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)

[SirAndy]

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I put the car in gear, add the jack plate to the stock jack hole and up she goes. As long as the floor jack is on 3 wheels, you'll be fine.
Put jackstands under the front and back, go to the other side, repeat.

If you need extra height, turn the jacking plate sideways (as seen in the 3rd pic). I always throw the wheels under there too, just in case ...
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/popcorn[1].gif) Andy

PS: Those "donuts" are *NOT* for jacking up the car! The front donut is a good 5" away from any structural metal. You will buckle your floorpan!

[mskala]

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...
PS: Those "donuts" are *NOT* for jacking up the car! The front donut is a good 5" away from any structural metal. You will buckle your floorpan!

This is very good advice, it it true the front donuts are in a very weak area.

When I first stripped the interior paint for POR-15, it was noticably bent. Rubber
mallet took care of it.

Besides, the rear donut will get both tires off the ground anyway.