is the sway bar a good place for 2 stands??? right where they are supported . dont forget e brake

Wow, you should submit that to that show " I Should'nt Be Alive"! lol

My cousins friend had his Mustang fall on his chest, he now has a scar from his shoulder to his hip.

Be safe guys.

drshirk in all honesty no, that is the pinch rail, you can use it but i wouldnt suggest it. if your whole car is on jack stands at the pinch rail and someone came over and leaned on the car with you under it, the pinch rails could bind enough to drop the car on you causing you to have a pretty bad day lol. if you are going to be putting the car on stands i suggest the sub frame, its easy to spot. the front runs right on the sides of the transmition, and in the rear is right before your lower control arms. happy lifting

I wouldnt use stands on the sway bar at all either, for the soul fact that they are round, and round things roll lol. and yes NEVER forget the e brake!

Thanks ZRO.

I will check that out and place them there. I might even get another set and leave the ones on the pinch rail and some on the sub frame. Just for extra safety. After reading this thread, it made me think about it more.

Always try to put them under a piece of the frame if possible, best place for them!


Im always wondering if my car is going to fall on me. I know theirs no way in hell i can get under it if its sitting on the ground, so if it ever fell i would be a goner.

I always use jackstands and blocks plus leave the jack in there just incase!

Okay I read the first dozen or so replies, not even going to bother reading the rest.....
Glad you're not hurt, but come on, jacking a car up and putting it on jackstands on GRASS is just freakin DUMB! i'm sorry, but you couldnt come up with something better? do it in the street? at least put some pieces of plywood under the jackstands or something?

Thank god your ok. I hate to say it and somebody probley will ridicule me, but when it comes to working under a camaro, i take it to the shop, they have lift, and yeah it cost for them to work under there but it safer. Cause i belive that camaros sit so close to the ground that any mistake could be your last. Other vechicles even if they did fall you can still wiggle out, but a camaro ... well i can fit but not very well. So for anything on the underside of the car it to the garage. i can do the rest though.

I think your post proves my point

just my

ya i was workin on my maro with a friend and he dropped the jack b4 i was completly out and the differential smacked me in the head knocked me out for half an hour and over the next week i lost about 7 hours of time just randomly saftey first guys or itll hurt you later

As I've always worked on rear wheel drive cars, I had an interesting experience with a Ford Taurus I owned for a while. I jacked up the front, took the wheel off to do the brakes on one side, went in the house to get something. When I came back out the left front rotor(and the rest of the left front) was lying on the pavement because, being a front wheel drive car, the rear wheels roll freely unless chocked or the parking brake is on. It was so low to the ground I needed to use the factory jack to jack it up to get the floor jack to raise it back up. Luckily, even though is crashed to the ground(slight, very slight incline), the only damage was a bent metal dust shield or whatever that dust shield looking thing was.

Oh, it also bent the floor jack. Jack still worked, but it was a bit wobbly. Last time I ever neglected to chock the wheels, put on the parking brake and use jack stands.

Thread may be a month old, but I figured this tidbit might save someone injury or car damage by making the mistake I did.

glad your ok thats the main thing

I have my '89 GTA on 2-ton jackstands right now and they're right under the lower a-arm joints where it connects to the cross member. Is this a safe place to put 'em?? Thanks!

I always make sure I use stands along with the jack. Pull the e-brake, and put small blocks both in front and back of a rear wheel.

agreed, i like to try to leave the jack in there too when possible but this is obviously not the case when doing headers and such.

if youre not on solid ground your jacks should be on solid wooden cribbing, 2x4's work good place them just a little spaced so theyre on either side of the jack, then if you need more height you can stack them in opposite directinos until theyre high enough.

As for jack points for the front the only two places i would ever put stands is on the engine k-member (if yours is dented up like mine its probably not the greatest place to put them.
i prefer above everything is on the a-arm, towards the outer side of the spring perch, jack stands fit perfectly in there.

and as a golden rule, every time before i get under the car once its up on stands. i go to both sides of the car and give it a good push, car shouldnt move too much. Figure if im going to be reefign on bolts thats about the same amount of force, and if its going to fall id rather it be before i get under the car.

Even on the concrete floor in the garage I put somthing under the jacks, and if I have the tires off THEY are under the frame as well - at least nearest to where I am working.

I jack mine up by the frame in the front and the pumpkin in the back. I have to lift my Trans Am up in stages, if I try to do it all in one go the back wheel on the same side I'm lifting comes off the ground too!

Glad your safe, hope it hasn't happened again since 2006

I'm pretty paranoid when it comes to working under my car. When I'm under the front end, I use two jack stands plus my jack positioned right in the middle just in case. I currently refuse to go under the rear end as I do not 100% trust my front brakes and if the thing rolled forward because I was trying to undo a bolt, well, that would suck. I'll probably have to use ramps or something for that.

I usually put my jackstands under the outer spring pockets when im working under the front, or if im taking the suspension off, i put them on the frame behind the engine and always leave my floorjack up on the k-member with just a slight amount of pressure on it, just for a little more "oh $#^#" protection, and in the rear i use the diff, LCA mount area, or axle LCA mount depending on what im doing and again always leave the floor jack up somewhere.

Also when jacking the rear of the car up by the diff, make sure the floorjack is centered of the diff, and possible overlapping the cover a bit so get a more secure connection, i had the car slide off the floor jack once when i was starting to jack the back up cause the cup on the jack was not seated well on the rear, it was kinda scary.

Dude you are so lucky
Glad you lived to tell about it!!

I had this happen to me, i was pulling myself out from underneath my car and just as i got in the clear the jackstand on that side of the car dropped about 2-3 notches and i probably would have been dead...anyways, since then the side i'm working on gets a jack stand AND a jack for added precautions.

BTW, I was wondering where are the proper life points on a Camaro? Im talking about setting it up on a lift not a jack or stands. Pretty soon I will be taking my Camaro to school to work on it, and we use lifts. Dont wanna mess up my car.

i think ths are decent plase for jack stands, also you can see blocks under the wheels if you looks closer. Can't get safer than that. and as far as lift points, upfront should be able to use the points where jacks are in the picture

Lol well for all those that said you are lucky or had a friend had it happen to him. It happened to me. It wasnt a camaro but it still hurt like a B****. 2-3 cracked ribs and almost tierods in my eyes and skull. The jack literally broke on me. I was fixing my grandmothers car in which she had no jackstands. I was underneath the car for 2 minutes before the jack broke. Pretty scary stuff. All over a alternator

You should go inward with those. The one in the back fits nicely inside of the control arm end or across where it mounts; up front you want them to be either inside of the A arm mount, or on the front subframe (what the trans crossmember bolts to but closer to the front). This is the safest way to have the car held up but as mentioned earlier go ahead and get out from under the car then rock it a bit and tap the stands at the base with a hammer to make sure they're secure and all 4 post are on the ground.

wow man your a lucky guy but my fear of that happening is what spawned these things if you havent done it you probably should all you need is a drill some plywood and a few tiestraps

I put the stands under the sub frame. I jack it up on the cross member, have had no problems, ever. (Touch wood)

PUT THEM ON THE SUB FRAME AND KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE SIDES OF THE CAR.THE LIP COULD CRUSH IN AND RUIN YOUR GROUND AFFECTS

My question is why in the hell would you work on your car in the grass over gravel?

Another point to avoid is not to put blocks of wood between the jackstand and the subframe,etc. Wood and oil, grease don't mix-very slippery. I have ramps and stands. The only problem with the ramps is I have to put a 2 x 12 in front of the ramps so the ground efx won't push them as I drive up them. After getting on the ramps, put the stands under the car in case the ramps give out.

having tiny rocks gabbing you in the back isnt so comfortable lol.
grass is like a bed when working under the car lol so soft i rather work on some grass then gravel. but have some wood under them stands tho. i normaly put blocks under the tires as well just in case. and even i pull the E-break and also put a block in front and behind the wheel so it doesnt roll forward or back.

I am usually a pretty safe person, paranoid from all the pot i smoked in high school maybe the acid too, haha (j/k)

craziest thing i ever did, cut the gas tank straps off my S10 blazer in a very small 1 car garage while the truck was backed in and i had to be laying under it while i did it, i left the gas in the tank and everything to do with the tank sealed up, gas cap, fuel lines, etc.

craziest thing that almost did me in, i was doing an engine swap on my daily driver, a 90 nissan pick up truck

friend was operating the chain fall, engine and tranny were bolted together and we were sliding them into the drive tunnel, truck was on two jack stands in the front, we had a rotating boom type setup for the chain fall so it was accessable anywhere in the shop.. he was lowering the motor down and i was under the vehicle to get the tranny up over the transmission cross member

anyway, motor got hung up on the exhaust, or exhaust got hung up on the motor, whichever way you wanna look at it, i got the U bolt for the slip on cat right in the chest as the chain fall's chain loosened and dropped the motor about 5 inches before my two friends literally grabbed the motor to stop the tension on the chain fall, they were able to start winding the motor back up, which in turn tightens the wheel inside the chain fall, which had loosened from the downward operation of the chain fall

scary f***in situation at the time, always make sure you have your shop equipment in good order, most people would never check tension with a torque wrench of the chain drive wheel of their chain fall, but its just another thing

safety first, and even then, assume that something bad could happen. like we do in electrical, assume everything is live.

I have a flat concrete driveway and garage so I dont have to worry about that, but my uncle has a gravel driveway and garage. He just lays out a couple 6'x10' or 4'x10' (whatever they come in) 1" thick sheets of plywood and drives his car onto them. Provides a flat surface for the jacks to sit on and it is easier to slid around on than the gravel.

that does NOT look safe at all to me.

I'd also add never jack a car up on grass or put a car on jackstands on grass.. thats just asking for trouble.. kinda common sense but since someone actually did it I thought I'd put it out there.

Lucky sob! I agree with above tho, not the smartest thing to be doing it in the grass. Gravel would have been way better.

i know a few people this happened to but they weren't under the car at the time. At ome i do the stand and use the jack as back up I'm a f*** tech and a couple of weeks ago we had a brand new 08 f-350 duallie fall off the rack as the assistant was going from one side to the other he made it just in time. Imagine a 9000lb truck falling about 6 feet! dude was shaking and stuff but happy he was lucky.

Yesterday my buddy was working on his cummins diesel and he was gonna do the clutch. He had the front wheels already on the ramps, but he jacked it up and put the ramps facing the OTHER WAY. So basically the truck would have to roll forward to come off the ramps. He then put a wheel chock in front of the tires on the ramps, so it couldnt roll forward. Also the e-brake was on, the truck was in 4-wheel, and in 2nd gear.

He was jacking the rear end up by the axle tubes with 2 floor jacks because its heavy. The minute the rear tires left the ground, the truck started rolling backwards. It hopped off the WRONG SIDE of the ramps and spit them out forwards. It then proceded to push the floor jack handles through the garage door! He slid out from under the truck and got in and hit the brakes to stop it from crushing another kid between the garage door and the bumper.

First off, Thank god your ok, second you f****** dum ***. on grass?

good spots for stands,
1. on the front sway bar, one on each side were the bar is flat
2. on the rear alxe, on on each side.
optional locations, as shown above, but I wouldn't recommend this it can bend thing up.

And shake the car, if your afraid it mite fall if you shake it, do you really want to climb under it and start wrenching?

anyone else have good locations?