Guide; Jacking and Support

[Dum-Dum]

Jacking and Support Guide.

Jacking up and supporting your 306 is the most important part of working on your 306. If it falls off then not only could you do a lot of damage to the car but also to yourself, it could even prove fatal.

To start off with you need a decent trolley jack and axle stands, the £30 Halfords / Argos / Lidl set is sufficient to start off with. I use an £80 Sealey low entry trolley jack to make it easy to get under a lowered car and Halfords 3tonne non folding axle stands. Donâ??t think you can manage with the emergency jack in the boot and a stack of bricks and blocks of wood, do this and you are asking for a trip to A&E. I have seen a car slip off a jack and the force of it falling just 6â? was enough for the jack to punch a hole straight through the floor of the car.



The basic principal is;
1, get the car on flat and relatively smooth ground (not a sloping gravel driveway).
2, Chock a wheel to stop it rolling away and/or put it in gear with the hand brake on
3, Put the jack under a suitable jacking point
4, Jack the car up.
5, Set axle stands to suitable height and place under a suitable supporting point.
6, Lower the car very slowly ensuring the stands are definitely in the right place until the car is on the stands and not the jack.

Lowering the car again is pretty much the opposite;
1, Jack the car up so itâ??s just off the stands
2, Remove stands.
3, Lower car gently to the ground
4, Remove wheel chocks


This is what you need






There are 4 specially strengthened jacking points on the sills of the car that Peugeot put there for you to jack the car up with. Theyâ??re just behind the front wheels or just in front of the rear wheels and look like this.






But if your jacking up on the jacking points where are you going to put the axle stands? Well the usual places people use are the front sub frame where it bolts to the car each side and the rear trailing arms where the damper mounts on them.







You can jack up on the supporting points and support the car on stands on the jacking points if you need or want depending on the job your doing. Special care should be taken when jacking up the rear of the car to make sure the jack doesnâ??t hit the fuel tank as it moves

The middle of the rear beam and the middle of the front sub frame are also strong enough and suitable for jacking up.

[kingy]

thanks for the guide chris and with decent pics. nice one.

[ginge191]

Chris, i bought the same jack and i jackedd my car up, now this is hard to explain.

In the middle of the white round plate on the end of the jack, theres another small, sticking out circle which grinds as i jack up the car. im jacking from the side jacking points...

Im assuming you may have experienced a similar issue?

[Eeyore]

I bought those axle stands the other week. Good to know I'm doing it right. I jacked up on the trailing arm/shock area and then supported it on the jacking points. Meant there was more room for changing the exhaust.

[Dum-Dum]

Ginge, No issue for me.

[306Puggy]

Nice guide, but your axle stands have a flat cup, mine have a semi circular cup.

[cully]

Nice guide, but your axle stands have a flat cup, mine have a semi circular cup.

and mine are cast steal can i still use them i bought the wrong ones

   

[Dum-Dum]

Puggy pic?

[306Puggy]

Dum-Dum, pic:

[Piggy]

holy crap....not the tie down loop again!

those stand tops look identical to dumdums!

dont mean to be awkward DumDum but it really concerns me that people jack the rear in the centre of the beam/axle

[Dum-Dum]

Puggy thats shady as f*ck, them tie down eyes are shit, they bend left to right really easily, A slight push and they'll fold dropping the car. The fact that I consider putting the stands under them a bit pikey should tell you alot.


Piggy Peugeot say its safe to jack by the beam, they designed it as a jacking point for their mechanics. Apparently its in the workshop book for the 306.

[cully]

and autodata says

   

[Dum-Dum]

Cheers Cully, thats a really useful pic. Repped

[Piggy]

fair enough DD....

its from Ford rallying tech days, with the horror stories of festa rear beams bending coz of centre jacking.

[Dum-Dum]

You forget, thats a ford. This is Peugeot a marque of quality lol.

Its like swirl flaps, they fall off on BMWs and kill the engine. The fall off peugeots too but nobody notices cos Peugeot, knowing that they are shit, made the swirl flaps big enough they couldn't fall into the engine.

[Piggy]

ford also suggest in fiesta manual to jack up front under the rad support bar....

big fail

[Dum-Dum]

f*ck that.

[Piggy]

f*ck that.

yup, it did.

poor young lad came in with busted rad...we giggled. felt sorry for him though, the fiesta manual clearly showed it as a jacking point

[pugjohn306]

Ohhh jacking up on paving slabs you know they can break under the weight of the car causing the car to shift and fall off axel stands lol.....

[cpikey316_]

I have a tarmaced driveway and the weight of the car forces the jack into it, leaving lovely little grooves

I have to support the jack on cardboard before I jack the car up now....
Not like this was done by Pikeys either, Its a 1 year old drive done by Taylor Wimpey!

[puglove]

I have a tarmaced driveway and the weight of the car forces the jack into it, leaving lovely little grooves

I have to support the jack on cardboard before I jack the car up now....
Not like this was done by Pikeys either, Its a 1 year old drive done by Taylor Wimpey!

so its a professional pikey job then ...............

[306Puggy]

This is from the passenger's side of the car:



Is it what you were describing Dum-Dum?

[Piggy]

cant see what you trying to show us...but dont put your axle stand there for goodness sake

[306Puggy]

Yeah I was trying to show you the placement of the axle stand, yes. The trouble is if I need to get underneath the car and I use the subframe there is no space in between the axle stands for me to fit. So the sill is not a good place to put the axle stands then?

[Piggy]

jack it where you have and put axle stands on rear lip on subframe

[Poodle]

Definitely better off using axle stands under the sill jacking points, as 306puggy says it'll give you a wider footprint, ie more stable so there's less chance of being able to tip the car over, and better access underneath. Would only put stands under subframe mounting points if I didn't have any other option myself, but there's nothing wrong with doing it if you're not going to be putrting a lot of force on anything.

If i'm being picky you shouldn't put axle stands under the rear shocks like that, for the same reason you shouldn't support the car on the wishbones - it's a suspended item, therefore the car can still move and is not secure. Putting stands under the beam itself would be better, although still not ideal.

[306Puggy]

These cars seem to be quite lacking in suitable jacking points! This is how I currently have the stand under the subframe:

   

It keeps the whole front end off the ground, which is not ideal really. Also if you need to get underneath then this will put a stop to that. Put if I jack the car up on the sills then I can't get axle stands on the sills...seems like you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

No doubt piggy is going to shout at me for "not listening to what people say" again, when there is so much different opinions being spouted that it is hard to filter out the wheat from the chaff! Edit: I'm not quite sure where the "rear lip" of the subframe actually is! Edit: Is it this?



Trouble is my axle stands have a different "cup" to Dum-Dum's versions.

[Seb_Ryan]

Puggy.. CHASSIS LEGS lol.. much better with the axle stands you have.

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Did I mention CHASSIS LEGS? Oh well have now

[Niall]

Oh dear god that is dangerous and where is the 2nd stand? If your going to support it using the subframe, put the stand under the rear mounting bolt (so the bolt sits in the bottom of the U shaped bit of your stands). Never EVER put one stand in the middle of the car. Always a minimum of two equally positioned so the weight is evenly distributed /dumdum

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Puggy.. CHASSIS LEGS lol.. much better with the axle stands you have.

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Did I mention CHASSIS LEGS? Oh well have now

No no NO! Do not put stands under the chassis legs because they will split, cave the floor in and allow for chronic rust. Im talking from experience unfortunately

[306Puggy]

Damn, seems that everything I try to do is extremely dangerous lol! If only the sill jacking point was longer we wouldn't have these problems. Good advice on the rear mounting bolt, I will try that but I think the "cup" of my stands might be too deep and it might just end up resting on the edges of the stand cup which would also be dangerous Edit: That stand was not intended to be a "middle" stand, I didn't realise it would hold the whole front of the car up.