Sadly I dont have a concrete floor to work on. Do all my work on the ground. Just this week installed clutch and pressure plate on a 91 f-150. With the help of ply wood and a atv jack. For years I have used cinder block with a 1 by 4 block of wood to hold up a car or truck. Thought they had better footing the jack stands. Would useing jack stands on stepping stones work ok? How do ya'll do it?

 

Were it me I'd completely NOT use any sort of paving stone as a jack stand base! They're not really made to handle the point load a jack stand produces. Concrete blocks same thing---in any direction they're just not well suited to this sort of use.

I know this seems to defy logic since they support whole buildings but look how they're loaded in that use.

I'd cut and screw together several pieces of 3/4" plywood, maybe 1" bigger than the jack stand foot print. Use those under your stands or maybe attach them so they can't be used any other way.

Things don't fail until that fateful day when they do---rarely is there much warning in advance.

 

i would either use plywood panels at least 1 1/2 inch thick as JWA said, or 1/2 inch thick steel plates under the jack stands like i used to have on the farm before we poured the concrete floor outside the shop. .

 

I use plywood panels screwed to 2x12s. The plywood panels are 2ft x2ft in size. I hate working on the ground but until my shop is finished I have no choice. I put plywood sheets under my truck to get off the dirt. I plan to rake the soil under my shed & run a magnet over it several times to try & find my lost tools. I bet there is a bunch buried there.

 

I use cribbing.

I don't use jackstands under my car, it's a unibody so I set the jacking point on a crib and call it good. I have several sets that are screwed together for permanent use made from 2x4s or 2x6s in layers sandwiched in between OSB, the footprints vary based on how tall they are and what is going to sit on them. I wouldn't use an actual crib made of loose wood under anything where there might be a weight shift (ie removing a component like a trans), but for static work even loose cribbing will be fine. It works great on tractors, because it's impossible to find cost-effect jack stands that are tall enough, can hold that much weight, and that can be moved easily. A quality sheet of actual plywood at least an inch thick is a great base, it'll expand the footprint of the crib so it won't sink but won't fall apart like OSB from moisture.

With wood being so cheap you couldn't pay me to get under a vehicle held up by cinder blocks.

Cribbing For Heavy Vehicle Lifting |

 

Hi, a few thoughts from an amateur

When I had an old Ranger out in our pole barn (dirt), I used some relatively thick pieces of some stuff called DriCore -- it's made for basement floors and is some kind of particle board/OSB. Anyway, I had some cutoff parts left. Worked pretty well under jack stands.

So, I'd look for some fairly stout stuff and maybe screw together a couple of 3/4" pieces. I don't know that plywood is better than some of the 'engineered ' (glued together) wood that's available today.

The whole idea was to spread the load.

I also used a 2x4 under my floor jack to keep it from digging in. It will obviously want to tip until you get a little pressure on it. Not the best choice in the world, but it can work if you're careful.

But,

Maybe you could dig out a section and fill it with class 5 gravel. It is pretty much dirt, but it packs very well and gets quite solid. Even better if you top it with some small rock.

- That's what's on my driveway, and I do my oil changes and tire rotations there when the weather is decent.

You could also pour a small concrete slab. I don't know if you'd need expansion joints, but probably you would. Make sure that you talk to somebody that knows about concrete. You could rent a mixer and it shouldn't be that expensive. You use a broom finish (which is just what it sounds like -- use a broom to put small grooves in the finish).

Good Luck,

hj

 

You know that plywood IS "engineered wood" right? It's just veener that's been glued together with the grains going in alternating directions. OSB is fine for a lot of things, but mainly in places where it can shed water. If you put in on the ground and it stays wet constantly, it'll break down into individual chips. The glue in plywood will also break down if constantly exposed to moisture, but the individual veener layers won't come apart like the OSB chips do, which usually causes a sheet of OSB to start buckling every time you try to lift up an edge. Particle board made from sawdust just practically dissolves if it stays wet for a decent period of time.

You might not need a 1" sheet of solid birch plywood to put under jackstands, but for direct ground contact I still prefer plywood to any form of particle board. We had a dirt floor pole barn in Louisiana and any type of engineered wood swelled and fell apart even on the walls, but the plywood didn't turn into chips or dust like particle board did.

 

thank yall for the replys and the insight. Im going to try the cribbing idea. Thanks for the site!

 

Ok-- it's just that they tend to call the newer stuff engineered.

Thanks for the education, good info. I was thinking more along the lines of smaller pieces that you just toss down when you have a project.

Interesting story about the wood failure. I thought that the exterior glued stuff wasn't supposed to do that. I do know that the old (and now illegal here) green treated wouldn't. I don't know about the new 'safe' stuff.

hj

 

2 weeks ago here in Springfield a repair shop owner found a guy dead under a car in his parking lot. It appears the guy jacked up the car and used cinderblocks to slip under a steal the catylatic (sp) converter.
The car shift fell off the jack and crushed the cinderblocks.
I don't know how much cats go for for scrap, but apparently his life wasn't worth that much.

I used to use scrap glue lams as jack stand bases. they're somewhere around 2" thick x how ever tall they were usually we used anything from 12" tall to 20" tall x how ever long the scrap pieces were.
I unfortunatly left all my scrap pieces when I moved.

 

I have a pile of 6x6 cutoffs I use for my jackstands. They work good & will not crush like a cinderblock will. I stack them up to the height I need & screw 2x4s to each side to hold them in a solid unit. They are heavy & hard to put in place but they work.

 

Cinderblocks are mostly fly ash, hence the cinder in the name. They crumble if you look at the wrong, and by themselves are not designed to bear any kind of load. They are designed to have rebar dropped through the holes and then filled with concrete.

 

There is a distinct difference between actual CINDERblock like Ford_Six is describing, and CEMENTblock that is commonly seen today. I can't say I know too much about the differences, but I'd think that most, if not all, of what you find for sale these days is cement blocks and they look like normal cement with a fairly uniform surface. Cinder blocks are darker color and have a bumpier texture to them. I think cinder blocks are also lighter weight?
Cement is high in compressive strength, but can crack and crumble with no warning. This makes cement blocks unsuitable for jackstands.

Back when I had an apartment with an asphalt parking lot, I noticed that the corners of the jackstands would sink into the asphalt (asphalt is relatively soft, especially in the summer heat). I noticed that a brake rotor would fit nicely under the jackstand and distribute the weight over a larger surface. While a rotor might not have quite enough surface area because of the big 'hole' in the middle where the hub is, I would imagine it would be large enough that just a single layer of plywood is needed to keep the rotor from sinking into a dirt surface.

 

I use 3/4" plywood squares slightly larger than the jack stand base with good success.

 

I don't use jackstands even on concrete. I despise them and gave mine away along with my ramps many years ago except for one jackstand I welded into a steel rim. I haven't use it in years but it might come in handy.

I use rims with pressure-treated wood where shimming is useful, neither of which any pickup truck will crush. (Pressure-treated wood dipped in waste oil lasts even longer.)

Rims don't tip, work on sand and soft ground, and you can nest them for extra height where required. I used to use steel rims and still do sometimes, but aluminum rims are lighter and don't rust. You can push a car or truck over on jackstands. That ain't happening with rims.

You can also nest your vehicle wheels in rims providing both support and additional chocking effect against movement.

If theft is a hazard, use rusty steel rims instead of aluminum. Tire shops often discard bad steel rims and may give them to you.