Axle stands

[Bob Culver]

In using stands, especially for light vehicles, the type with a flat base is more covenient than the pyramid base. Gives more room to lie and less obstructive of trolley jacks etc.

(Decades ago before equipment was very cheap as today, I cut up several back axles to make stands!)

[Tony Griffiths]

Safety neurosis writ large: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW4L2SfsatQ
....and the dedicated (if long-winded) test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7_Aa8pbM7Y = don't crawl under your car and hit the release lever with a large hammer.

[Chris KC]

Thanks for wasting 12 minutes of my life 'Garage Geek'! He could have just stuck it under something heavy...

I'm not sure how meaningful that test is but on the other hand an A7 special may be more like 250lb/corner.

Bottom line for me is the chances of either failing is very small, but there's more to fail on a ratchet than there is on the old-fashioned pin type.

[Tony Press]

there's more to fail on a ratchet than there is on the old-fashioned pin type. 

????

Surely it more depends on careful placement and setting up the stand- I would think that both could be unsafe in incompetent hands.

Most recent use seems to show the ratchet stand is safe and surely our friendly elfin safety would clamp down if not.

[Chris KC]

I don't disagree Tony, we're in hair-splitting territory here. However in the course of my day job I have known ratchets to fail, mainly due to manufacturing defects. We're talking perhaps one in a million. I'm just glad I'm not the 'one'.

[Austin Carr]

I don't disagree Tony, we're in hair-splitting territory here. However in the course of my day job I have known ratchets to fail, mainly due to manufacturing defects. We're talking perhaps one in a million. I'm just glad I'm not the 'one'.

Still safer than a stack of Thermalite blocks or house bricks that some people seem to think are sensible to use.

[Chris Garner]

I seem to remember in a Morris Motors Operating Manual for the Morris Minor ( pre war ) it shows the raised front axle of the car supported by a couple of bricks !

[Mike Costigan]

Morris always did do things on the cheap 

[Zetomagneto]

Bricks were all we could afford when I was a boy, better than nothing,and safe as houses, oh yes they build houses out of bricks don't they?

[Duncan Grimmond]

Bricks? Safe as houses for supporting an axle? No way!
They are great with a spread load but a point load will crack a brick in half as easy as nowt! Have you ever watched a brickie at work? One tap on a flaw line with a brick hammer and it will fall in half.
I'm old enough to remember the advisory notices in motor magazines of the 1960's and the occasional ad on TV to the same effect.