Axle stand - sills

You don't use axle stands on the sills.

You use them on substantial mechanical mounting points on the shell - start looking at suspension, engine and gearbox mounting points.

I'd agree - but Mr Haynes, specifically says to support the car on axle stands on the sills.

They're not know as 'Books of lies' for nothing, you know.

xscope ( snipped-for-privacy@chris-howard.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

If Mr Haynes told you to jump off a cliff...?

What I did was get a nice chunk of solidish wood and make a saw cut across the grain, wide enough for the seam of metal to go into so the sill above it is resting a large area on the wood. Then it doesn't split, for bottle jacking or axle stands.

Does seem to be a common problem that none of the mainstream readily available manufacturers don't seem to be addressing.

But something does exist, I've seen my mechanic using axle stands that have a V shaped support.

The V head doesn't solve the problem if the contact is flimsy as the sill would be; an intervening off cut piece of wood, preferably a block boardwood (cheap from the local timber merchant), is the answer.

Point is you don't use the sill, that's the jacking point for the supplied wheel changing jack. You stick an axle stand or a trolley jack under a supension mount point.

Throw the book away and listen to the advice... Do not use axle stands on sills!

If your going to use them use them on something more substantial than a piece of metal that will fold..

The book is great, for important stuff,but for insignificant things, the word crap springs to mind.

There was a time when Haynes was a real manual, but now it's just a book of advice and maybe's.

Nigel

Not the best analogy, I mean these books are supposed to be completely factual. I know I take what mine says as factual, well, up until I read this newsgroup recently... Why don't they correct the pish that's in parts of them? Waste of 20 quid.

Agreed. Don't know why the Haynes suggests using the sill. Maybe putting the jack somewhere else in the project under discussion is in the way of certain maneuver.

Years ago it was recommended that old tyres/spare tyres should be placed under both sills after the car had been properly jacked up and supported at its jackpoints. It was a belt and brace approach. I don't see this advised anymore anywhere. Don't know who started it all, it was a daft idea anyway: if the one ton weight fell, the 8" tyres would not be able to hold the car in check and the thickness of the chest is of course more than 8". Furthermore, I found the tyres placed in this fashion cut out the already limited supply of natural light. I used the tyre supplementary support only once.

David R (david snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Yes.

ROFL. Sorry, but you do know they're commonly known as the HBoL ("Haynes Book of Lies")?

Although in my case the main lies it tells are things like "gently undo the nut then carefully lift off the ", which generally means the task will involve super-human strength.

You should always treat them with a hell of a lot of caution. A 1/2 hour job (according to the manual) turned into

You can't put them *anywhere* on the sills. Usually around the jacking points the vertical centre part of the sill is reinforced and you can use this. Of course, if your sills are mostly rust then this might not help.

You should be careful if you're using suspension items to support the car as you need to place the stands on sturdy enough bits of the suspension. Don't put them under pressed steel or aluminium the control arms for instance.

Attempting? You never actually swaped it?

No - I did eventually - then I put the fascia back on.

Fortunately, I found that it is possible with a bit of wiggling, and a lot of swearing to remove the fascia, without removing the steering wheel - which as it's got an airbag, and needs special tools - is a whole new level of fun. If the moulding was 1cm shallower...