lifting car, lengthy

[Dave Pisciotta]

Hello all,
    I have bounced this question around on the 20V list, but figured I'd see 
if the mother list had any collective wisdom to add.  I am by no means a 
rank novice when it comes to shade-tree wrenching, but with my 90'CQ, one of 
the most rudimentary tasks always seems to give me the most trouble.  To 
give some background, when I purchased the car, it has some rather apparent 
rocker panel damage from the p/o, a mechanically inept friend of mine, 
trying to jack the car up, under these hollow panels witha 2 x 4 and a floor 
jack.  I figured, it was merely his incompetance and that this wouldn't 
present a problem to me.
    However, I was wrong.  As far as I can tell the only reinforced area is 
the pinch weld, and the area immediately surrounding it.  The problem is, 
the pinch weld does not lend itself too well to the saddle of most floor 
jacks, or even most jack stands.  To summarize, the vertical member created 
by the pinch weld merely folds over, under load.  My solution often times 
has been to use the factory jack, similar to that which comes with all the 
unit-body cars and has the lip to cradle either side of the fold.  However, 
I don't feel comfortable usind this jack for service duty, especially 
considering the cq's affinity for being serviced.
    Furthermore, it seems both precarious and inconvenient to lift the car 
one side at a time.  My experience with other cars has alway been that there 
is some sort of reinforcement located in the center of the car at both the 
front and rear, whether it be a solid axle, or a frame support, where one 
can simply roll a floor jack and voila that end is in the air and ready for 
jack stands.
    My question is, those of you who are professional wrenches, or just 
accomplished shade-tree mechanics, what is the best way to lift these cars 
without a 4 point lift?  How do you overcome the incompatibility of the 
factory lift points, and a normal jack saddle?  Can the subframe be used as 
a central lift point, as some people have suggested to me?  Is it 
detrimental to lift one corner of the car, stand it, then the other....ie, 
is the torsion detrimental to the integrity of the body?
     My temporary fix has been to contive an adaptor for the pinch welds.  I 
did this by taking some 1 inch square steel tubing, and ripping about 1/4 
inch from the middle with a carborundum blade.  This creates a slot which 
fits over the pinch weld, and cradles it.  This solution is not perfect, and 
I'm still searching for something better.  Your help would be appreciated.  
P.S. Does anyone have any experience fixing the hollow rocker panels on 
these cars?  Are these structural components?


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