Anthony Green wrote:
>
> 3. I was going to top up the gearbox oil myself and crawled under the
> car for the first time. I had the front up on safety stands. It took
> me a minute to find the plug, and boy is it ever tricky to get to. I
> didn't feel very comfortable lying underneath the car, so I bailed out
> and am getting the mechanic on the corner to do the job. :-) I'd like
> to feel comfortable doing this job myself. Are ramps safer than
> stands? Are there any tricks that make this job easy?
>
Anthony:
Ramps are okay, pretty safe as long as you're working on a concrete
floor and they can't sink.. I just hate having to pull the car up on
'em. I've "gone too far" and had the car fall off the far side, forcing
me to have to jack the damned thing up anyway to pull the ramps out!
When I first started working on cars I had some apprehension about
getting under a car, but have learned that a car that's properly placed
on jackstands is usually *much* more stable than you might think. I've
got 4 really heavy duty stands (no cheap stuff when my head is
underneath it!!) and a good floor jack, which I usually leave under the
car after I set it down on the stands as a safety measure. Even then,
I'll give the car a couple of really hard shoves to check stability
before climbing under, and have never had any problem...
Regarding transmission access, did you know that the transmission tunnel
comes out of the car? I'm not sure if you'll need to do this to get to
the fill hole, but it sure is a nice way to work on the trans. I have a
picture on my web-site with the interior gutted out of my Spit, and you
can see how the trans is right there for you. Its at
http://www.jacksonville.se.mediaone.net/~suchak/rust.htm
John
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