Maranello lifting/jacking

The problem with jacking these cars is that they are low, and if your jack is too tall it cannot fit under the car.

I solved this issue by getting four lengths of 2" X 10" boards, each cut to a couple feet long, each with one end cut on a diagonol so as to afford a form of ramp, and I drive the car up on the four boards to afford extra height to get the jack in place.

Then, once the car is jacked at each point, you need to find a solid point to put a jack stand: that is always interesting with these cars.

 

I would recommend not to lift the car (550 or 575) on one corner only. The chassis and body structure is relatively soft (thin) and e.g. the glued in windscreen has fundamental static function. There is some risk, that jacking up just on one corner might crack your windscreen.

Make a "soft" test, just jack up one corner a little bit and open and close a door. You will not desire to proceed further with jacking just one corner ....

 

Jacking one corner until both wheels are off the ground is not generally a good idea.

There are many manufacturers of low profile jacks. Some are good and some are just taking your life in your hands. If you buy one from Harbor freight I will tell your widow I told you so.



Brunnhoelzl Pit Equipment

These are very good. I own one of the Pro series and it has served me well for years.

 

You should never get under any car with just a jack (good or bad), Your car should always be secured by jack stands before crawling underneath your car. I once left a car up in the air over night with a good quality hydraulic jack and the front wheels removed. I came out the next morning and the jack had blown the seal and the car was on the ground. I played hell trying to get my car back in the air to extricate the collapsed jack. I thought, what if I was underneath my car?

 

Nearly all of the items I have bought at Harbor Freight are suspect. China can make great copies of anything. Now if they could just find a way to do it with some quality

 

Amen. Buy something cheap...

 

Buy "expensive" is neither neccessarily the solution. I bought a somewhat expensive (triple of cheap offers on the market) engine crane from Hazet, a well recognized German manufacturer (I believed). What arrived was a product made in China as evident from a chinese control slip they apparently missed to remove from the package. The shackles, on which an engine would hang, were extremely crude and on one of them the tread was almost non-existent rending the part useless (you could pull it open by hand). Shackles from any DIY shop are a lot better made and cost a few dollars only. We are talking of 4 shackles, each of which may have to carry quarter of a ton. During assembly of the crane I felt the need to improve various details. E.g. replacing extremely soft bolts (rubbish steel) by at least 8.8. Or replacing bolts, wherein the threads extended into and through the related bushes instead of being blank and a good fit in the bushes.

The funny thing is, by modifying this rubbish to make it safe I, of course, lost all potential warranty claims

 

I have the information and advise with respect to chassis flex from authorized Ferrari technicans (who speak somewhat more open with me than with average customers). They were extremely cautious when they replaced the cracked windscreen to ensure that the car is standing on a perfectly leveled ground, including careful check of tire pressure. Since then I also avoid driving onto high curbs (maybe the cause for the crack, no stone chip visible along the crack).

I am quite sure (although I never measured it, of course) that the force needed to lift one wheel off the ground ist significantly more than 1/4 of the total car weight. Probably not too far away from half the car weight.

At least with the Maranello I would definitely stick to the two trolley jack option, either axle-wise or side-wise and lift the end or side by alternately operating the jacks in small steps. Fortunately I am in the lucky situation of having a professional car lift for lifting purposes.

P.S.: The jacking points indicated in the manual are perfect for lifting and I use them with the car lift somewhat frequently. Absolutely nothing to report thereby, except that I never open the doors as long as the car is lifted (another tip from the Ferrari guys).

 

I call BS on the corner lifting and opening doors on lifts. The 550 is very stiff for a Ferrari. Done it with Ferraris forever even with the flexi flyer GTS cars. If the car flexed that bad there would be more problems than just a cracked windscreen. We also raced these cars with very stiff suspensions and windscreens never cracked and we thrashed them over curbs and apexes. The 4 corner cigarette pack things are exactly where you must lift the 550. The 550 is a real pain because you have to kludge getting the lateral underytrays off either laying in the dirt to do it or widgeting while the car is on the lift. It is a real pita. That's the breaks with an undertray car. The 550 is also a hassle to put up on 4 jackstands.

 

I was going to call BS too, but not being an expert in this area of 550s, I thought it would be prudent to keep my foot squarely on the ground

 

I made some pads that fit the jacking points on my 550. They are aluminum with some magnetic tape applied. I can place them in position and they won't fall off, and then it's easy to use my lift or my floor jack.
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[QUOTEI made some pads that fit the jacking points on my 550. They are aluminum with some magnetic tape applied. I can place them in position and they won't fall off, and then it's easy to use my lift or my floor jack.[/QUOTE]

I use hardwood blocks, cut to size.

 

Caged cars? Cages make a great difference, just as reduced weight and strut braces.

 

Well put fatbillybob. Let's not over analyse this, cracked windscreens, not driving over curbs etc. I recall trying to figure out the jacking points on my GTS 328 only to discover that they only came with one jacking point on either side, requiring you to jack the car reasonably high to get the front wheel off. This is a car that really flexed.

Though it may not be the best way to jack the car up one corner at a time, lets not scare everyone into thinking that the car is going to be damaged if you only lift one corner to do some maintenance. Reading some of theories about body flex we should not be using a jack to replace a flat tyre.

 

Oh what nonsense! The Maranello is rock solid. Look Ma...To take this picture, I just jacked my 550 from one corner at the factory jack pad putting the most pressure on the windshield and I opened the door too! No cracked windshield. No mismatched body seams. No drag on door hinges. No mismatch between door striker and chassis "B" piller latch. No chassis creaking. Silly. Where do people get such silly ideas?
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I just want to know how to get my car in the air and set on four jack stands

 

From Ferrari engineers. They typically to not tend to distribute nonsense, I hope.

Why do race car chassis have a lifetime of less than 40.000 km? Even the most solid ones for endurance races, like the race versions of Audi R8? Although caged and reinforced otherwise in structure? They become soft and crack due to torsion stress. Every unnecessary stress that you avoid prolongs the cars lifetime. Doing things you should not do will not necessarily result in immediate consequences every time.

 

Please post the Ferrari engineering link or report that states windshields crack from jacking up the car.