The side jacking points on the last few cars I've had are under the sills, there's always a seam there and if I use a block of wood with my trolley jack the wood usually splits.
Should I forget the wood? Or use a harder wood? Or use a much thicker piece of soft wood? Or cut out a channel for the seam?
What do you guys (& gals) do?
PM (pm@m_.com.invalid) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
If you're using a trolley jack, use it on something more substantial, such as a suspension mount.
The sill points are only for the silly scissor jack waste-of-oxygen thing for emergency use.
plywood
Place the wood across the grain.
If jacking under the sills, you're far better off using a thick piece of rubber. An old bit of conveyor belting is ideal, or a few layers of old rubber car mats would do.
I tend to jack on the fittings for a lift at the front end, and on the suspension mounts at the rear end, then put the axle stands under the sill. I've had cars drop off axle stands put under jacking / lift points as they're not really the right shape for it. OTOH jacking some cars on the lift points crushes the lift point as they're made of waffer thin steel. Like a citroen ZX...
"SteveH" wrote
Says the man whose signature includes the following gem!
'You're not a real petrolhead unless you've owned an Alfa Romeo'
LOL!
..and the last time you saw a rotten AR was...? They've been galvanised for years...
Even before Alfa galvanised the cars, they didn't suffer from any more rot issues than their contemporaries.
I hate it when people consign Alfas, Fiats and Lancias to the 'rust bucket' category, whist conveniently forgetting that Fords, Vauxhalls and Austin-Rover / BL products of the same era rusted equally as quickly / badly. Jap. cars were by far the worst, though.
"SteveH" wrote
Yes they did, they were made from Communist-quality Russian steel coil which was already rusted to f*ck before it even left Nizhny Novgorod on its way to Turin.
Best you learn to live with it. I see loads of N-reg Fords. I *never* see an N-reg Italian car.
Lancia had the record of frequently failing their first MOT through structural rot, though.
As did 1979 Honda Accords, as I recall.
My dad's did.
After 6 years, you could push your fingers through several body panels.
(He'd owned it from new and looked after it, too)
That's soomething to do with Ford outselling the Italians by an order of magnitude.
However, if you look, you'll see plenty of Puntos and Bravo/Bravas kicking around from that era.
Those rather post date the era when Italian cars gaine dtheir reputation. Engines falling out of Lancias within 3 years of sale etc.
Nice pictorial blog :)
Do you go up to Aberdeen often? I've got stuff to move up there sometime.
That was actually media fuelled bollocks.
The classic car press say there is little or no evidence this actually happened.
messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com...
As a matter of interest (Vince) roughly how much does it cost for a trip like that? I'm quite surprised that it's economical to pay for you, truck, diesel, ferries, food and accommodation just to take a tow- rope to Poland. In fact, I'm quite surpised they don't make their own ...
Ian
It was pretty common knowledge at the time. And caused Lancia to cease sales in the UK.
They obviously didn't buy any new lancia betas then. Ours had thick rust all round the mounts & up the turrets at 2 yeas old. Which was a shame as it was the nicest family car we had.
Rubbish.
The 'common knowledge' was spread by the tabloid press and Lancia didn't pull out of the UK market for another 15 years.
At least if people are going to slate them for stuff, make it factual, rather than media-hype.
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