After the body was sandblasted, epoxy primed and truck bed liner were sprayed I tackled the frame as previously described in FRAMED. It may seem like a simple operation to switch the old frame with the modified one but it wasn't.
I had to figure out how to lift the body off the frame, roll out the old chassis, roll the "new chassis" in, and then lower the body back down and hit the body mount holes and studs. I could not use my rotisserie as I had made no provisions to make a body only connection to the rotisserie. Remember the pictures? I used the frame for all the lifting.
After more looking and measuring I decided to make some 4" X 4 ''s with 2"x 4" I had laying around. I planned on laying them on concrete blocks crosswise under the body. The "stacks" had to be outside the width of the body to clear the tires. It very quickly became obvious that would not work as the 4" x 4" lift points would crush the fenders and rockers.
I had to make some small 4"x 4" blocks and lay them on the crosswise 4" x 4"s and against the flat side of the body panels so they were in contact with the flat floor and as close as possible to reinforcing mounts or body mount connections.. Then, I had to make one short 4"x 4" to lay crosswise on the floor jack and fit between the frame rails and span the transmission tunnel gap. As usual, it was lift the front, then back, lay in concrete block and the 4" x 4"s back to front back and forth!
As can be seen in the pictures I used 16 concrete blocks, four to each stack. It looked like everything was going well until my first attempt at rolling the chassis out! The trunk has a large well in the floor for the spare tire to sit in, in a near vertical position. The right rear wheel hit the spare well and obviously when the front wheel got there it would too!! More lifting and jacking! By now I was out of suitable 4"x 4" blocks so I scrounged our kindling piles and found 2" x 4"s and stacked 4 pieces at each point. A little wobbly.... but they worked. Out came the old chassis and in went the new!
Then work everything in reverse... lifting and jacking. Before lowering the body I put new rubber body mount/ isolation "donuts" on the frame mounts. Surprise surprise! I got the "new chassis" within a fraction of an inch and was able align everything up with a little levering.
INCOMING!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment