Love my Quickjack… but it doesn’t rise high enough to get a Boxster engine out from under the car, so on the two engine swaps that I have done so far I ended up using my engine hoist to lift the rear of the car to get necessary clearance. The problem with this method is that when the car is not sitting on the four contact points on the Quickjacks it is unstable, the Quickjacks tend to swivel up on the front end.
So I have a new plan for the next swap, that should be soon. There are two choices - get the car higher or the engine lower… I plan to do both to find at least 6 additional inches.
1) I will drive the car onto planks, with the Quickjacks placed on the planks, so that will add 1 ½ inches.
2) When I lift the car I will put higher blocks on the rear contact points of the Quickjacks. Adding even 2 inches there will translate into at least 3 inches at the critical point where the engine passes under the rear suspension.
3) I have built a new dolly for the engine, with casters mounted on blocks that are attached to the engine where the exhaust manifolds normally sit. The casters are placed to barely clear the oil pan. There is now about ¾ of an inch between the oil pan and the floor. On the furniture dolly I used before there are 5 inches. So that gives me over 4 inches.
I should have about 8 ½ inches more than normally.
Here are some pictures of my “Low rise dolly”... installed on the engine.
Detail of one side.
This gives an idea of the clearance to the floor.
It has been tested on the floor and it is sturdy and easy to move around.