krazyjo

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!

holmesnmanny

there is no picture, try using photobucket and link to the pic

NVturbo

Is the ground hard or soft, underneath the gravel? I've worked on cars on similar ground situations and it can be a bit scary. If you plan to work on cars on a normal basis, I would suggest having a concrete company pour you a concrete pad. All you will need is about 8'x 12' pad. That should be more than enough room for most cars.