This day started out with a simple removal of the trunk shelf and ended with our most amazing feat yet. We removed the body bolts, the front floor board, and all the connections between the engine and the body in preparation to separate the body and chassis for the first time in 73 years.
You can see straight through to the dash board from the trunk!
Where the back seat used to live, and out the back through the trunk
Working on disconnecting the engine controls
Marc working on removal of the body bolts
Teamwork on disconnecting the pedals
Removing the floorboard
Jenn and Elaine keep everything very organized
Brandon works on cleaning up the transmission after the floorboard's out
Hi Marc! We can see you through the floor!
Tranny cleaned up pretty well, you can see the original green coming through
Cleaning the floor and vacuuming up the antique dirt
Attaching the engine hoist with the tow strap to the front of the body
Beginning to lift! The back was supported by a pneumatic lift (courtesy of Jack!)
Up she goes!
Starting to roll out the chassis, but wait!
If we can't move anything but the chassis, how are we going to get it out over the engine hoist that's holding up the front of the body?
Wood ramp, that's how! (Thanks to Elaine for the brilliant idea!)
She's free, she's free!
What's left hovering precariously in the air...
...but she's out!
SIDE NOTE: You may or may not have noticed that the position of the garage door has changed throughout the pictures depicting the separation of the body from the frame. Why, you ask? Well, we needed to get creative with the workspace we had. Upon lifting the body, the pneumatic lift hit it's ceiling and it wasn't high enough to go over the steering column. The engine hoist could lift the front end higher, but not without hitting the garage door (because it was fully open.) So, we needed to raise the garage door high enough to allow the chassis to roll out with the very tall steering column protruding from it, but keep it low enough in order to lift the hoist as high as possible. Let's just say we used every square inch of room and pushed every measurement to the edge!
OK, now time for a few fun pics before we wrap up work for the night:
Here's us -- Elaine, Jenn, Emet, Marc
And one with just the guys (Brandon in back)
Back to work! Can't leave the body up in the air, so we cut some boards to place between the jackstands that follow the rail where the body was bolted to the frame and lowered her down.
On the jackstands
A reminder of what the garage looked like before this project...
...and it's current state!
The little garage collects more parts everyday!
All of this work was done in just a little over 24 hours of labor. Not bad! We've made quite a large amount of progress in that time and we are pretty happy with how it's going so far.
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