Jacking up, Why is it such a palaver? Options

[jjbunn]

I must be doing something wrong, because I find jacking up the 914 safely and easily to be very challenging.

I have a floor jack and four 2.5 ton jack stands. My goal is to get the car raised up so that I can place it on the four jackstands.

Here's what I do:

1) Insert a jack plate in the provided jacking hole on the long on one side of the car.
2) Place chocks on both sides of the opposite rear wheel
3) Position the floor jack under the plate, and start carefully jacking
4) As the car starts to come up, it wants to move rearwards, and so I have the floor jack positioned so that it rolls a little in the required direction
5) Raise the car higher and higher, carefully checking that all four rollers of the jack are still touching the ground - often one starts to lift and I have to lower the jack and reposition everything
6) Get the side high enough that I can put a jack stand under the front jack point (just behind the front wheel) and another under the suspension strut at the rear (not sure which piece this is, but it's a round beam that is anchored at a point just in front of the rear wheel).
7) Gingerly lower the floor jack so that the jack stands take the weight
8) Go to the other side and follow the same procedure, except now the car doesn't shift backwards as it goes up!

Step 4) is where I have most problems ... I'm terrified that the floor jack will become off-vertical and slip or break from the jacking plate, so I have to keep tweaking its position, raising, lowering, etc.. The whole process takes me at least half an hour!

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better way?

Sorry for the long winded description (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[jaxdream]

How strong are your jack post mounts ?? Try jacking it up by the round doughnut shaped pads on the front and rear where the body frame just about ends , your 914 should have them - maybe a little bent . Jack up one end , then the other. First end place jackstands under it with the post extentions all the way down, go to the other end jack it up , place stands under it with them extended to where you want , go back to the other end , jack up to the desired hieght , extend the jackstand posts to where you want them. Hopefully the height at all four corners is equal for stability , give the car a little shake to check for stability , not much , just enough to see if there is any big movements and how steady it is, you don't want it coming down on you with you under it , make sure the jackstand posts are locked in the position you want, fellow member had some of his stands fail and squished him some (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) . Look under your floor pan to the front and rear , you should see these round thingys.

Good luck , be safe....

Jaxdream