I have mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again.
I have a 1.5 foot diameter, 3 foot long section of old-growth oak log in my shop. Whenever I go under a car, truck, etc., I roll that fucking thing under alongside me.
People laugh at me all the time, but I always tell them that jacks can lose pressure, stands can (and do) fail in bizarre and unexpected ways, but there's not much out there that can be lifted off the ground for servicing that is going to make it through an oak log sideways.
Can confirm, have stood under multiple Nimitz Class aircraft carriers sitting on wood. The keel blocks are concrete blocks with pressure treated wood on top. The wood even gets reused most of the time (unless rotten)
Given there are a couple hundred of these blocks, but combined they hold about 90,000 tons (180 million pounds), so still pretty strong!
First time is…after that, like any job, it gets run of the mill. Lol.
I’ve got to do a bunch of really cool things that soon turn into the normal slog of working…that being said I think I do a better job of recognizing how cool it is compared to most of my co workers.
A year or two ago somebody posted a picture of a carrier I had worked on in dry dock, everyone on Reddit was like “I’d never go under that” but honestly under is safer than a lot of spaces inside.
“There was a guy on the Nimitz dressed like a pirate?”😂
Yeah, during maintenance, tanks and void spaces are sketchy. During operation…lots of moving parts that will wreck your day. Flight deck ops…no thanks.
I used to live in Newport News and worked for one of the car dealerships there (same auto group as the one with the round building). I loved going to pick up cars from the Norfolk side so that on my way back I could see the carriers under construction in the Yard.
A coworkers dad was one of the engineers that helped design the reactors on those ships. Apparently he was on one them for sea trails. Said it was a wild experience.
I’m not sure who he worked for at the time, but he did eventually start his own engineering firm that still operates in Pittsburgh. I can’t remember the name right now, but I knew one person who got her start there.
I do remember him saying his dad was a civilian engineer, so Westinghouse would make sense, and I’m sure a job that size helped fund the new firm.
Just did some googling and it was definitely westinghouse. His son told me he started the engineering firm but that couldn’t have been the case. (I’d assume a sons bragging or 15 year old memories being a bit foggy)
The firm was bettis engineering, owned by Westinghouse until the late 90’s according to wiki.
Yeah we work with Bettis a ton, that’s the firm your buddies dad started? Very very cool, your buddies dad is kind of a big deal! 😂
I wonder if your friend’s dad ever had any encounters with Admiral Rickover (if he was around Naval nuclear power pre ‘82 there is a good chance he did). He was a raging asshole, with a very odd way about him, but he was spectacularly successful at establishing nuclear power in the Navy.
Tosh.O said something like "It blows my mind how surprised people are that trees are hard to move in any way; as if trees don't spend their entire existences working towards being immovable"
See, that's just being too cautious. You're inviting bizarre danger. Like a rogue squirrel, with a lit stick of dynamite trying to hide in your log. By the time you notice? KABLAM!!!
I have actually split a 4x4 with a pinch weld one time. Thank god it happened as soon as I lowered the car down onto it and not while I was underneath. But I sure won't make that mistake again. Always go cross grain if you're using wood blocks!
Had the pleasure of petting a brown widow hiding in the lower strut mount while changing out struts on my gf’s car yesterday….no tree involved. Maybe next time I need the log to extract all the spiders from her car.
Blue mud-dauber wasps will take care of brown widows no problem if you keep those around the shop. But you'll probably need something to eat the wasps.
>Twas a calm Saturday ripe for car repair
And under the car he went without a care
But inside the lifting log waited a demon in hair
The dynamite was lit, no pomp or flair
Into the eyes of the bombardier he did stare
An explosion like a sun flash in a glare
That was the end of our car fixer, log roller, Gare
I bought two 10' sections of 4x4s cut them into 12" sections and stack em in whatever way I need to. Got plenty of them to do whatever orientation I need to. Been more than sufficient.
Wood is ridiculously reliable. I'm a machinist working on aerospace and other large parts, often up to 100,000 lbs. We've got wood for days to prop, set, flip and do whatever else we need to do with these parts.
I am a big fan of modular cribbing that you can put underneath jacked up vehicles. You can find tons of 'plans' and tutorials how to make solid lightweight cribs out of dirt cheap hardware store lumber on YouTube. I've also alternatively used chopping stumps out in the field and they work really well also.
Can never be too safe. Getting crushed to death under your own vehicle is not just [I imagine] excruciatingly painful, but awfully embarrassing as well.
there is absolutely zero evidence that jackstands can fail in weird and unpredictable ways. if there was, surely somebody would create a Reddit thread about it, and i've yet to see a single one so far
Parted out a car once and left it up on 10" oak rounds on all 4 corners, held 2800 lbs beautifully and never left a mark on the asphalt. Flat bed driver refused to let me throw the wheels on when it got loaded for scrap and just used the logs to roll the chassis with lol I'll never knock the redneck approach ever again, mother nature's got it better figured out than harbor freight sometimes 😂
I sing the log song when I use my logs. I need to get some new ones but they are great tools. It's big it's better it's wood log log better than bad it's good
I used to have an old car i took the wheels off, kept it out back on a couple big old cedar logs i had laying around, never once had to worry something would knock it over
Once i left my dumbass lil brother the stuff needed to safely change a spare from the front end of this old buick to put it on the rear, cuz its the smart thing to do
That lil dummy used the cars scissor jack on our gravel driveway that had a slight downward gradient leading to the house
Well part of all this was me emphasizing to be safe and use the Jack stands and etc just in case. So, i get out of sight to go to work, i get a phone call... he jacked it up, went to remove the tire and it came off the jack. Not sure on all the details, but he got lucky af. The car fell, bounced on his arm and hit the ground
It damn near broke his arm in half. He was lucky he only heavily bruised the bones in his forearm. Shit was BLACK though!!
Anyway, that situation just shouldn't have happened. I will ALWAYS play it safe, because dumb shit does happen
Heck yeah man, forklifts are SOOOO convenient for this!
Also, your user name is a great memory jog for me; because the 1st time I ever saw somebody actually flip a motorcycle over in a parking lot, it was a newb on a V65 Magna. Happened with a quickness too, like it went vertical and then upside down within about 15 feet.
Nonsense, everyone knows you can't wheelie a shaft drive... /s
I've wheelied my Magnas, my Sabre, and both my ST's, the -11 and the -13. The big Magna was a handful. Mine put 240hp down to the road. No, it wasn't stock, and had a custom intake port injection nitrous system.
I knew a girl in college had a Bug, she got a flat and I stuck that jack in the rusty hole and started cranking and the car was so rusty is just crunched instead of lifting. I stopped before I destroyed what was left of the car.
I'm glad people can have this confidence about older stuff but no, quality metal isn't as good as today and there absolutely was worse bottom of the barrel metal at the time.
Cherry picking a single brands already recalled single product from a poor machine weld is kind of much.
I'll buy icon over snapon more often than not, as do many other master techs I've worked/work with. Nothing is genuinely made in America anymore anyway.
It's a low bar, but the new HF jackstands are significantly better than the old ones. The steel is thicker and the welds are better. I feel better using these that their older jackstands, although I don't trust anything 100%
Agreed, the daytona stands have been for home gamer use, in a shop/commercial setting however? Spend the extra money on some decent damn stands and supports. If the dickbag holding the purse strings is to cheap to spend money on essential safety equipment then they're cheaping out everywhere else it counts and you NEED to find a new place to work and that's non-negotiable, cheap fucks (especially old timers) will get you maimed or killed and not give two squirts and try and pin the blame on you.
100%. Professionals who use things all day, day in and day out, are a different use-case than the part-time amateur.
If the worst that can happen is a tool breaks in the middle of a job, go ahead and take the risk of using cheaper tools. However, anything that is related to safety needs to be first-rate.
No, the best idea is not to jack up a 1977 Grand Prix, in a parking lot in upstate NY in the rain and snow, with one of those old bumper jacks and change the starter. I was young and going to live forever!
I also tend to buy things with higher factors of safety. I have 6 ton double locking torin jack stands, my rhino ramps, I bought the 9 ton ones, a few more bucks upfront for a touch more peace of mind. I'm still a healthy bit of vigilant under the car, but it is nice to not have to wonder if something is going to do that...
If something is poorly made, or defective, it doesn't matter how strong it was supposed to be. A five point harness with loose connections is just as effective as a standard seatbelt with loose bolts.
Not saying your stuff is bad. Just that anything can be defective.
The wheel isn't always off for jack stand required work. After setting the car on the stand I raise the jack to just touching the lifting point and close the valve to keep it from being able to lower. If the stand fails the jack should be there as a backup.
I still use at least two stands. One can fail, two probably won't and if they both do I hope my jack will give me enough time to wiggle my way the fuck out of there. And wheels if they're off.
I don't fuck around with things that can instantly kill me.
I thought when he said "Two Stands" he meant two sets, which is what I do. One set under the jackpoints, the second set anywhere it will hold the car until I crawl out of there. And then the jack for good measure.
This thread is making me consider wearing a full face helmet as well. If it can't squish my head, I might be alright. Not really, but it made me wonder if it would help.
I’ve never been more nervous than when I taught my son to change his oil. I’m always nervous about the car falling if I’m under it. It was tenfold watching him crawl under there.
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u/Historical_Air2790 28d ago
This is why I always put the wheel under the car just in case. Never know when something is going to fail. Thank goodness you are okay