Ever had a car fall on you while working?? Lifting your lowered car a pain in the?

[HooWybrow]

What I gathered from this is you should not be jacking up any car because you will most likely kill youself.

Find out if your school has a class in common sense. It will save your life.

You should see the stack of shit I need to drive on to get a lift arm under my car.

No doubt, it's a comfortable 3 person job for me. By myself I pretty much want to kill myself.

[jcflowers]

I usually drive it up onto wood blocks, then put a slimline jack (NOT a cheap parts-shop one. A solid, wide jack) under it. Lift it up on the crossmember/diff and put stands under it, keeping the jack there for added safety if the stands fail and vice versa. Just lay on a piece of cardboard.

Dad's 60 and has been doing car-related work since he was 15 as an apprentice. Never had a highly damaging incident caused by proper use of this combination. Worst incident was when doing something silly on the hoist trying to cut corners and the car nearly nose dived. Best advice: Take your time, do it properly. It's not worth destroying yourself or your car due to impatience.

On a side note: I'm an industrial designer too. And as constructive criticism, look into a project that has more depth. I see you're trying research now - but you're researching for corner-cutting, not for an actual existing problem. The best you can come up with it extra-long drive on stands. Which many people have made and I'm sure someone manufactures them. I don't want to sound like a dick, but I've persisted with projects without depth and it just sucks. It's perfect not at a university for a quick product, but doing actual research and development won't get you the submission requirements. Everyone knows school/uni is NOTHING like a real world.

[cobrawannabe]

I use my hoist, typically takes about 20 minutes to set up. 2 2x4's under each tire and then jack it up from there, swing the hoist arms under and voila.

You should see the stack of shit I need to drive on to get a lift arm under my car.

[Francois Dillinger]

Find out if your school has a class in common sense. It will save your life.

[tomshouse516]

What I gathered from this is you should not be jacking up any car because you will most likely kill youself.

[HooWybrow]

I use my hoist, typically takes about 20 minutes to set up. 2 2x4's under each tire and then jack it up from there, swing the hoist arms under and voila.

[Wax]

I am a great believer in self preservation and safety is paramount, if a car fall off a jack or stand it's always down to plane and simple stupidness, nothing more nothing less.

[Buck6687]

for my e36 i use the standard windy jack to lift high enough to get a 3ton trolley jack underneath.
i want one of these next though:

http://www.sirtools.com/SIRSBMWJP.jpg

or more than likely i will make my own

[jacbo]

The first time...factory elbow jack...whole side off the ground

My next incident...on the grass...plywood

...

Pretty much do exactly what C-Hutch said. NEVER attempt to raise a car (yet alone a bigass diesel) on dirt or sand. I had to do a transaxle swap on dirt one time and I did the whole deal on wheel ramps ON TOP of plywood. I still wouldn't recommend if at all avoidable.

[PhilipWOT]

I'm the office manager at a Jaguar/Rover/Ferrari/Maserati/Lotus shop, so I just use hydraulic lifts because fuck manually jacking a car up.\

[C-Hutch]

drive onto a block, then a higher block. place the jack under something structural wherever you need to lift the vehicle that won't allow it to slip off. I like subframes with exposed bolts. the bolts act as cleats and keep the car on the jack, and subframes are always bolted to thick sections of the unibody. I almost never use the factory jack points, as they seem to always be weak and bend with weight on them. after you get whatever end or corner of the car up and you plan on doing more than swapping a wheel (like getting under it or whatever) always place some big jack stands under the car. And always use two of them.

That's it. No padding, no PPE, no hard hats. Just common sense. Also, I use a huge 4 ton floor jack, never flimsy shitty parts store jacks or factory scissor/widdow maker jacks.

[Jesus Christ]

I will say putting a car on stands and setting it back down is my least favorite part of the wrenching experience.

[PhilipWOT]

Jacking up a car while it's on the grass.. Uhmmm

Your sigpic

[Rubens]

Jacking up a car while it's on the grass.. Uhmmm

[SmokeyTheBear]

^^ this.
It's not any different than a normal car except getting the jack under is harder. Also since our suspensions are stiffer and have less travel you often end up with only two wheels on the ground.
Always chock wheels, jack from a hard level surface, use a real quality floor jack, factory jacks are for emergancies not normal use.