Putting vehicle on jack stands

I am happy you understand the importance of safety, including jack stands. How you support the truck can depend on the type of work you are going to do. If you are going to be doing steering and suspension-related work, you may need to let the wheels hang down so they are not holding the truck up. Sometimes you need to put the jack stands under the front lower control arms so parts like the front half shafts are easier to remove. On the rear, the shock absorbers are what limits how far the axle assembly can drop. If you are replacing those shock absorbers, you will need to put the jack stands under the axle housing so there is no tension on the shock absorbers.

The most solid place to put jack stands is under the frame rails. Uni-body cars do not have frames, but they have the equivalent of frame rails that will support the vehicle, as long as they are not rusted away.

You have rear leaf springs for the rear axle. You can put jack stands under them too, but be aware they are often sloped or not parallel to the ground, and their angle can change as the truck is raised and lowered. These are my least favorite place for jack stands due to the possibility of them sliding out.

If you have the owner's manual or the service manual for your truck, it will show where to jack it up and where to put jack stands. Tow truck drivers have books too that show the hooking and lifting points.

Jack stands actually serve two purposes. One is to support things in the right way to allow the service work to be done, and the other is safety. When you start tugging on wrenches and pry bars, the truck must be sitting solidly on the stands so you cannot pull it over, and if a lifting device fails or squirts out and the truck falls, the jack stands must be in an orientation that prevents you from becoming a pancake!

Take a look at this article that provides a lot more information on this subject:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/jack-up-and-lift-your-car-safely

You will need them under the lower control arms. If you put them under the frame, the front suspension will hang down. The upper control arms will hit rubber "bump stops" that limit their range of travel and will be under tension. If you remove the castle nut on the upper ball joint's tapered stud, and get that stud to pop out of the spindle, the upper control arm will snap up with a lot of force. The spindle and lower control arm will drop down with the full force of the spring that holds the truck up. At that point you would need to use a floor jack under the lower ball joint to get the spindle back up to where you can reconnect the new upper ball joint. It is better to just start out with the jack stand under the lower control arm so no parts will fly around.

The fastest way to raise the front is to put the floor jack under the cross member right under the engine. That way both sides get raised at the same time. What you might consider is once iti s raised high enough, put the jack stands under the frame rails near where the front passengers' feet would be, then use the floor jack to raise the lower control arm and rest of the suspension on the side you are doing the first upper ball joint or control arm on.

It is never a good idea to put your legs under the brake rotor if you can help it, so even if the floor jack were to fail, or someone comes along and bumps it, only the suspension system on that corner would drop, and other than the surprise, it is highly unlikely anything would be damaged, besides your pride.

I should mention too, once the upper ball joint is disconnected, the spindle will be free to tip out from the weight of it and the brake rotor. That in itself will not hurt anything, but if you look at the rubber brake flex hose, and the wheel speed sensor's wire if you have anti-lock brakes, you do not want those to be tugged on. The hose will limit how far the spindle can flop out, and it is not designed to be pulled on like that. Use some wire to hold the spindle from tipping too far. If your truck is a four wheel-drive, the inner CV joint can be pulled apart too, then you will make yourself more work putting it back together.