Axle stand + Trolley Jack

First thing I do after removing a wheel for any job, is to shove it under the sill. Even the terminally lazy would be hard pressed to find a reason not to do that.

(I'm not suggesting this is sufficient in itself, but far better than nothing at all.)

Doing the pads on my 306 at the weekend was nice and easy - BUT - did require me to undo a bolt on the reverse side of the caliper (ie. under the wing). To check the size/fitting of the socket and refitting, certainly required me to stick my head under the wing. It was also under the wing whilst I was trying to loosen the bolt (which took quite a bit of grunt to loosen). It's more likely to fall when you're putting forces on the car, than when at rest (unless on a slope or other unstable ground).

No - I wouldn't. But then again, I loosen the bolts on the ground, jack up, remove bolts (which aren't tight) replace wheel, hand tighten bolts, lower car, fully tighten bolts. At no point am I putting any significant forward/backward/sideways forces on the car whilst it's on the jack.

If the car falls off the jack and ends up on the ground. How do you expect to get it off the ground again? Without a wheel on one (or both if doing both at the same time) you're going to be hard pressed to get a jack under to lift it back up.

Something I have found when using my Halfraud's trolley jack is that as it doesn't lift vertically (rather in a slight arc), the trolley will move as the centre of gravity moves - ie. as it goes higher the trolley moves further under the car. The fact that the jack can move for this purpose can also mean that it can move for other reasons (external forces put on the car).

For the sake of 30 seconds, 1 minute to fit the axle stand (and wheel chocks) - it doesn't seem that difficult to do.

The message from "Clive George" contains these words:

Changing a wheel doesn't involve getting any part of your body under the car. Changing discs or pads frequently does.

Clarke make some decent ones; there is even a set with both together - all from Machine Mart. They came out well in Practical Classics tests (as did my other jack, Kamasa). The main advantage to me of the model I use is that it drops very low and I work on Minis a lot. They have others which lift more quickly, but don't go as low.

I have a few trolley jacks. Big commercial thing from the '70s, recent