crawled under. Spent about 3 hours trying to figure out what to take loose to get a clutch out (15 years old, first car, first clutch). Finally quit and went in the house. Came home from school the next day and went out to the garage. The left front cinder block had collapsed completely and the left rear had a chunk out of it. I showed my dad and within a half hour we were off to Sears to buy four jack stands (early birthday present).
I like your dad, and could learn to like you too seeing as how you are still alive. I think that some of us have done things to get by anyway that we could. I don't place a lot of stock on Guardian Angels or Lady luck but I have to say that somehow we have lived long enough to learn how to stay alive. That gives us a chance to be just like your dad and show someone else how to stay alive. Your dad is a good man. My first set of jack stands resembled these. I got them right after my '55 Ford pinned me.
Blocks are only good on a flat surface so the stress is spread out. People tend to use them in the dirt and put the flat surface down so they don't sink into the ground. Jack stands also need a good surface as they can sink into dirt or blacktop. This is the proper way to support a tornado target. Jackstands to hold it up and anchors to hold it down.
LOL here in Tornado alley we use blocks. I really like that setup by the way. That's sharp. and good advice on the jack stands.
The jack stand threads on here scared me to get rid of the tripod ones I'd been using since the early '70s (after the Skylark rolled off the wood blocks). I had one set of tripods, and one set of four legs.....now I have two sets of proper four legs
I try to avoid sheet metal jack stands. Yes from an engineering standpoint they should hold up but I have seen way too many of them folded up over the years. Tri-pod and 4 leg both. One thing that I have learned is that we have a tendency to overload everything. Sometimes it is a weight thing and others is that we put things in a twist that the engineer that designed it didn't take into consideration. Either way we put way too much stress on the tools that we use and sometimes over engineered is a good thing.
I lived in a tornado target (lol) for about four months, good thing we lived in a holler (east-TN vernacular). Anyway, a jack stand is only as solid as the base it is placed on. We had a cottage on some rocky property in Maine that would shift every winter and spring due to frost heaves and thawing. I spent many early summers literally jacking and moving or adding supports here and there with my Dad. The soil was rocky yet had large sand or tiny pebbles, however you slice it, we could not get a permanent solution due to the soil. The same is true in your garage, a jackstand on plywood over dirt is minimally better, concrete is best. We all get that not everyone even has a garage, I didn't for years, but at least do like you do when you change a spare (I hope), stick the wheel under the frame in case the car tips over.
I grew up using whatever we had, but learned never get under a car supported by any jack alo ne. If changing a tire, leave the flat under the car to catch the weight , but still don't get under it. Used concrete blocks with wood on top without any problems, but today have stands, they are safer and easier to store , put in place, 1st . Sent from my LG-TP450 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I shared on here a story about one of my son's. I came home one night after teaching a class and found his truck with a floor jack under it was the tire off. It was parked right next to mama'so car. I told him to go put a jack stand under it, (I keep the jack stands right next to the jacks) he said it would be fine. I said it wouldn't be so go do it. He wasn't exactly happy about it, but he did. That Jack always leaked a little. Mama would've been really mad at us both if something happened to her car. He seems to have learned, because he now uses the jackstands. I do have a couple of cinder blocks under the back half of my AD truck, cab is off, with out an engine. The rear axle is sitting on a 2x2 chunck of alder which is on the blocks, which are each on a cement pad. I needed a little more room and I didn't like the jack stands in the dirt settling. And the bed has my fenders and grill in it, not much weight.
You guys ain't nuttin. Try working under a car with a guy that ate Taco Bell for lunch! The extra beers from the night before just made it worse! Safety? Dammit, that was truly deadly!!
Use railroad/house jacks...the kind you put a rod through and turn for jackstands. Well oiled they spin up or down easily. One close call for me came from sheer stupidity. 1964 El Camino I bought for the sweet running 327 in it. There was no key so hot wiring was the only way to start it. Came with a title that matched the vin so it wasn't stolen in case you were wondering. Anyhoo..had it facing some trees and the Elky was in first gear and I was on my back on the drivers floorboard with my legs out past the sill plate trying to remove a stereo when I bumped the 2 hot wires. That 327 fired right up and as it was in 1st gear it took off towards the trees. I envisioned the door slamming into the trees and busting up my legs. Grabbed the wires and pulled them apart. Burning flesh is not a pleasant smell but it killed the engine.I was just 5 feet from the trees. Since then anytime I'm doing something electrical or sometimes mechanical I disconnect the battery.
As a structural engineer I can tell you that a CMU (concrete masonry unit) used in it strength direction and for its intended use which is part of a wall assembly has a lot of strength. The problem with using it as a jack stand is the stress concentration can be greater than the compressive strength of the concrete causing it to crush or worse split it (shear failure) causing it to fail catastrophically. Same goes for wood, wood can split in shear and fall apart under a concentrated load. People think these materials can do way more than they can. Steel is ideal for supporting concentrated loads because steel will yield with warning and less likely to fail catastrophically. Good points already meantioned already. Your supports are only as good as what they bearing on. Level hard surfaces and stability are key. Differential settlement will cause your load to shift and fall over. It makes me extremely nervous to get under a car the older I get...
Something that I learned a few decades ago,when I saw a car up on safety stands that had sunk into the asphalt that it was setting on.Since then,I always put at least 3/4 plywood at least 2 feet sq under the stands before setting the cars/trucks weight down on them. Good luck.Have fun.Be safe. Leo
My dad had a set of those sheet metal jack stands, and a matching set of car sheet metal ramps. I'm glad I never had to use those jack stands, and my brother backed up one of those ramps with his full size bronco, and flattened the ramp. What really made me nervous was the older VW half scissor jacks
Every jobsite I have been to has a confined space protocol and qualification requirements. Sounds like even an H2S sensor would not have saved you.
The injury? Aside from burning nasal tissue I bashed my head on a fuckin muffler clamp getting out too fast
I have never cared for those portable car ramps. They just look dangerous to me. I have worked in several shops that had grease pits. I always liked using them but never liked driving over them. In my mind I was going to miss. In one shop there was a big sign that said, do not stand in grease pit while there is no vehicle over it. I asked the boss about it and he showed me a pic of a truck with one wheel in the pit. He said that there was a kid in the pit cleaning it when that happened. Kid wasn't hurt but he decided that the pit was not safe when there was nothing covering it. Works for me.
Has that vid got some sort of a virus embedded? I am looking and seeing someone scroll google instead of a video?
It plays OK for me. Are you using a smartphone or PC? Maybe click on the "Youtube" symbol on the bottom to go straight there.
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