Posted by Chris Lube Lublin on Monday, February 23, 2004 at 2:17AM :
In Reply to: NOTCE -- Safety message posted by Mark S. on Sunday, February 22, 2004 at 3:02PM :
When I was a senior in high school, my Dad had a '89 Geo Spectrum. I needed to do some work under it. I needed to get the front wheels in the air so I could crawl under it to work on it. Well I put the front end up on jack stands and proceeded to crawl under the car. Well the lock on one of the jack stands failed, and the car fell! Well, it pinnned me under it and I just barely had enuff room to breathe! Well, I was trapped under there for almost a 1/2 hour, and finally my Dad came home, he jacked the car up and I crawled out from under it. Those were 5 ton rated stands, but were cheap asian inports.
Another thing happend not too long before the Geo incedent, where I was changing oil on my '87 Dodge Omni I had. I drove it up on the car ramps, and put it in gear to hold it. Well, I crawled under it to pull the plug and remove the filter. When I crawled out, the car popped out of gear, and rolled off the ramps. That was before I was smart enuff to use parking brake, AND use wheel Chocks! I also put it in 3rd gear. Now on a manual trans, I put it into reverse, as it holds a vehicle better.
I use wheels as jack stands quite a bit. They are very wide and very stable, expecially when the bottom wheel has a tire on it. They work really great. I learned about concrete blocks the hard way. huge chunks of rail road tie are good to support vehicles on as well.
And then you have the Hi-lift bumper jack...Those are a blessing, but they are also very unsafe when things are over looked. I had one bend on me when I was changing a tire on a demo deby car I ran over the summer.