Automotive Forums .com - the leading automotive community online! Automotive Forums .com - the leading automotive community online!
Automotive Forums .com - the leading automotive community online! 
-
Latest | 0 Rplys
Go Back   Automotive Forums .com Car Chat > Engineering/Technical
Engineering/Technical Ask technical questions about cars. Do you know how a car engine works?
Reply Show Printable Version Show Printable Version | Email this Page Email this Page | Subscription Subscribe to this Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 08-17-2017, 09:59 PM   #1
krazyj
AF Newbie
 
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 1
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Is my working area safe?

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to wrenching and I'm looking for feedback on whether my outdoor setup seems safe.

I have a gravel driveway area in my backyard where I want to jack my car up and go underneath safely (i.e. pull a transmission, diff, etc).

In my opinion, I'd say this patch of driveway is 'very flat', however it's still not a perfectly poured concrete garage floor, and is also covered in small gravel.

I jacked up my car and gave it the 'shake test'. I shook it hard as hell. As hard as I could without getting a running start. And everything actually felt really solid. But, I'll admit I noticed very minor flex in things (perhaps because all of it is sitting on wood, on gravel, and on a not-absolutely-perfectly flat patch). Maybe this is normal even on perfect concrete?

At a maximum, the slope in this area doesn't seem to be more than ~2% over any stretch.

I'm using 4x '3 ton' HF steel jack stands to support a 1.5 ton overall car. The jack stands are placed on 12" x 12" x 3/4" pressure treated plywood, on the gravel.

Below is a picture of the driveway area in question, with the car up on the jack stands. Also, I took pictures of my 9" level placed in the middle of the 12" plywood base under each jack stand. I superimposed both directions in each photo.






Thoughts on whether this seems safe? My backup plan was to build wooden wheel cribs for each tire. I assume the larger surface area and more solid construction would be safer, hopefully in spite of the imperfect ground. Or maybe there's another recommendation that would work? (Perhaps some style of ramps?)

Thanks!

Last edited by shorod; 08-18-2017 at 06:52 AM. Reason: Moderator removed "copy and paste" link.
krazyj is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-20-2017, 08:18 AM   #2
shorod
SHO No Mo
 
shorod's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Posts: 10,946
Thanks: 99
Thanked 350 Times in 344 Posts
Re: Is my working area safe?

Since no one else has chimed in with a more "engineered" response, I'll add my thought.

Generally, if you have to ask if something is safe, it's probably not. For example, "Dad, is this carnival ride safe?"

On the flip side though, if I were in your situation and did everything you did, I would tell my wife or kids to check on me every so often, crawl under the car, and get stuff done. I'd just be very careful not to get out the big hammer while working under the car.

-Rod
shorod is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-27-2017, 10:41 AM   #3
Crvett69
AF Moderator
 
Crvett69's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Bellingham, Washington
Posts: 1,751
Thanks: 0
Thanked 73 Times in 73 Posts
Re: Is my working area safe?

For extra safety you could put some pieces of wood between the tire and ground or jack it up higher and stick some wheel ramps under tires
Crvett69 is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply

POST REPLY TO THIS THREAD

Go Back   Automotive Forums .com Car Chat > Engineering/Technical

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:31 PM.

Community Participation Guidelines | How to use your User Control Panel

Powered by: vBulletin | Copyright Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
 
 
no new posts