[craigs69]

Last night was not a good night in the garage. While using my floor jack to lift the car by the front crossmember, the car slipped backwards off the jack. As the car dropped, the jack spit out toward me and eventually got wedged between the torsion bar and center link. It also hit the front of the oil pan, leaving some nice dents in the front of my Canton pan. I can see where it contacted the timing cover, but I don't see any marks on the balancer or front pulley. I had my wife crank over the car and it looks to be straight, but I'm going to put a dial indicator on it this evening. Does anyone have an opinion on whether I should be concerned about any damage to the crank or anything internal?

[prostreet64]

First of all I am glad you were not hurt. Never a good thing when a car shifts off a jack. But I do not think you did any internal damage based on what you described. It sounds like the dents and scratches are the worst of it.

[72projectbird]

I would think its fine, but it never hurts to check.

I once dropped an engine flat on its face landing on the balancer and water pump, and it was fine. Bent the hell out of the WP and the crank pulley, but the engine was fine.

[mgarblik]

It would be helpful to see some pics of the damage to the oil pan. If you don't plan to remove the oil pan, I would at least remove all the spark plugs and turn the engine over at the crankshaft bolt, listening very carefully for any scraping noise between the crankshaft and the oil pan. Not familiar with the specific Canton design, but a stock oil pan is very close to the front counterweights on the crankshaft. You certainly don't want to be driving around with the crankshaft carving a hole through the pan. Other than that, if your center link isn't bent or the stabilizer bar, you should be OK. If your balancer is a stock rubber ring unit, try to check the runnout on the inner and outer rings both. The outer ring will have some runnout due to assembly method. Not sure how much is normal? Someone on here will know. Overall, could have been much worse.

[craigs69]

The dents in the pan are about 1/4" deep on the very front of the pan where it is shallowest and rounded. Any dent in the pan is painful for me to look at. The car underwent a full restoration 3 years ago and everything is detailed nicely. I will check for counterweight rubbing tonight when I check runout on the balancer. I can't tell if any steering parts are bent or damaged, but they are scraped up a bit.

This was my own stupidity and carelessness that caused it. I have jacked the car up dozens of times in this fashion, but this time was a bit different. I have a piece of wood that I place over the contact point of the jack to keep from messing up the paint on the frame. The piece of wood was missing in action last night, so I hastily grabbed a towel and folded it over several times to use instead. I'm guessing the towel was too slippery against the painted surface. BIG lesson learned.

[Lenox273]

Craigs69,
Although I have no advice for you on your issue I have used the pads pictured for a few years on my 70 which is all painted underneath as your is. I saw these on a floor jack on a Matco tools truck. I ordered two for my jacks I purchased from Costco. They fit perfectly and are rubber, so they don't scratch and actually have some grip. No slipping! I'm sure other tool companies may have these but these fit my $99 Costco jacks like they were made for them. They simply sit on the jack pad. As you can see in the pic. One jack has one and the other was simply picked up to remove. It has a groove that fits down over the outer rim of the pad.

[Overkillphil]

Fwiw, years ago I was helping a buddy with his Chevelle. We picked up his freshly build SBC from the local speed shop and they dropped it on its nose while maneuvering it out of the shop to load it in our truck. I freaked but my friend accepted the engine anyway. We installed it and it turned out to be a real good runner for many years.

Maybe I should have been dropping all of MY engines on their noses all along.

[craigs69]

Originally Posted by Lenox273

Craigs69,
Although I have no advice for you on your issue I have used the pads pictured for a few years on my 70 which is all painted underneath as your is. I saw these on a floor jack on a Matco tools truck. I ordered two for my jacks I purchased from Costco. They fit perfectly and are rubber, so they don't scratch and actually have some grip. No slipping! I'm sure other tool companies may have these but these fit my $99 Costco jacks like they were made for them. They simply sit on the jack pad. As you can see in the pic. One jack has one and the other was simply picked up to remove. It has a groove that fits down over the outer rim of the pad.

Thank you for the tip! I am going to purchase one of those before I even attempt to jack up the car again.

[Blackened]

Thanks for the posts. This brings up a good tip and I'll be ordering some tomorrow. You can find a pretty good selection of rubber jack pads on Amazon, probably significantly cheaper than tool truck pricing.
They also have the slotted version, good for lifting up your dd that has the sheetmetal extending down at the recommended jacking points.

[Mace1971]

Been quite a while since I've seen one but there used to be a jack pad adapter that had a half inch pin in the center. The pin fits into the drain hole in the bottom of the crossmember to anchor things together and totally prevent any sliding. Like I said though, haven't seen one in years, should be easy enough to fabricate.

[gto1967]

I had the floor jack slip off in the same fashion. It pierced my oil pan by the timing cover requiring an engine removal for inspection and pan replacement. Got away cheap-nothing damaged other than the pan. I put 100,000 miles on that 400 before one cylinder head cracked.

[craigs69]

As much as this whole deals sucks, I am grateful that the car slid off in the fashion that it did. Had the jack ended up on the drivers side, it would have surely busted off my fuel pump or power steering pump and who knows what else as the jack was lifted high enough to bring the tires a little over 6" off the ground. The fact that it slid off the passenger side and got lodged between the center link and torsion bar was a blessing as it stopped the car from dropping far enough to hit the lower radiator hose inlet or my brand new vacuum pump. I had to use a bottle jack under the frame to lift the car enough to remove the floor jack.

Tonight I am going to use a heat gun and a can of compressed air held upside down (it allows the refrigerant to spray out in a liquid and is super cold) to try to work out some of the dent in the pan. I'm not sure if it will get hot enough to do any good, but it's worth a shot. That pan metal is pretty thick.

[steve25]

Whenever you jack up the front of the car once you get it up be sure to place a section of 2x4 in back if each tire so she can't roll back or set the E brake!