What do we like for jack pinchweld pads

Just like the title asks, what do you guys use for protecting the picnhweld of your cars when jacking them up?

ive mostly had older(sub 2000's) or full frame cars/trucks so I'd use either the frame or the subframe so I won't fubar the pinchwelds. Now that my wife and my daily drives are less then 10 years old and sit low(2012 civic SI and 2014 challenger RT) I need a way to jack them on the pinchweld where the factory wants as it's a struggle to get a jack any where else. 
 

I bought a generic jack pad on amazon but it doesn't really fit well so before I cut it up to make it work I'm curious on what you guys use. 
 

thanks in advance and sorry for the long post on a simple subject. 

Hockey puck on the jack.

Edit:  I assume you are using a standard  full sized floor jack?  A bottle jack or even one of the small floor jacks this would not work.  A hockey puck fits in perfectly in to the cup in my full sized floor jack.

Hockey puck and cut a slot in it. 

I have been using the FM pinch weld bracket for years and it works very well.

And then they changed it. *GASP* I am sure the new style works as well.

Scott

Sounds like just cutting the one I got to fit better is the plan. I was going to do the hockey puck thing but with the whole social distancing thing at stores I figured if I was going to order something online that I might get something I wouldn't have to cut but that didn't work out. 
 

noddaz said:

I have been using the FM pinch weld bracket for years and it works very well.

And then they changed it. *GASP* I am sure the new style works as well.

Scott

:D

The new one is non-marring and can handle different widths of pinch welds. Everything you liked about the old one plus some new tricks :)

noddaz said:

I have been using the FM pinch weld bracket for years and it works very well.

And then they changed it. *GASP* I am sure the new style works as well.

Scott

Same. I've found that pinch welds on newer cars tend to be taller such that it's still jacking from the pinch weld itself and not the chassis around it, but it seems to work and not be terribly hard on anything.

The new design has deeper slots in it for this reason.

I always hate lifting a car by the pinchweld. Its the first thing to fail in a rusty northern car, so anything more than 6 years old...

In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :

Living in Pa most of my life I've always shy'd away from doing it but with new cars and all the plastic rocker covers, engine belly pans and IRS I'm not left with much choice until I hit the lotto and get a garage and a lift. 

Hockey puck is the answer here.

rattfink81 said:

In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :

I'm not left with much choice until I hit the lotto and get a garage and a lift. 

At which point you still have to lift it from the pinch welds, because that's the only thing available. So I guess the only choice is to buy german cars since they don't rust as quickly if at all and most have real jacking points.

Amazon or eBay aluminum jack pads, fit over the pinch welds, done.

I also use the FM jack adapter (the new one!) on my Miata and the fiancee's Milan. Worked great on both. 

Not to threadjack, but... Any clever answers for pinch weld adapters for jack stands?

In reply to dps214 :

I've owned a dozen plus German cars(beetles, mk1,mk2, mk6 Vw's, e30's, e28, e21, 2002tii) and they seem to just rust in different places then their American or Asian counterparts. 

Ransom (Forum Supporter) said:

Not to threadjack, but... Any clever answers for pinch weld adapters for jack stands?

We actually had some prototypes of a doodad that would slip on top of a jack stand and provide support. The problem was that jack stands are not terribly standardized.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Could 3d printed ABS hold up between a stand and car?

When my wife had her NC, I fastened together a pair of 2x8 wheel ramps made of two boards, a two foot long base and a one foot long step up.  Allowed me to drive up on them and was tall enough that it let me get underneath to a better jacking point than the pinch weld.  Short enough that if I drove over them completely there wouldn't be any damage to the car or any other issues.

I think I still have them in the garage somewhere.  I should probably get rid of them, she hasn't had the car for the better part of a decade.

Mr_Asa said:

When my wife had her NC, I fastened together a pair of 2x8 wheel ramps made of two boards, a two foot long base and a one foot long step up.  Allowed me to drive up on them and was tall enough that it let me get underneath to a better jacking point than the pinch weld.  Short enough that if I drove over them completely there wouldn't be any damage to the car or any other issues.

I think I still have them in the garage somewhere.  I should probably get rid of them, she hasn't had the car for the better part of a decade.

We did that at FM, had a couple of boards on the floor under the wheel position for putting low cars on the lift. They were attached with a pin that went into a hole in the concrete so you could remove them. No step-up, driving up on a 1.5" tall board was never a problem.

RevRico, I don't know. Probably if you were supporting on the sill and not the pinch weld so you wouldn't have the point load.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Sorry, may not have been clear, two foot section of 2x8, then a one foot section of 2x8.  Gave 3" of lift total.  Probably didn't need the extra step up, but IIRC I had just gotten my chop saw and was itching to use it.

I'm curious what yall are trying to prevent here? Other than the paint on the bottom of the rail cracking wherever the jack touches it, the pinch weld usually doesn't bend or fail in any other way IF everything else is right. The ways I've seen that are pretty guaranteed to damage it are if you're jacking it up on a surface a floor jack can't roll on (which pulls the rail sideways with the jack) or if you pick one side of the car up so high that the angle from the jack to the pinch weld is bad enough for just the weight of the car to bend it. 

I have a gravel lot where I park/work on my cars so the jack doesn't really roll. which as you said can lead to the pinchweld being pulled and damaged. 
 

and yeah I usually use some thick wide boards to drive up on before jacking the cars up but like I said these new cars have plastic every where underneath these days. 

Vigo (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm curious what yall are trying to prevent here? Other than the paint on the bottom of the rail cracking wherever the jack touches it, the pinch weld usually doesn't bend or fail in any other way IF everything else is right. The ways I've seen that are pretty guaranteed to damage it are if you're jacking it up on a surface a floor jack can't roll on (which pulls the rail sideways with the jack) or if you pick one side of the car up so high that the angle from the jack to the pinch weld is bad enough for just the weight of the car to bend it. 

Avoiding chewing up the pinch rail with a cupped jack pad on a floor jack.  

This is a huge pet peeve of mine on most used cars I've owned -- there's always several places underneath where the pinch welds are chewed or the floor is bent, where someone with no mechanical sympathy has been underneath it.  

I love the BMW on-board plastic jacking points.  If they get chewed up, pop them off and replace them.  

More contact area than just the outer rim of the jack pad, and the extra security that if something does go wrong the pinch weld can bend a little but not get totally destroyed (in my situation where the pinch weld is slightly taller than the jack adapter). Also I have cheap HF jacks and a kinda beat up concrete floor, so smooth rolling isn't always a guarantee.