Sounds basic! but..where to lift and support E46

"roy" wrote

There is no way to lift one side or the other, as there is no lift hard-point in the middle. If you have a floor jack that goes high, you may be able to do it from the existing front/rear hard-points.

It's pretty easy to support the front, on the lower control arm attachment points. No place to put a floor jack to lift the whole front, however, without first removing the engine cover, *which requires jacking to get to!*

FloydR

I lift my car by the jacking points along the edge of the frame and place the jack stands under the outboard positions of the suspension.

If you want to be anal, you could lift your car with a floor jack and a board that extends from the forward jack point to the rear jack point (jack from the middle) and then place the jackstands under the jack points when the tires are raised.

Hehe. Good question. I've wondered about that myself. Usually, I just don't use stands - an acceptable risk, as long as I'm not crawling underneath the car.

Oh, *please* do.

(Sorry, couldn't resist it...)

Just thinking the same here.............. crawl under it that is.

I have a fan club!

Of course you do - we're just waiting for you to put your head in it!

quoted text -

thanks all! - it's great how these threads go off on tangents! Since I was just doing the brake I put the stands under the trailing arms. Did the trick.

I would not do that (jack from the middle with a "board" spanning). It sounds like a recipe for a crushed rocker panel. The board will bend unless it is very thick. Maybe a 4x4 or larger beam, but why not just use the jack at the intended jacking points one corner at a time?

Because if you jack at the jacking points, the jack stand has no place to go.

And if you use a huge piece of wood, you still can't put a jack stand in either place.

Not true. You can put the jack stands under the wood, assuming the wood covers the jacking points sufficiently.

Use the car's jack to jack the car then put the stands under the trolley jack points.

Or, use a floor jack and lift the entire side at once.

Well, I am unsure on an E46, but on an E36 like you (and I both) own there certainly is. The jack point on our cars is the hole in the side of the rocker where the trunk jack has a pin to fit into. What I use is a piece of solid steel bar (rod actually it's round) that I have filed or ground the sides flat on to fit in the orifice. The floor jack is used on that bar and the jack stands are set under the rocker on the "hockey puck" fittings for a garage lift.

I guess that would work. I've not tried it. I use a long piece of wood that can span the hockey pucks, then set my jack stand under where the hockey puck is, but has wood covering it.