I was changing a tire on the B today and the jack point (the little tube you
slide the jack into) failed. Fortunately I did not yet have the wheel off. It
seems the little strap around the tube tore. Now when I first saw how the jack
worked I thought damn, there must be a fantastic amount of prying force on
that little tube. I figure half the weight of the car on a 6 inch lever,
that's 500 foot-pounds. Maybe I'm figuring wrong (It's been 25 years since I
had statics in college). Sounds like a good engineering problem to analyze
the stress on this part. Luckily only the jack point was damaged. I won't
bother to have it fixed because I will never, never, never use the standard
jack again. I will keep an old fashioned scissor jack in the trunk, and jack
up one wheel at a time like god intended. I'd like to know if anybody else has
run into this problem.
BTW: The old advise about never crawling under a car supported by any jack is
still good advice!
Bob Donahue (Still stuck in the '50s)
EMAIL - BOBMGT@AOL.COM
52 MGTD - under DIY restoration NEMGTR #11470
71 MGB - AMGBA #96-12029, NAMGBR #7-3336
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