The white and red car below is a really nice one, here for a five speed conversion. We were surprised this week to find it was not immune to the crossmember virus (perhaps we parked it next to another Bugeye with similar damage?). Anyway, please take extra care to protect your crossmember during this critical time.
The front cross member is hollow and the steel will cave in, as shown below, if you floor jack from this portion of the front frame of your car:
The longitudinal stringers are very strong, and you can jack anywhere on these as shown below. These continue out to the bumper mounts on the front of the car. Just follow the bumper mounts if you need a guide.
You should always use an appropriate pad on your floor jack before lifting your Sprite, no matter where you place the jack. The car shown here is a really nice car up top. We were somewhat shocked to see how much damage had been done by the floor jack underneath. You have to look closely to see the the center cross member is now concave, but you should also be able to see that the metal teeth on the top of the disk of the floor jack have scratched the sheet metal. A pad would have softened the impact. Make sure your jack has a plastic disk or a soft pad before it contacts your car.
Practice good jack hygiene. Let’s protect our fleet and make sure we have no new cases!
