is that safe to have a car up on ramp stands.......... i was thinking about doing that but the idea of me being alone andif thecar came off while i was under it scares the holy crap out of me

 

Hmmm, maybe I should have included a legal disclaimer with that post. Realistically, even if you set your car down on jackstands and crawl underneath it, there is at least a little element of risk... you gotta check first that the car is securely supported, but at some point you still have to trust the stands.

Here was the argument I used to convince myself it was safe to have the car on 4 ramps. When you use just 2 ramps up front, you drive onto them, set the parking brake firmly, and put chocks behind the rear wheels. What really keeps the car from rolling off the front is the indentations in the ramp stands. The chocks keep the car from rolling backwards, and the indentations in the ramps keep the car from rolling forward. You still set the parking brake for insurance.

When I put the car on 4 ramps, I had the 2 ramps for the back tires facing backwards, i.e. the sloped part of the ramps sloped downwards towards the front of the car. I figured this way the indentations on the back ramps would keep the car from rolling backwards, just like the indentations on the front ramps would keep the car from rolling forwards. Again, the parking brake is set very firmly to hopefully remove the issue entirely.

I did this for several projects, namely the subframe connectors, undercoating the whole underside of the car, and fitting and tack welding the exhaust together. You certainly need to convince yourself the car is secure before you crawl underneath it, just as you do with jackstands. But whatever disclaimer any manufacturer slaps on their jackstands also applies here! Kinda like installing disc brakes on your own car, if you don't feel comfortable doing the job, then don't do it.

Ordinarily I just use jackstands, but for some projects I really needed to have the car further up in the air. Also, I wanted the weight of the car on the tires before welding in the subframe connectors.

I have seen drive-on platforms for cars out there... I think they run about 900-1000 dollars? Certainly a safer alternative, and yet, not totally fool-proof either I'm sure.

 

Looks nice! Air-ride suspension up front? So smooth, you won't even know it's there!

I had to do the same repairs to both doors on the 72, but you already knew that.

 

Yeah these doors have WAAAY less rust than the originals do..

 

How I wish I had a garage!! From what I can make out everyone seems to have garages in the rest of the world, just in Spain its very rare!

Was leroy brown an actual person or was it just the song by sinatra?

 

Sinatra didn't sing LeRoy Brown, Jim Croce did. It is about a fictional gambler in an inner city who thought he was bad until he messed with another man's wife, then he got the **** kicked out of him.

 

Spanish,

I am also garageless i have it stored in a greenhouse for 40 euro's a month but the greenhouse is 6km from my house. At least being the Netherlands it's flat so can get there in 15-25mins depending on the wind!!

 

Must be a european thing not to have garages then....?

Personally I think theyre more important than the house!

Sinatra did sing leroy brown, I listen to it often in my car. Bad bad leroy brown, baddest man in the whole damn town, badder than old king kong and meaner than a junkyard dog

 

COOL ......

 

Whenever I lived in Germany for several years, I understood that every room was taxed, and so that's why they don't have closets, but the shrunks. I also understood that a garage would be taxed additionally, and that land is a premium, so hardly anyone has a garage, and if they do, it is a tiny one car garage.