I want to jack up the front and the cross member is a very appealing spot. Is it possible? I read that placing the floor jack directly in the center there may cause bending so better to distribute the load a bit by increasing the contact area between crossmember and floor jack.
Best place is under the front subframe just behind the firewall mounts. Yes, you will have a good chance of "caving in" the center subframe cross member if your vehicle is totally intact (not partially dismantled).
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Best place is under the front subframe just behind the firewall mounts. Yes, you will have a good chance of "caving in" the center subframe cross member if your vehicle is totally intact (not partially dismantled).
If you have a hoist then use the recommended lift points. It's not realistic to use the front list point on the side of the car with a jack. Most situations you want the entire front end jacked up. Lifting on one side then the other is dangerous and guys won't have the room in their garage to jack up from the side of the car.
You can lift the car with a trolley jack without damaging the frame if you lift at the small cross member. See attached pic. The jack lift disk locks in place there and it's centered so you get both sides up in the area fairly quickly. No extra jacking because the shock stay compressed.
You can lift the back end in the same way (centered on rear diff). Place jack under the diff and it will come up nicely.
WARNING: Be careful jacking your car up on both the front end and the back end. If say you first jack up the front end, put on jack stands and then jack up the back end the car could move backwards and fall off the front stands. The car and/or jack need to be able to move when you jack up the car. I drove my bird up on steel ramps. Then I jacked up the car on the back end. The car rolled back off the ramps and pushed the garage door out about a foot. I got out of the way just in time.
Good luck!
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Sorry, yet another (dumb) question. But better to ask one too much than making a preventable mistake. In the underside view ... which is the meant location - red or green or in between? Actually, I would have thought the green but there is a curve that might cause the jack to slip.
I jack mine up just aft of the red line. Yes it is caved in there from all the jacking, was when I bought it. My engine is out now, before I reinstall I'm going to weld a 1/4" plate on the bottom of the cross member with a couple of lips to grab the jack. I've had the car on jacks about 50 times, I'm hoping if I go overboard preparing a jack point I wont have to use it.