Jacking Up A 460 At Home Or On The Road

SH20 · October 22, 2015

I've owned a number of large cars all of which were supplied with some form of scissor jack for road side wheel changes. I've never been happy using a scissor jack due to the weight it has to deal with. Once more I have adapted my bespoke jacking plates which I made 4 cars ago. These are bolted directly to the car's sill flanges where a technician would swing the arms under of a two poster lift. Every large car I have owned has had sill flanges which were buckled and bent over due to the weight concentrated over such a small surface area. Most sill flanges are approx. 4mm thick and yet all the weight of the car is suspended across a surface area of 4mm X 100mm - 150mm of the lifts lifting pads. Even slightly misaligned can cause the distortion I am talking about. Hence the use of this guaranteed method of zero damage to sill flanges. I have just bought this car and spent a few hours repairing my own buckled sill flanges, de rusting, treating with rust inhibitor and then a top coat of Hammerite.

The round jacking plates now sit 15mm lower than the plastic sill covers in all 4 corners. Going forward when I have to have the car serviced etc the dealer will be told to jack my car up only using these high strength steel fittings. Having just removed the plastic sill covers and had them re painted there will be absolutely no excuse for any Technician to damage my car's bodywork or sill flanges. I use a standard trolley jack at home for wheel removal etc but carry a mini trolley jack in it's own carry case in the boot for any road side wheel swops. Obviously where a garage use a drive on drive off lift then there is no need to use the jacking plates.

Pics attached.

Steve