Exact rear jackup points... illustrated
 

The tech doc isn't that clear on where exactly to place the jack at the back. On the differential, but where exactly :


http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/18/86/19/63/exact_11.jpg


Either :
-the green zone (only the gray part)
-the blue zone (on both the black and gray part)
-the red zone (only the black part)


How are you guys doing this?

C: none of the above


I use a board to distribute the weight better as well as not leave marks on the diff.

How can it be none... can you please try to complete my pic with what you do?

I guess it should have been "all of the above".
The board basically makes contact with all those points.

If you don't have any boards you can also use a thick piece of cardboard. Not the best but it'll give you some protection.

The differential housing should be strong enough to jack it up from anywhere really, But seeing as how the silver cap is bolted on laterally to the jacking forces, i would stay on the black part. If you see the ridges toward the bottom of of the red box, those should be the strongest part. The guy above is just saying that he puts a board 2x4 I guess, running all the way from the front to the back, this displaces the pressure across the whole housing. Plus the wood is soft enough to crush under the metal and not scratch or mar it like a metal jack cup would.

OK, thanks, this is clear now. I'll try to get a nice big piece of softish wood so it overlaps to whole area

Another question.... what if you want to drain the differential oïl? Doesn't the wood get in the way?

Yes If you ran the wood from front to back it would get in the way. You could turn the wood sideways to run along that ridge that runs from side to side. The housing should be plenty strong enough to jack it up between that ridge and the sticker, but the ridge is the strongest place. If you can't fit a board in the right location, I would (and have) used folded cardboard like fortis said. When I changed out my diff oil, I had about 6 layers of cardboard I ripped up to be slightly larger than the jack cup, and I didn't even get a scratch. But since you need to have the car level when changing the diff oil, I drove up on ramps for the front, Jacked up the back end from the diff, then I put cinder blocks under the rear wheels, and lowered the back end on to those (they were as tall as my ramps), then moved the jack out of the way. This gives you much more room to work with when draining, and then trying to fill the diff back up.

Jack it up at the diff, place jack stands at the proper points as described in the owners manual, let jack down. Now there's nothing in your way :)

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Stupid me... obviously, how could I ask such a stupid question ! Thanks :)

Never get under the car when the jack is holding it up. :)

I have a cup on my floor jack that spans the diff cover and the front lip to
Distribute the weight evenly.. You should be fine hitting any part of the diff
Solidly. I use cardboard on the cup to keep it from digging into the metal.

Same here, my cup spans all those points. It has a reasonably thick rubber pad on it too so I don't bother putting anything else on it.