I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.

Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.

And going down it makes even scarier noises.

I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.


However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.

For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)

micky wrote:
I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.

Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.

And going down it makes even scarier noises.

I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.


However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.

For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)

Yep, toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.

--
Steve W.

"Steve W." wrote in :

toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.



Hardwood plywood is best. That's what I use. I also put squares of it under
my jack stands.

Specifically, 15mm Baltic Birch, and 5/8" Maple, seem to be the easiest to
find.

Any carpentry shop or furniture shop should be able to give you scrap
pieces. There is also a small industry called "steel rule dies" that uses a
huge amount of hardwood plywood. Check your local phone listings.


--
Tegger

On Fri, 10 Oct 2014 22:04:29 -0400, micky
wrote:

I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.

Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.

And going down it makes even scarier noises.

I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.


However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.

For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)
Weld plates on the bottom of the jackstands to keep them from
"cutting in" and get a floor jack with full width rollers instead of
wheels/casters. A 2X8' hunk of 3/8" plywood for the jack works too.

Whenever i jack up the car intending to get under it, i think about sinkholes. I know its a freak thing, but there could be a sinkhole under the asphalt where i happen to put the jack. That is why i use a least two supports for the car before i get under it.
Mark

"micky" wrote in message
...
I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.

Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.

And going down it makes even scarier noises.

I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.


However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.

For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)

Much of the problem with asphalt black top is a combination of age and
grade. You will note that the roads are made with a much harder grade of
asphalt than most driveways. In fact many driveways are made with a grade of
asphalt that contains a high percentage of sand compared to stone. This type
will be soft and weak for years, while it is easier for the installer to
place and roll. Commercial car parks and roads use a grade with much more
stone and larger stones. This makes a firmer base that is less likely to
deform under pressure. Many people do not like the look because the stone
will start showing through when to top coating of tar wears off and the
color of the stone starts to show through. If it is made with limestone, it
will have a light gray appearance, I have seen green, red and other stone
colors in local roads, including sparkles from crushed glass. If I was to
pave my driveway, I would insist on a commercial grade of asphalt, to avoid
the soft and easily damaged surface.

Steve W. wrote:
micky wrote:
I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.
Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.
And going down it makes even scarier noises.
I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.

However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.
For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)

Yep, toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.


unless you own the concrete (like my house's driveway), then please use
plywood there too.

:-)

GW

On Sat, 11 Oct 2014 16:54:57 -0400, "EXT"
wrote:


"micky" wrote in message
.. .
I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.

Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.

And going down it makes even scarier noises.

I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.


However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.

For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)

Much of the problem with asphalt black top is a combination of age and
grade. You will note that the roads are made with a much harder grade of
asphalt than most driveways. In fact many driveways are made with a grade of
asphalt that contains a high percentage of sand compared to stone. This type
will be soft and weak for years, while it is easier for the installer to
place and roll. Commercial car parks and roads use a grade with much more
stone and larger stones. This makes a firmer base that is less likely to
deform under pressure. Many people do not like the look because the stone
will start showing through when to top coating of tar wears off and the
color of the stone starts to show through. If it is made with limestone, it
will have a light gray appearance, I have seen green, red and other stone
colors in local roads, including sparkles from crushed glass. If I was to
pave my driveway, I would insist on a commercial grade of asphalt, to avoid
the soft and easily damaged surface.

I remember when the next-door neighbors, the Lewises, put blacktop on
their driveway in 1953. I was told that they were told that they had
to be careful with it or it would be damaged. Maybe we little kids were
told that too, but there was nothing we little kids or the big kids did
to other people's driveways. And I don't think t here was anything
the Lewises did to any driveway. I guess they were just repeating the
contractor's warning. I suppose on occasion Mr. Lewis might hammer on
something there, and that's what he wasn't supposed to do.

On Sat, 11 Oct 2014 13:47:09 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Whenever i jack up the car intending to get under it, i think about sinkholes. I know its a freak thing, but there could be a sinkhole under the asphalt where i happen to put the jack. That is why i use a least two supports for the car before i get under it.
Mark
NEVER get under a car supported only by a jack - or worse yet, 2
jacks!!

On Sat, 11 Oct 2014 21:39:18 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 11 Oct 2014 13:47:09 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Whenever i jack up the car intending to get under it, i think about sinkholes.

I don't think we've had sinkholes in Maryland yet. So I'll try not to
think about them.

I know its a freak thing, but there could be a sinkhole under the asphalt where i happen to put the jack. That is why i use a least two supports for the car before i get under it.
Mark
NEVER get under a car supported only by a jack - or worse yet, 2
jacks!!

I had a jack stand collapse once, and the weight on it was 1/3 its
rating.

This last time, I had two jacks and two jackstands under the front side
I was working on, and one jack and one jackstand under the other front
side. And I tried to shake the car before I started working.

But I still had fantasies of the wheel hub backing plate cutting into my
chest, even though I wasn't under that part.

On 10/12/2014 02:01 PM, micky wrote:
I had a jack stand collapse once, and the weight on it was 1/3 its
rating.

Damn! What failed? The pin? A weld?

On 10/12/2014 2:01 PM, micky wrote:


I had a jack stand collapse once, and the weight on it was 1/3 its
rating.

This last time, I had two jacks and two jackstands under the front side
I was working on, and one jack and one jackstand under the other front
side. And I tried to shake the car before I started working.

But I still had fantasies of the wheel hub backing plate cutting into my
chest, even though I wasn't under that part.

I use the jack, a stand or two, and an 8 x 8 length of a wood beam that
I stand upright.

On Sun, 12 Oct 2014 14:24:31 -0400, noname wrote:

On 10/12/2014 02:01 PM, micky wrote:
I had a jack stand collapse once, and the weight on it was 1/3 its
rating.

Damn! What failed? The pin? A weld?

Neither of those. IIRC the metal bent, but I can't remember which piece
of metal.

It wasn't one that seems like sheet metal, with a round tube and a tube
a little smaller than goes inside, and a pin to set the height.

It had a little beam in the middle with teeth and a heavy cog that
caught one of the teeth and that decided how tall it was. And a heavy
L-shaped piece of round stock that woudl lift the cog if there were no
weight on the stand.

It had four legs made of angle iron, and flat iron pieces about 1 1/2"
wide welded on from leg 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 to 1. It's been
10 years but iirc one of the legs crumbled.

I thnk it was rated 3000 pounds when the whole car was only 3000 pounds,
and 3 of its wheels were on the ground. We were doing the front brakes.
It was the plymouth version of a LeBaron,a K-car, and a friend who
weighed less than 160 sat on the drivers seat with his feet on the
ground.

It didn't go down much because of the jack, but still scarey.

"Steve W." wrote in message ...

micky wrote:
I learned in the past couple weeks that blacktop at 80 degrees iirc is
soft enough that the wheels of a floor jack, or the bottom outline of
jack stands will sink into the blacktop. This is an especial problem
with a floor jack because it's meant to roll backwards as the car is
lifted, but if the wheels are stuck in the blacktop, the support plate
of the jack will move underneath and wrt the car, making scarey noises
at the very least.

Not only that but when I'm jacking up the right side, after I had jacked
up the left and rested it on a jack stand, the jack did NOT move wrt to
car. Instead it made the whole car move and that made the jackstand on
the left side tip partly over.

And going down it makes even scarier noises.

I should have laid down plywood, just a little bigger than the jack, so
it would roll.


However the weather was about 70 degrees in the past few days, and
nothing sank into the blacktop, and the floor jack rolled as it's
supposed to.

For 14 dollars, they sell a ~10 pound plastic bucket of stuff to fix the
blacktop, but it's too cold at night to use it now. Next summer I'll
patch the parking lot I've been using. I hope no one notices before
then. ;-)

Yep, toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.

--
Steve W.

Steve..Would MDF be better than plywood? No voids in MDF. WW

Yep, toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.

-- Steve W.

Steve..Would MDF be better than plywood? No voids in MDF. WW


Not really any of it I have used doesn't like to flex. Unless the ground
is very flat it will need to bend a bit. That usually means it breaks.

Plywood on the other hand will flex a bit without breaking. I have some
here that I wish I had a LOT more of. It's stuff they used to build
vegetable crates from for a baby food plant. It's about 3/4" thick, 12
plies, exterior adhesive with NO voids and beautiful fine grained wood.

--
Steve W.

On Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:45:41 -0400, "Steve W."
wrote:


Yep, toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.

-- Steve W.

Steve..Would MDF be better than plywood? No voids in MDF. WW


Not really any of it I have used doesn't like to flex. Unless the ground
is very flat it will need to bend a bit. That usually means it breaks.

Plywood on the other hand will flex a bit without breaking. I have some
here that I wish I had a LOT more of. It's stuff they used to build
vegetable crates from for a baby food plant. It's about 3/4" thick, 12
plies, exterior adhesive with NO voids and beautiful fine grained wood.

Baltic Birch

wrote:
On Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:45:41 -0400, "Steve W."
wrote:


Yep, toss down as large a hunk of GOOD plywood as possible if you're
trying to use a jack on anything other than solid concrete.

-- Steve W.

Steve..Would MDF be better than plywood? No voids in MDF. WW


Not really any of it I have used doesn't like to flex. Unless the ground
is very flat it will need to bend a bit. That usually means it breaks.

Plywood on the other hand will flex a bit without breaking. I have some
here that I wish I had a LOT more of. It's stuff they used to build
vegetable crates from for a baby food plant. It's about 3/4" thick, 12
plies, exterior adhesive with NO voids and beautiful fine grained wood.

Baltic Birch

Hi,
I use a piece of 2x10

micky wrote:
On Sun, 12 Oct 2014 14:24:31 -0400, noname wrote:

On 10/12/2014 02:01 PM, micky wrote:
I had a jack stand collapse once, and the weight on it was 1/3 its
rating.

Damn! What failed? The pin? A weld?

Neither of those. IIRC the metal bent, but I can't remember which piece
of metal.

It wasn't one that seems like sheet metal, with a round tube and a tube
a little smaller than goes inside, and a pin to set the height.

It had a little beam in the middle with teeth and a heavy cog that
caught one of the teeth and that decided how tall it was. And a heavy
L-shaped piece of round stock that woudl lift the cog if there were no
weight on the stand.

It had four legs made of angle iron, and flat iron pieces about 1 1/2"
wide welded on from leg 1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 to 1. It's been
10 years but iirc one of the legs crumbled.

I thnk it was rated 3000 pounds when the whole car was only 3000 pounds,
and 3 of its wheels were on the ground. We were doing the front brakes.
It was the plymouth version of a LeBaron,a K-car, and a friend who
weighed less than 160 sat on the drivers seat with his feet on the
ground.

It didn't go down much because of the jack, but still scarey.

Hi,
I have a piece of 2x10 to support the jack.