Modified Jack Stands

I haven't been happy with the poor methods of putting my boxster up on jack stands. The car should be supported at the jack points, not the axles, so the standard shape of the jack stands wasn't sutiable. It just makes me nervous.

Additionally, the lifting point had to be another point besides the jack points because you can't lift and then place the jack stand where you're jacking from.

The solution, as described by Gary Friedhoff is to place your jack slightly forward of the rear jack point. From this point you can lift the entire side of the vehicle at once.

The problem is, that my jack's lifiting point is kind of cup shaped, and so I had the jack digging into the verticle seam of the body at two thin points. This also made me nervous.

So what to do? I bought a jack plate from automotion, but it didn't fit anything, was too tall, and didn't even fit the jack point of the car.

I decided to design my own solution. I made a new jack plate that sits in the jack in place of the cup that it came with. It's held in place by a short verticle shaft with a cotter pin.

It's hard to see, but it has a half inch slot lined by a rubber pad. This will distribute the weight across the entire lift point.

Then I designed a jack plate that will fit on top of my jack stands like a saddle. It's hard to tell, but underneath, the plate is round to match the shape of the jack stand. Also note that the nipple on top is an oval shape to fit into the jack point on the car.

Note that the thumb screws only keep the plate from falling off the stand, they still allow the plate to move freely about a half inch either way on the stand. This is a good thing as the car's weight settles down on the stand.

Here's a picture of one in action. I've used them many times now, and they work great!

For those who have asked, I've made some crude drawings of these two jigs. I have them in MS PowerPoint and in AutoCADD dwg format.

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