Jacking up, Why is it such a palaver? Options

[jjbunn]

I must be doing something wrong, because I find jacking up the 914 safely and easily to be very challenging.

I have a floor jack and four 2.5 ton jack stands. My goal is to get the car raised up so that I can place it on the four jackstands.

Here's what I do:

1) Insert a jack plate in the provided jacking hole on the long on one side of the car.
2) Place chocks on both sides of the opposite rear wheel
3) Position the floor jack under the plate, and start carefully jacking
4) As the car starts to come up, it wants to move rearwards, and so I have the floor jack positioned so that it rolls a little in the required direction
5) Raise the car higher and higher, carefully checking that all four rollers of the jack are still touching the ground - often one starts to lift and I have to lower the jack and reposition everything
6) Get the side high enough that I can put a jack stand under the front jack point (just behind the front wheel) and another under the suspension strut at the rear (not sure which piece this is, but it's a round beam that is anchored at a point just in front of the rear wheel).
7) Gingerly lower the floor jack so that the jack stands take the weight
8) Go to the other side and follow the same procedure, except now the car doesn't shift backwards as it goes up!

Step 4) is where I have most problems ... I'm terrified that the floor jack will become off-vertical and slip or break from the jacking plate, so I have to keep tweaking its position, raising, lowering, etc.. The whole process takes me at least half an hour!

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better way?

Sorry for the long winded description (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[jaxdream]

Ok , I probably wasn't real clear (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif) , the doughnuts are the jacking point target , I usually place the jackstands under the rear trailing arms pivots and the front a arm pivots on the front end. At present I have my 73 up on stands ( soon be a year ), in the driveway, with the stands up against the doughnuts -not under the doughnuts as the stands do not have a resting pad in circular shape , just standard rectangle.I placed them at these points under the body / longs to do a suspension upgrade- 5 lug. I have never used the jack posts in the longs , I have always used the more structurely sound doughnut area , sometimes with a piece of 2 x 6 or similar piece of wood . The idea I'm trying to express is to use a more structurely sound area for raising the car , and it depends on your intent of the work you want to do to it , engine drop , suspension swap / repair , floor pan replacement , etc. this will dictate the placement of the jackstands . I have in my collection 6 6ton lever / ratchet type , 4 4 ton lever / ratchet type , couple of stray smallers around 4 tons , 2 sears 2 1/2 ton flooor jacks , one smaller 2 1/4 ton floor jack , several of the cheapo trolley hand come out types , several 8 x 6 x 12 concrete blocks - yes these can be used if you use them the way they are used in building structures with them especially if you place 2 x6 or 2 x 4 on them . Everyone has thier own method of raising a vehicle for placement on jackstands , there are a few better ways than the jack posts on the longs.

Be safe under there !!

Jaxdream