I have been looking at sill adapters for a trolley jack and all seem to take the weight directly on the bottom of the sill edged have a flat top, however, looking at the standard jack supplied it looks as if the weight is taken just behind and in front of the sill, with the sill edge just creating a location point so the jack doesn't slip!

Many people say you can jack directly on the edge of the strengthened sill, which I can't quite get my head around.

After hours of searching I finally came across a powerflex sill adapter pad, which seems to confirm my theory that the weight is taken just behind and in front of the sill and is stepped higher at the inner side and lower at the outer side to properly locate and take the weight away from the sill edge itself.

Although the sill is strengthened at the jacking points, I think the strengthened section extends behind and in front of the actual sill itself, where the weight should be taken.

Jacking the car with the weight on the thin edge of the sill, even though it says "strengthened" fills me with horror, has anybody else thought about this and been through the same thought process?

 

Paul

 

5 minutes ago, Snike said:

I have been looking at sill adapters for a trolley jack and all seem to take the weight directly on the bottom of the sill edged have a flat top, however, looking at the standard jack supplied it looks as if the weight is taken just behind and in front of the sill, with the sill edge just creating a location point so the jack doesn't slip!

Many people say you can jack directly on the edge of the strengthened sill, which I can't quite get my head around.

After hours of searching I finally came across a powerflex sill adapter pad, which seems to confirm my theory that the weight is taken just behind and in front of the sill and is stepped higher at the inner side and lower at the outer side to properly locate and take the weight away from the sill edge itself.

Although the sill is strengthened at the jacking points, I think the strengthened section extends behind and in front of the actual sill itself, where the weight should be taken.

Jacking the car with the weight on the thin edge of the sill, even though it says "strengthened" fills me with horror, has anybody else thought about this and been through the same thought process?

 

Paul

 

This should have been in the Octavia section but we have a Fabia as well and I guess the same comments apply.

 

Paul

I've always made sure that I've fabricated trolley jack adaptors so that the car's weight ends up on both these flat sections and never on the folded edge, it just makes good sense to me, and yes frequently the front and rear load baring areas are at slightly differing heights.

 

Others might disagree with us but that is okay.

7 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

I've always made sure that I've fabricated trolley jack adaptors so that the car's weight ends up on both these flat sections and never on the folded edge, it just makes good sense to me, and yes frequently the front and rear load baring areas are at slightly differing heights.

 

Others might disagree with us but that is okay.

Good to hear I am not the only person with this theory, do you have any photos of the ones you have fabricated?

Paul

If you look at the factory supplied jack, you will notice the part that lifts is a u section with rolled out flat parts at the top of the u at slightly different heights. Its also articulated to allow the lifting part to take up the correct position either side of the lip when jacking.

Well, my lifting kit is slightly more than a couple of trolley jacks, I needed to buy something that would allow me to lift originally only my car as it is covered in stiff plastic sections underneath, so jacking at another few points, maybe 4 points around the car was not an option, so I knew the easy way out was to jack at the 4 sill lifting points, using 2 trolley jacks and lifting up one side at a time and placing jack stands under 2 points at a time!  I bought 2 pairs of Jackpoint jack stands, they are made up of a top plate - that I place on to the lifting pad of a trolley jack, and a sort of stool part that the top plate locates into, freeing up the trolley jacks to repeat the same on the other side. They give about an extra 14" under the sills so all the wheels end up clear of the ground/floor.

 

The top plates have a roughly 4" raised section that has a 1/2" slot in it that is roughly 3/4" deep - so if I had just used them "as is" I'd be back to lifting essentially from the base of the folded lips, so to maximise the lift height when using them and to spread the load out along more of the lifting areas, I cut 4 pieces of 4" X 2" roughly 7" long, cut out a hole to clear the raised part of these alloy top plates, and bonded them to each of the 4 top plates, and then stuck and screwed bits of maybe 1/4" rubber on top of each side of the slot and lined the slots with thinner rubber.  This worked for my 2011 S4 as both the inner and outer load bearing areas are the same "height" and there is plenty space "outside" this area so nothing else is touching the car's body.  When it came to using this on my wife's 2015 Polo, I found that as it "sits" a lot higher than the S4, I needed to fabricate an adaptor to find some more height, and also the issue with the outer and inner low bearing surfaces being a different height, so again I used something like 4" X 1" with strips of a suitable height and width for the areas where the adaptors connect with the car, and again added similar rubber to the top surface areas. To keep these top adaptors stable enough on top of the adapted top plates I secured strips of steel on each of the inner and outer faces.  This works quite well only as long as I make sure that the trolley jacks are in the best end position so that the adaptors all end up fully seated one on top of the other and in full contact with the car body sill areas once both sides have been jacked up.

 

You will hopefully have less of a problem making them safe as you will get away with using only one adaptor as the lifting span of trolley jacks will take care of any differences between the ride height of Fabia and Octavia.  Only one thing and that will be to end up with adaptors that fit both cars wrt the top profile, I don't think that the 2015 Polo ones quite match the underside of my daughter's 2019 Leon Cupra, but given time I'm sure that her man will come up with his own version of lifting gear as he has an old Lotus Esprit GT that needs lifting up and I don't think I'm willing to allow him to use my Jackpoint jack stands so that that car can spend 9 months a year up in the year, borrowing these jack stands for a weekend okay but not for 9 months!

 

Edit:-  I just wish that someone in UK or Europe had come up with a cheap and tough system for lifting and supporting at the sill lifting points and I would not have needed to scatter lots of cash!

Edited 16 January, 20224 yr by rum4mo

Remember I was initially aiming to be able to lift my car and safely support it at these points while I worked underneath it, so my plan was for more than just lifting and working from the side of the car then dropping it back down again.

 

If you only want to lift the Fabia on a strong enough point or 2 and work at the side of it, you can buy a set of 4 MK1 Audi TT "jacking point protectors" from Audi etc and fit them and then you just stuff your trolley jack under each of the 4 points and lift the car, when I'm being lazy/dangerous I just do that with the 2015 Polo, but I'd never ever work under the car while supporting it only on a couple of trolley jacks - but doing that makes swopping winter/summer wheels/tyres over very quick and easy. For more serious work, if not having the car up on 4 solid wooden ramps, I'd use the 4 Jackpoint jack stands.

 

Edit:- I believe there are roughly similar jacking point "bits" you can buy to fit to Octavia - well at least they exist for Golf R and some people fit them to Leons so that they can feel happier about stuffing trolley jacks under them.

Edited 16 January, 20224 yr by rum4mo

2 hours ago, rum4mo said:

Remember I was initially aiming to be able to lift my car and safely support it at these points while I worked underneath it, so my plan was for more than just lifting and working from the side of the car then dropping it back down again.

 

If you only want to lift the Fabia on a strong enough point or 2 and work at the side of it, you can buy a set of 4 MK1 Audi TT "jacking point protectors" from Audi etc and fit them and then you just stuff your trolley jack under each of the 4 points and lift the car, when I'm being lazy/dangerous I just do that with the 2015 Polo, but I'd never ever work under the car while supporting it only on a couple of trolley jacks - but doing that makes swopping winter/summer wheels/tyres over very quick and easy. For more serious work, if not having the car up on 4 solid wooden ramps, I'd use the 4 Jackpoint jack stands.

 

Edit:- I believe there are roughly similar jacking point "bits" you can buy to fit to Octavia - well at least they exist for Golf R and some people fit them to Leons so that they can feel happier about stuffing trolley jacks under them.

Thanks for the info, I had a quick look underneath a couple of hours ago and the Octavia has plastic underbody protection, which cover the points you can fit the pads into and they go right up against the sill section, so I couldn't get to the solid point that I assume the sill jack pads contact, the Fabia doesn't have any of the plastic underbody protection and the strengthened sill points are really rough looking, so there looks to be no precise measurements involved for jack pad adapters!

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/387978-spare-whee-hockey-puck-jack-pads

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/334273-cutting-hockey-puck-slot-size

 

1 hour ago, Snike said:

Thanks for the info, I had a quick look underneath a couple of hours ago and the Octavia has plastic underbody protection, which cover the points you can fit the pads into and they go right up against the sill section, so I couldn't get to the solid point that I assume the sill jack pads contact, the Fabia doesn't have any of the plastic underbody protection and the strengthened sill points are really rough looking, so there looks to be no precise measurements involved for jack pad adapters!

 

I worked from first principles, ie I looked and worked out what the inner to outer height difference was, what the width of the slot needed to be as initially I ended up ripping some of the stone guard paint off the Polo sill when I first used the S4 version of my adaptors - there was a profile that made the sill wider somewhere along the length I was using as extended sill protection.

 

The jacking point protectors from the Golf R of a similar model to at least the 2019 Leon, for the rearward ones just pushed into a hole in the body very much in the same way the Audi TT ones fitted the Polo and so Fabia, the frontward one needs a section of the under cover removed, the frontward Golf R insert fitted into the body, then a modified cover, ie from the Golf R fitted in place of the original Leon one, so I'd think the same for Octavia if you felt the need to do that. All these VAG cars have the underside fairly well covered in plastic cover - I think that the first time I used my wide and long adaptors on my S4 that the edge of the plastic covers made a bit of noise, but no permanent damage occurred, same for Leon Cupra - maybe a "balancing act" ie offering a bit more protection to the structural metal parts and causing slight cosmetic damage to the plastic under covers, it depends on which bothers you most I suppose.

Just measured the Fabia MK3 sill jacking points, the front was basically 30mm and the same each side of the sill, the rear was 20mm and the same both sides, on the Octavia it was 20mm and the same both sides of the sill, the rear sill was the same.

I looked at the scissor jack that came with the Octavia and it has a very shallow curved section in the middle, which means the load is taken on the sill edge, the fabia didn't come with a jack so bought a Skoda OEM jack, which has a deeper V section rounded at the bottom, which means the load is taken on the sill edge as well.

So now I am confused, do i get bespoke jack pad adapters or accept the sill edge is the load bearing surface.

I have seen pictures of a Skoda scissor jack with a higher section at the back and lower section at the front, which suggest it locates on the inner sill section and not on the sill edge.

Does anybody know what their standard jack locating profile looks like, just a small "U"indent or a stepped version with the back section squared of to support against the back of sill?

I'm probably making too much of this but I don't like inconsitencies!

 

Paul

have a fabia mk3, always just jacked from the folded edge, no issues as of yet and the cars been jacked up countless times this way

I jack off the rear lower control arm joint on the front and on the rear axle beam mounting point. Done this on all 3 generations of fabia without issue. You can also use a trolley jack with a sill adaptor like this if you prefer- https://www.awesomegti.com/shop-by-car/volkswagen/golf-mk5/bushes-by-powerflex/powerflex-jack-pad-adaptor-vag-pf3-1661/?cmp_id=1624059255&adg_id=61207848185&kwd=&device=c&gclid=CjwKCAiA0KmPBhBqEiwAJqKK42fydIWtUnYe-XPriSFy5T876LFQexz2vjjO0wDYSt41axNDKpL-jBoCRfwQAvD_BwE

 

I then place an axle stand on the folded seam with a sill protector pad on top so that I don't fold / crush the jacking sill point. I use really cheap rubber ones at the moment which are OK at best but not 100% imho. - https://amzn.to/3tMYRS4 - They work for now. 

 

Always worth having 2 wheel chocks too to place on the wheels still on the ground for extra safety.