I am not a fan of ramps. Too many horror stories of ramps that fail OR people who drove a car off the ramps and damaged the car. I prefer a hydraulic floor jack and jack stands. Plus, hard to take a wheel off the car if it's on a ramp.
My preferred spots to jack up the car, anywhere on the front aluminum subframe or the rear suspension cradle in the back. Bother also have spots to safely put jack stands and lower the car on to the jack stands. The spot you marked, I am not sure I would put faith in it. I believe in theory it should be "ok". But look at the steel. I have concerns that it is not as strong/thick enough to support the entire car without possibly collapsing a bit, add ANY rust damage, I would not try it myself. Others may have used that successfully. If you did try it, I would make sure you watch carefully as you raise the car so not to crush it (stop at signs of an issue).
Also, remember a VERY important rule to working on a car, a hydraulic floor jack is to raise the car, not for supporting the car while you work on it. Raise the car and then lower it on to jack stands, if the jack and stands are not in the way, then you can leave the jack in place (just low enough to ensure the weight is on the jack stands NOT the jack, but now if a jack stand slips, the jack *MIGHT* be there to catch it). Another trick I do, when I have to take a wheel off to work on something, even though the car is on a jack stand, slide the wheel under the rocker panel of the car. This way if the jack fails somehow, the car will slam on to the wheel and hopefully save you from harm. And block the wheels so the car does not try to roll at any time.

As for some of the stuff you want to buy, you may want to see if you have a store called Harbor Freight to buy some of it. For putting the wheels back on, you can use a torque wrench, I never have. I have always uses a 4-way tire iron OR a 1/2" breaker bar with the correct socket. Remember when tightening lugs, do it in a star pattern and then when the car is on the ground, double check the lugs are tight (as you no longer have to fight the wheel spinning).

 

The point you note in your picture would be difficult to reach with a jack. If you want to support it there, I think it would be strong enough for the rear. But to support from there I would raise the car from say the shock mount and then get a jack stand to fit up into there. You may have to use a thick stout block of wood or concrete blocks etc. under the stands to give them the extra height to reach up that far. As an alternate, you see my picture with rear wheels removed? A person could put a jack stand at the low spot where the silver colored mount and the red colored bar connect together. Anyone disagree with that locations safety factor?The factory recommended pinch welds lifting points that I'm using at the rear seems like the areas you are working on so that location is a no go for jack stands. To use the wheel area, jack up car at pinch weld, remove the wheel, them put a jack stand under that connection location. remove jack and repeat I agree the front is safer with mounting on engine cradle. As you see I use 2 stands at every position, gives one more peace of mind from a collapse happening. You have quite the project removing / converting rust. Best of luck, looks like you are at the point of no return, now or never, you are in for a bit of tough work. Jack it up as high as you safely can, give yourself plenty of space to extend your arms, better than the car being 6" from your face Protect the concrete floor with sections of cardboard from a dumpster etc. from all the dripping chemicals, plus its kind of a cushion to lay back on when your neck, arms get tired. Keep the car as level as possible when it's in its final supported position. Also, I dont try to lift one corner full height all at one time. I go around and do a bit on each corner, usually no more than 2 times each corner. This way your car isn't in some contorted position with great pressures on the far corner, and vice versa. Go half way, set a jack stand, move the jack to next corner repeat this till car is raised. I always start on the front first, insure the stands are squarely under the engine mount support cradle before you lower the jack. You have to imagine them possibly shifting position a wee bit as the car is moved from the lifting action on opposite corners etc. You dont need a stand to slide away from the cradle, the car fall, puncture or damage adjacent area. Just take your time, no rush, be methodical and work smart.

I agree with the Maniac, dump the ramps, get jack stands, scratch the torque wrench, never have used on my whole life putting wheels back on. Just use a 1/2 drive socket and a breaker bar, if you dont have them you can rent these from AutoZone etc for next to nothing. Next make sure to get a jack up to the task, not some cheesy thing that may prove inadequate and a safety hazard. It may be available to rent too. Use it, turn it in, rent it again when you are taking the car down a week or 2 later.. Save a few $$

 

Thanks for the advice guys! Yeah I'm thinking of just forgetting the ramps as well, and just getting the Jack and jack stands. I currently have 4 of the jack stands that I had in my list there, will that be enough? also is that Jack good enough? The welds on the jack stands look pretty good and they're rated for 3 tons, im not sure if that's each jack or combined but those should be good enough. I do plan on having the jack under the car to catch it if the jack stands somehow fail, and the tires underneath it as well. I bought a disposable drop cloth and a plastic tarp to use for paint spillage and covering my car when i paint it. I was thinking of buying a tarp but I would probably never use it again and dont really have anywhere to store it, I live in a 400 square foot apartment so space is tight.

Once I had a flat tire so i jacked the car up and put the jack in the wrong spot and the frame bent, I didnt put it on the pinch welds, but i put it on the rocker panel and now my passenger door groans and the passenger front quarter panel moves and snaps back in place when i open the door, that really makes me sick that happened, so I want to avoid that. I wasnt going to jack it up on those rails in my picture, but I was going to support the car with the jack stands on them, but yeah I just have no idea where to safely jack it up. The aluminum subframe on the front and the rear suspension cradle in the back are good choices, I could use those.

To be clear, this big black rusted thing is the rear suspension cradle right? or otherwise called the crossmember? its pretty rusted, idk if I trust it at all, but I would rather replace it if the rust is bad enough.



The torque wrenches I dont need for the wheels but I wanted to try to replace my front and rear suspension completely, new CV axles, control arms, bearings, bushings, rotors, nuts and bolts, everything. from what i've watched, it really doesn't seem all that hard. The hardest thing is putting new bearings in but everything else is just bolt on. But im afraid that it just seems easier than it actually is and once I do it, I will not be able to put it back together. I recently tried replacing my air filter and I couldnt get the intake hose off of the filter box, I unscrewed it from the box, wouldnt budge, unscrewed it from the throttle body, wouldnt budge, tried unscrewing it from the MAF sensor, wouldnt budge. So I drove it around for a while to warm up the engine thinking maybe the engine bay would get hot enough to warm up the plastic enough to manipulate it, and I did get it off, but it was so unbelievably stiff i couldnt move it out of the way, and when i went to put it back on, no matter how hard i pulled on that thing I couldnt pull it over the filter box all the way like it was when i took it off and had to drive up to belle tire to have them replace the cabin and engine filters, which they said were CAKED with dirt, so its good I brought it in. I feel like if i cant even replace a filter how am i supposed to replace the entire suspension system? I have looked at a few junkyards near me and didnt find any Monte's there, but I will keep looking.

Also, I will be doing this in my apartment complexes parking lot, so I hope I dont get any complaints haha.

and Zippy, your monte looks beautiful, thats what I want mine to look like when im done. I love the red on black. Did you paint the underside?

 

Add me to that list. I had a car on ramps and one of them shot out off to the side, dropped one side of the car obviously. It wasnt very violent or anything but had it happened 5-10 minutes later, I would have been under the car. They work quite well to hold my gate to the backyard open tho! Or as a wheel chock.

 

Chayhawk, take Maniac's advice on where to put the jack! The people telling you to jack the car by the pinch welds are the same people who want you to buy a new one from them!!! The pinch weld is the place the rust starts, because moisture gets in there and weakens several layers at once. They are designed for ease of manufacturing, not strength. They are stronger than a single layer, for sure, but not once mother nature combined with 'father gov't' salting the roads get involved.

 

@Chayhawk - That one black painted thing you marked is the rear cradle. Just remember, those rods going from the cradle to the wheel (commonly called "lateral arms"), NEVER use a jack or jack stand on them. You run the risk of bending them. Heck the 99-05 Grand Am has a similar rear suspension, people have bent the laterals on those cars so often GM has a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) about the symptoms of bent laterals (feels like the read end "hops" a little over bumps). As for trusting the cradle, that rust is most likely all surface rust. That is a THICK piece of steel. Just center the jack on it, take the car up (if you see it bending or anything odd, just stop and gently lower the car). Also, between the lateral arms, you will see the cradle has some openings, I have found those to be good spots to get the jack stands (it can be a tight fit getting the stands on the sides of the jack and between the laterals).
I use a harbor freight rapid pump low profile jack. Any floor jack and jack stands you use should be fine (you are supporting a car not a huge truck). Another option, build wood box to set the car wheels down on (if you are not taking the wheels off). See my pic below (the wheel is on the box).

As for all the stuff you want to service, most of the time, as long as nothing goes really wrong, it is usually pretty easy stuff! Get familiar with what is called "penetrating spray". PB Blaster is a good brand. Before you are going to do a job that has rusted nuts/bolts, spray them down with something like PB Blaster (if you can do it a day before hand, do it). It helps soak in to make removal easier. I tend to re-assemble most things (few exceptions) with a little anti-seize to prevent future problems. And there are a lot of trick to help with tough to remove bolts. Sometimes a rhythm of tightening and then loosening helps a lot. Sorry I felt a little off topic. But seriously, the stuff you want to service should not be bad (and I admit, I say this as a guy with years of experience from working on his own cars and having some great people around me with lots of handy tricks). Sadly, no way to teach all those tricks in a short time. But the more you do, the more you learn.

 

Yeah i will definetly take maniacs advice, Im already terrified of getting under the car as it is, even with 4 jack stands, wheel chocks and the jack itself under it to support it. Also the last thing i want to do is damage my monte. I already bent the frame changing the tire one time. I got out of work one morning and my tire was flat, so i changed the tire and put the scissor jack on the ground fx and after a few minutes on it the car slowly started lowering and i rushed to put the wheel back on and now my passenger door makes the front quarter panel vibrate and makes a groaning noise while opening the door. Makes me sick that happened, hopefully it can be repaired.

i ordered that jack on my list today and i already have the stands, i just hope they are good quality, but they have thousands of good reviews so thats what i went for.

yeah i will only put the jack on the cradle itself, the solid steel should hold it, im glad its really thick, that makes me feel better about sanding all the rust off of it. I dont want to have to replace it. I will not use the pinch welds either because as mentioned, they rust first, and i can tell you for use i see mine are rusty, and who knows how bad it is under the ground fx.

im really happy to hear that the stuff i want to do is not difficult, lookin at it it doesnt seem hard to figure out, i watched these two videos and they really helped me understand all that stuff, he shows how to remove and replace the entire front suspension. And the rear suspension should be pretty similar, and even easier.



and this one



thanks for all the advice, im really looking forward to working on my monte this summer!

 

The one thing I like doing is having wood under the tires. I started doing this on my c6 as I had to drive up on 2x 2x10s to get a jack under it. But then I add more 2x10s until they're almost touching the tire when on the jack stands. As long as you've got wheel chocks on to prevent rolling, even if a jack stand failed the worst drop you'd see is the distance from tire to wood + suspension compressing under weight.

That harbor freight jack stand recall is what scared me into doing this. Even with stands rated way over the need (2x 3 ton stands only holding half a cars weight) they still broke due to bad QC.

The other thing with doing suspension is there are a lot of very large very tight bolts under the car, so you're going to be doing a lot of rocking and tugging on the car for this kind of work. Best to make sure its as solid as you can get it.

While not overly difficult from a technical perspective, it can be tough for a couple reasons:

-Many of the fasteners are on the large side and take a good bit of torque to break free. Make sure you've got a good impact or a healthy breaker bar + pipe. If you're removing the axle nut, you'll probably have to buy a socket as its way beyond what any standard tool kit comes with.

-Being exposed to all of the elements, stuff gets rusty. PB blaster helps, but suspension stuff can get way beyond light rust. Not sure how bad your car is, but Ive had some miserable experiences on other cars from the rust belt (fastener head shears off leaving you to extract the remainder, having to torch off nuts because the hex portion crumbles from rust as soon as you apply torque).

Also, make sure you get a good torque wrench and the torque specs. Suspension / brake parts are key to vehicle safety and fastener sizes are all over the place so its not easy to 'just wing it' unless you're a pro mechanic.

 

Yeah I would definitely look up torque specs for all nuts and bolts to make sure everything is properly done, and I would take it up to belle tire to get a safety inspection done on my work plus an alignment. I'm not too sure how rusty stuff is, ive had some suspension work done in the last few years, struts, rotors, bearings etc so it shouldnt be too bad, but the axle nut might be a challenge since the CV axles are original as far as i know. I will definitely get a breaker bar too for sure. I'll see if i can find a junked monte somewhere and practice on that first. I'm too scared to practice on mine. Or find someone who has that knowledge and have them help me. The videos I posted are a huge help too but I still would want someone to guide me if i did something wrong. One mistake and that could spell disaster, even death, so its not worth risking unless I know its done 100% correct.

 

TBH, they're not awful from a rust perspective. Most modern wheels cover the center hub and keep the majority of water/salt out.

They're on the tight side, but nothing too crazy if you've got something big enough to do the rest of the suspension bolts.

I only mentioned it because the size is really unexpected for the average person - I think they're like 34-36mm. That's one tool I'd rent from autozone if you don't plan to do that work regularly. Thats a really expensive single socket for something you may only use once or twice (and isn't necessarily common size with any other vehicle you own / buy).