Hey Spitsters!
Taking the advice from this list printed out in hand, I ventured off to
the garage to find the Mystical Magic Bolts of Affixing. I also got out
one of the Vicky Brit catalogs since it had handy chassis drawings I could
refer to. A quick trip to Eagle Home & Garden (Lowes' west coast name)
for bolts, angle iron, and other miscellaneous materials and I was ready.
I built a framework out of 2x4s that could bolt together quickly inside the
body tub to provide a lifting point. It tucked under the front shelf and
under the rear deck lid supports. Good solid points to lift safely from.
The angle iron bridged the gap across the door jambs to make sure it didn't
buckle- heck, I didn't even have to cut or weld the 4 foot lengths. That
saved time, although I was kind of in a welding mood. Oh well. :)
I removed all the bolts and used a prybar under the front mounts to pop
the body free of the chassis. So far so good. It popped right up. I
stuck a couple of chucks of 2x4 to keep the body off the frame in front. I
started lifting with an overhead hoist and....
....nothing. The front was free but the rear was hugging the frame
tightly. Well hmph. The radius rods were disconnected (that alone was a
60 minute project), but I had forgotten the advice Joe Curry mentioned
about the seat belt mounts in the center tunnel. Popped those out and sure
enough, the body lifted a good 8 inches free. Yay!
And it stayed there. In fact, further lifting started taking the
chassis
with it. Now the brake lines are mounted on the chassis so they couldn't
be hanging up. The fuel system was removed a while ago. No, nothing
should be catching at all. So I took a look under there (with lots of
jackstands, mind you. Saftey first!)
The parking brake cable was still hooked up. I had tucked it out of the
body tub from inside, but I didn't know about the pivot point above the
differential where the cabling from each backing plate meets up with the
main cable from the handbrake assembly. The bolt is really hard to get to
and not something I wanted to try even with air tools while the body was
suspended. Luckily there is a single cotter key that I could remove and
then pull the pivot shaft free. That dropped the axle cables nicely and
the chassis and body were truly free.
Got the body up on saw horses and the chassis out where I can work on it
easily. Even fixed a slow leak on one of the tires. I'm feeling very
successful, but also very tired. Time for a long hot bath!
-Vegaman Dan
-66/69 Spitui!
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