For some time I have been using one of the cheap hydraulic jacks. you know the sort, around £17, and they work but....... I am fed up, I can only get my axle stands up to the first notch which doesn't give a lot of room underneath the car to work. Trying to increase the height with blocks of wood, nah, not very safe, it wobbles
.
So I did the decent thing and got one of these :
As you can see, it goes a good 4" higher, so I can get the car up to the 2nd or 3rd pin hole, so a lot better working room. It cost £30 plus £10 postage but its a lot more solid than the smaller one.
However, one downside. Being able to jack up so far means you will pay more attention to the underside. I knew I had a small hole in the bottom of the exhaust pipe so thought I would patch it. However when jacked up, I noticed the large holes on the top of the pipe. And also one of the rear springs had broken.
OK, so I need a new middle and rear exhaust, and a pair of springs. I found a small motorist shop who could get the parts, cash changed hands (its bradford of course !).
The springs were easy to fit, I followed the maintenance guide and it was a piece of cake, drop the diff and the springs pop out. The exhaust however .......
You have probably all watched exhaust centres doing it, undo a couple of bolts, the exhaust drops off, fit the new exhaust tighten up a couple of bolts and thats it.
Well it doesn't really happen like that. I got under the car, WD40 on the bolts, applied the socket and turned. Both bolts sheared.
I then had to saw off the section of bolt that stuck out of the Cat section, by hand, which took ages. I then drilled out the section left. Well tried to drill out, I recon the metal must have hardened cause my HSS drills didn't like this one bit. So get the Missus car and go to Screwfix and buy a load of supposedly tough drills and continue. I managed to get the remains of the bolts out saving most of the threads. Now to fit the new exhaust. I was assured by the very nice man who took my money that it would fit. Well it didn't, the angle of the pipe to the cat section was wrong and the LHS box hanger was too low. Also the hanger was about 1/2" dia rod , welded onto the box, so I wouldn't be able to bend it into shape without destroying the box. After a bit of fiddling I realised it wouldn't fit, so took it back. He was a bit difficult, but I mentioned I would need a refund, and he changed his tune. A different exhaust was ordered and I tried it. The LH box was still too high, but the hanger was thinner and could be easily bent, plus the pipe ligned up straight with the cat section. So I modified the hanger applied some goo (sealant !) and fitted it. It took a while to get it to hang properly and not bang against the body but I got there in the end.
Mr Kwikfit wanted £290 to fit it, it cost £110 from the shop, and I have seen it on fleabay for £75 ish. So what I saved more than paid for the new jack.
Ken
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Topic: a reasonable Deal (Read 1213 times)