I am too, so do you push it on and off the ramps? Sounds like too much for these 54 year old bones.

Off the topic: does your user ID refer to the Fiat 124? My first car, and my last convertible before the S2k, was the 124's less expensive sister, the Fiat 850. It was a real piece of junk, but fun to drive as long as the sun was out and you didn't go over 60!

 

Yes; my first car (in 1975) was a well-used 1969 124 Spider. A piece of junk, but a lot of fun to drive. That one died eventually, and I bought (in 1983) a 1978 124 Spider; also mechanically garbage but fun to drive.

Anyway, I use jackstands, so I don't have to deal with running the car without any oil in it. Pushing a little car off the ramp is easy; pushing it back on would be a trick. I have installed a Fumoto Valve, so that I don't even have to do that (it appears that I can reach through the engine compartment to open and close the valve.

 

[QUOTE=A4gsr,Sep 10 2004, 06:34 AM] So, this photo from the "How-To Oil Change" on S2Ki is wrong?

 

Am I the only one that does this?

Jack up the rear-right point, then place a jack stand in front-right point. You're lifting the entire side of the car (2 wheels).

No ramps necessary.

 

That picture is wrong. The metal tab under x-viper's jack is soft, and will bend if you jack up at that point. Ask me how I know..

 

I beg to differ--this is not proper procedure. In that picture, the jack is not in a designated place, the jackstand is. What prompted my starting this thread was that, upon reading the owners manual and then the shop manual, I discovered that what appears to be a jack point just aft of the front wheels is not one. The approved jack point is just behind that place. There is no "approved" way to place four jackstands without using the differential as a jack point (it is an approved jack point, as well as a point under the engine in the middle).

 

You are correct that, for changing the oil, jacking up the car from just in front of the real wheel will allow you to put a jackstand under the front side jack point. My original post was in regard to how to put four jackstands in place at once, since there was no place where one could put a jack next to a jackstand.

 

spot on!

 

124Spider,

I actually use the same method to get the car on 4 stands:

1. jack up rear right; place jackstand under front right
2. jack up front center (going under front bumper); place jackstand under front left
3. jack up diff; place jackstands under rear left & rear right

#2 might seem slightly unorthodox jacking up a tilted car, but I've personally had no problems and the tilt is very slight.

hth.

 

That will work. I have a question--I can barely get my jack to lift under the differential, with the front tires on the ground. I am concerned that, if I have the front end up on jackstands, I won't be able to get the jack under the differential, bacause the bumper will have tilted down and gotten in the way of the little play I had in the jack handle. Do you have any trouble doing that?