Converting Standard Hydraulic Roller Floor Jack to Lift a C7
I got my C7 home and wanted to jack it up to install a Curb Alert (run wire under car) to protect the front
end from parking lot hazards. The $150.00 Curb Alert sounds a warning when the front of the C7 is
about to hit a curb or other object. One crack in the front “bumper” can cost $3000 to fix. Ouch!
Unfortunately, many of the new cars come with slots in which a lifting puck must be installed in order to
lift the car. Also unfortunately, most of the current roller floor hydraulic car jacks we have cannot be
used to lift a C7 without damaging the body or the under-carriage of the C7.
What to do? Answer: Make a match coupling that fits the C7 jack pucks that also fits the old floor jacks.
The fix that worked for me: I started with two half-pint cans of
hard plastic epoxy resin (see picture). I mixed them together on
my Dad’s old World War II chow tray. He is gone, to the big house
in the sky, but he left me his WW-II tray from fighting Rommel in
North Africa. I also used a few paint stir rods and my automotive
black plastic non-latex mechanics disposable gloves.
I mixed the epoxy resins together and placed a sheet of plastic-wrap over the old jack bowl. I then put
the large glob of epoxy in the bowl and covered that with another sheet of plastic-wrap. This enclosed
the epoxy glob while it was still very putty-like. I then, by hand, formed the epoxy around one of the
snap-in lifting pucks that I saw on Corvette Forum and ordered. I formed the epoxy around the C7 lifting
puck so that the highest point in epoxy coupling would be the lifting puck. But I surrounded the puck
with enough epoxy that it would hold the puck firmly when
lifting the car. You do not want the epoxy so high it hits the C7
while lifting the car.
I let it sit for 30 min or so, and reformed it to the final shape I
wanted with the puck still sitting in the epoxy mold. This assured
me that the final shape would exactly fit the C7 lifting puck. I let
the expoxy cure for 24 hours in the jack stand with the puck in the
mold.
I then removed the puck and peeled off the plastic wrap so the
epoxy would finish the curing process. I let the epoxy coupling
cure for an additional 3 days until it became rock hard. I used a
very hard epoxy plastic resin because it has to hold the weight of
the C7.
I then rounded it a bit and smoothed it out with a sander, painted it, clear coated it, and put it back in
the jack. It fit perfect, of course.
I then tested it on the C7 lifting pucks attached to the car. It
worked perfectly. It held the C7 in the air with both wheels off
the ground about a foot. It did not break or slide.
Of course, no one should ever get under a jacked up car
without jack stands in place to hold the weight of the car on a
stable platform of four stands. Had a high-school buddy die
that way when the car slipped off the jack.
But this approach allowed me to use my old floor jack and
have a removable molded epoxy part that converts the jack to
a C7 jack. And I just remove the coupling when I need to use
it on the truck or other cars that have a standard old-style frame.
A simple part that I made from epoxy is all that I needed to make a reliable older hydrolic floor wheeled
jack work on the C7 without risk of body damage.
I am putting this on the forum to share this idea with others. I assume no responsibility for the idea or
its application. That is, use at your own risk.