Always Use Axle Stands!

[Twincam.GTi]

Right its Christmas time and as a lot of us on here fix/ upgrade/ patch up and generally mess with cars I am sure many of our good selves will receive tools for Christmas. I did the other year and it was a trolley jack and axle stand set.

So as a warning if any of you use Trolley jacks then USE them axles stands – an example of this was when working on my MGB GT to change a track rod end. I duly jacked it up and (thankfully) placed two stands under the front crossmember so I could thrash the rod end to kingdomcome (they always rust in nicely) with the balljoint splitter (followed by heating it up, followed by swearing, followed by more hammering and then more swearing etc, etc, )- finally it popped down and out.

After which I saw a small pool of fluid on the tarmac … “EEK I must have hit a brake pipe” thought I. But then I noticed the Trolley jack paddle/arm was down and no longer underneath the wishbone !!!

Thankfully all was well due to the Axle stand positioning and thus the car had not moved or lowered (I wouldn’t be writing this now!). The trolley jack had blown its seal and most of the fluid/oil just oozed out! Jack had failed in an instant.

And I always thought Trolley Jacks gave warning i.e. start to weep a bit of oil as opposed to blowing instantly!

I know this is not exactly Corolla related but good words of warning to all of us who tinker with cars old or new!

Edit: In case you’re wondering a couple of ‘dodgy’ Toyota scissor jacks were used to lower car after fitting new track rod end.

[Ed_Shek]

Thats sound advice! Cheers!

[Boro Sera]

I've never had a seal go on a trolley jack ( yet ) but I did have one go on an engine crane last year as I was taking the motor out of my Sera. FORTUNATELY, I still had 2 bolts in the engine and was just taking the weight before I removed them.......It could have been so much worse !

A few places do trolley jack/axle stand bundles ( argos, machine mart etc ). If you're the type who likes to get their hands dirty then they are worth their weight in gold.........even the cheap ones !

[DunsanyBen]

extremely handy in work ,especially when u need the jack sumwhere always just drop it onto the axle stand and away u go ,never had any problems so far with a jack but better safe than sorry ,

cheers