My roommate is going to be doing some brake work on his Accord. I have two jack stands that I use for my car. He's planning to borrow those, but he says he's going to get two more "so the car can be jacked up level all the way around." He says the manual says to do it this way, but this seems incorrect to me. I had always thought that you weren't supposed to use four jack stands on a car. I'm envisioning that you would put the front of it up on stands, and then when you went to jack up the back, it might push the car forward and it would fall off the stands. No?

 

ar...no, your roomie is correct.

people put car on jackstand(all four jackpoint) all the time, just becareful when you lowering the jack

 

my advice do either frt or back ,,it is much safer to raise only frt or back and keep the other on ground ...if you do frt put e-brake on if you do rears put car in park if at or in gear if manual...

 

your roomate is correct

 

its easist to put on Ebrake (and put in gear/park), then jake up the front. once the front is up, jack up the rear....itll be fine....Doing the rear first will make it MUCH hard...espescially if the car is lowered.....in taht case, you can use a sicsor jack to get the front end up high enough for a regular jack to reach the crossmember

 

why would you want to raise all 4 at the same time when you dont have to and have a greater risk of tipping over ..i could see it doing it if you absolutely had to but to do a brake job ?? play it safe ..is the floor where you are planning to work smooth and even??

 

Just a reminder to put a chuck on the rear tires in case your e-brake fails and the car rolls forward .

But from my experiences it makes no sense to jack it up on all 4's, I usually jack up the front then the rear.

 

when ever I do my brakes I put my car up on ramps! I Have put my car on 4 stand lots of times, Make sure the ground is level of course..

 

put it on 2 jack stands is just as safe as putting it on 4

 

I agree with .ken and deserthonda. No need for all fours in the air for a brake job. If u drive a manual car and are lifting the back be sure to lock gear in first or reverse. If auto block front wheels.

 

for a brake job, its not neccesary....however if you want to work on the exhaust, you'll need all 4 up......

 

yeah, like everyone said. It's not needed to put the car up on all fours for a brake job. But if he wants to, I would lift the front first since the car sits lower up there and would be harder to get to if the rear was already up in the air. Make sure you use wheel chocks on the wheels that are one the ground. This will prevent the car from rolling.

Also, something I do before I ever crawl under a car that I just lifted up. I do this everytime, even if I'm only on two jack stand or if I'm on all four jack stands. Once I have have the car supported by the jack stands, I leave the jack just below the lift point but not touching it and I also leave the tires on incase, then push firmly, but not too much you get what I mean, on the car a bit to make sure it's nice and sturdy were it's at. It shouldn't move at all once it's supported by the stands. If it does, lift the car back up and make sure everything is level and study. I like knowing that the car I'm under is nice a sturdy and isn't slip off the jack stands or anything.

 

I usually don't replace all 4 brakes at once anyway. Swap one axle, then break em in for a few days, then do the other axle.

For exhaust or brake-bleeding, I'll drive the front on ramps then put the rear on stands. Makes it way easier to reach the bleed valves.

I've put all 4 corners on jack stands occasionally. But while you're lifting it you have to be careful not to topple the other stands. Once it's up, there's always one stand that isn't carrying much weight, since you don't have springs to even up the load.

ABSOLUTELY check that it's all solid before you crawl underneath. But that's true even if you're only lifting one end.

 

i think it's easier to access all brake bleeder screws w/ the vehicle up in the air w/ all tires off... for a complete brake fluid changeover... mebbe that's what he's up to w/ this.

i don't trust the ramps in the front; like it all on stationary jack stands w/ the 2 floor jacks setup like TouringAccord mentioned.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JimBlake &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Once it's up, there's always one stand that isn't carrying much weight, since you don't have springs to even up the load.</TD></TR></TABLE>

funny you should mention that. I've noticed that on both my Accord and on my Civic. On both of them it has been the rear driver side.

 

thats cuz the ground ur doing it on is nto level,

 

I say you should just rip out 6 ft of cement from a part of the garage and make a pit, then just roll on over it.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Grodzman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I say you should just rip out 6 ft of cement from a part of the garage and make a pit, then just roll on over it.</TD></TR></TABLE>Then simply remove your lug nuts & ... -um- (wait a minute...)

That's actually a really cool idea, but some places it's illegal in private homes. Something about ventilation & OSHA stuff.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Eddiebx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thats cuz the ground ur doing it on is nto level, </TD></TR></TABLE>

maybe

 

i jack up all fours all the time, to bleed brakes, rotate tires, and the occasional nap under the car, never tiped over on me yet, and if ur not suppose to do it, no one ever told me -_-a