I am getting ready to replace my exhaust system so I need to have access to the entire length of the coach at the same time. I cannot work on my coach at my house but, luckily, the owner of the storage lot where I keep it allows me to work on it there. That is the good news, the bad news is that the lot is crushed granite on top of Arizona caliche (hardpad) and not to be trusted to hold up all four corners of a GMC with me under it.

In preparation for this job I built some wooden jack stands that another gmcer, Steve Southworth, designed and advocates. Steve narrowly avoided serious injury when a metal jack stand slipped out from under a car he was under. Since then Steve has advocated the use of these wooden stands. Steve’s gmc photo site album is at http://www.gmcmhphotos.com/photos/showgallery.php?cat=5461 has lots more photos and information. Steve sent me a spreadsheet that makes the cutting and construction of the jack stands a quick affair – I did mine in less than 3 hours from start to finish. Here is a link to my copy of Steve’s spreadsheet, hopefully, Steve doesn’t mind me sharing his work.

I crawled underneath the coach using my new jack stands for the first time today and I felt very safe – and I like the height. The stands come out to be 17 1/2 inches tall if you do them the way Steve does and that is a pretty good boost for a 12,000 pound vehicle. I borrowed my neighbor’s 2 1/4 ton floor jack and used that to jack up the front first. That was a mistake. Jacking up the front first makes the back too low to get much under it and my neighbor’s jack could not handle the weight of the back so it took me two bottle jacks – a short one and a taller one – to work the back up high enough to get under the bogies and I had to remove the top layer (the unglued one) at that. Next time I will do the front after the back is up – I think.

Here are some photos of the coach up on the jack stands for the first time: