So, next I detached the cable loop from the come-a-long and ran it to the other side. I still had to use a short portion of chain to reach my ceiling hoist points. Everything is out of the body now (glass, regulators, door cards, dash, etc.) except for the rear seat (I couldn't find anywhere to put it and thanks to the mice developing an extensive condo in it, my wife won't put up with having the smelly thing in our house) : I decided that I wanted to rest my drums in my wheel dollies since not all my tires hold air that well and I would eventually have to take them off anyway. So spent the rest of the day making wood fixtures for them to rest on in the dollies:
You just might have an issue with one side of the body lifting more than the other with that rigging... let alone putting a LOT of tension on the horizontal part of the wire rope. Hope it works ok for you...
Please see my previous post before you start trying to lift the body off the frame. I strongly recommend you re-think your lifting rig. If you insist on lifting using your system...at least reverse one of the come alongs so it's lifting from the opposite side. As you have it rigged, you will be lifting only the passenger side of the body. When you're lifting a body on your own, there is a fair amount of awkward weight in the air...it needs to be slow, controlled, safe and stable as possible. Your system will not work in that manner. Please trust me, I've been doing this for over 40 years generally working in the shop without assistance. Just want you and your project to be safe and successful.
Reminds me of when I lifted the body off my '47 Plymouth ages ago. I used 2x4s through the window openings just like that. Can't remember if the doors were on - probably were not. Anyhow, I managed to tweek the quarter window openings because I missed two body to frame bolts that screwed in from the top of the floor into the top of the frame. They were not visible from under the car.
Here is what I used to recently lift ours. I made a bracket for the front that bolted to the hood spring arms. The come-along is attached to a bracket in the ceiling, similar to yours. I made a "T" frame for the rear that attaches to my engine hoist. It goes in through the trunk and fits under the package tray. (I place a 2X4 between the "T" frame and package tray to better distribute the weight.) You will have to put it in through the trunk first, then attach it to the hoist. It may not be the best way - but it is very effective and a safe way to keep the body for distorting. It also stays away for any "outside" damage. You can do it with one person if you take your time, lifting each end a little at a time, but works well if you have two people.
Harbor freight sells winches for $15. $30 is cheap insurance to do it right. Also I agree with not lifting on the doors.
Of course, there's always a hitch - how come the frame won't come out all the way? What a dope! I didn't unhook the handbrake cable: Double dope - the speedometer cable either: No big deal. Now the frame is all the way out (and the Volvo C-30 loses garage privileges for who knows how long?) Now more fiddling to make sure the body is supported (the cable is more than enough to suspend the body.) Next it's "rent a power-washer and go nuts!" There's only 80 years worth of dirt on/in the frame and the bottom of the body. Nice-looking gas-tank, no? No! There have been a lot of responses about suspending the car with supports running through the doors. I appreciate your concerns, but I'd propose that you go out to your 40 and do this: put your hands (palms upward) against the bottom surface of your front door window opening, brace yourself and push upward with all your might. How badly did it dent? In fact, the steel there is very strong. The stripped out cabin body is about 750 pounds, so for a four-point load each load point is around 187 pounds. You'll note that I cut up a foam pad to make sure the weight was spread with no point loads. If you look closely at one of the door pictures posted previously you will see that the door has the rubber cushion and it hasn't noticeably compressed. My only concern was missing a body bolt, but I made sure they were all out before lifting the cabin. As to raising one side with the come-a-longs and having the body tip, I just go over to the other side and lift the body to even it out. It is surprisingly light. Plus the body is resting on the jack-stands and the steel saw horse for all the work being done on it.
Now that you have it apart, I suggest making a rotisserie for it. Makes working on both the body and frame way easier. Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
A buddy of mine lent me his Honda pressure washer to do the clean-up job on my 40. Boy did that thing work good! You can see some of the crap that came out - incredible amount of mud and gravel: That took forever as I kept going over it again and again and getting more stuff to come out. And next it was onto the belly of the beast... The frame came out pretty clean: And the body, too. That is all surface rust. I'll be taking the sander or wire wheel to that: What I had initially thought might be rust-throughs on the belly of the body weren't. You can see that the metal was torn - not sure if someone had tried to hang a muffler support there or what. But it weren't me! And: And after all that I noticed that a body/frame pad was still stuck to the underside of the body...well, it's clean now!
Here's a "before" picture of the belly of the 40, so you know what's coming! Under that brown stuff is often painted surface! (And this is after power-washing it.) Tools of the trade: The wire wheels worked better than the sandpaper, although I ended up using them both. A buddy of mine sent me some small disc sanders like used in a rotary air-tool. However, I'm not sure my compressor has enough capacity to power one so I tried it on my cable drive carving tool. There were some that were like heavy-duty synthetic steel wool that worked very well but my cable would start jumping around when I used it, so I'll have to try something else. They can get into areas that my angle grinder and sander can't so I'll have to figure out how to power them. A really dirty job. Ugh! I'd take a break every once in a while and use a compressed air nozzle to blow all the grit out of the garage. Actually, I didn't take a picture of my most valuable tool: a box fan that I had running at high and blowing on me. I always tried to position my head upstream (upwind?) of the grinder to keep the dust away. Normally I wore a dust mask, but forgot to put it back on for this (posed) picture that my wife took. Once cleaned up a little you can see the black paint, here the left side of the picture shows original surface and to the right has been cleaned. You can also see one of the tear holes in the metal. I had thought they were rust-throughs, but once I got them cleaned up a little, it was obvious that they were drilled and then tore. (That black line on the right is a shadow cast by the edge of the trunk pan - that's the edge of the fiber-glas repair I did in 1966) Here is the other tear, note the black paint where I have cleaned off the "rust". I'm sort of wondering if that is really rust that I am cleaning off, especially when I find black paint beneath it. I'm about 3/4ers done, but need to figure out how to get into the corners and edges where the sanders and wire wheels can't reach. More fun a-coming!
So, here's what it looked like after my first round of cleaning: Here's what the wire wheel looked like after that first round: I couldn't reach into the inside corners or get all of the drive tunnel: So, here's what I used this time: Here's after the day's effort, basically a second round of cleaning going over everything once more: I need to be able to get into some of these hard to clean areas and also the inside corners yet (for instance, at the back of the body, They look much worse but I didn't take a picture). And I haven't figured out how to get them clean: Here's something I'll have to fix eventually, but don't know how I'll get at it. See the opening (this is the front driver's side corner):
That last picture was a bit confusing. Here is a close-up to the opening - you can see the bottom (rear) caged nut of the front fender attachment with half the bolt broken off and still frozen in the nut: Here it is from the outside. It looks like most of the bolt has come out of the caged nut. I'm trying to figure out how to get the rest of the bolt (that you can see in the previous picture) out. I'll spray it with PB Blaster penetrating oil to start, but not sure after that as I don't think I can get a wrench up through the opening. Here's something interesting - the passenger side lower door hinge: Now, here's the driver's side. Notice anything different? What do you think? I don't recall messing with that door at all back in 1966. Must have been the previous owner.
They made a small media blaster that recovers the abrasive as you use it. It has different ends for it so I may be useful
Here are two of my "problem" areas. I took a small drill-powered wire brush to them, but they are still pretty cruddy. This is the driver's side rear quarter (the bumper mount goes through the slot): And here is the passenger side rear quarter: And I still need to move the support stands and clean the areas behind them (you are looking at the top of the steel saw horse sitting up in the cross-space for the rear axle): After I finish the belly I am going to move on to the trunk. I notice the the trunk has a coating of under-coat or tar sprayed on the inside walls as sound deadner. I don't plan on removing that, but when I wire-brush the adjacent surfaces it could get messy and I am also concerned that my degreaser/cleaner is going to smear the undercoat. Any suggestions for cleaning this up?
Couple thoughts; You can get 'rust converter' in spray cans, spray right over the rust, then paint. Por 15, metal prep and Por15 paint. Check it out here - https://www.por15.com/ Small sand blaster, and still Por15 after that. Can you drill that broken bolt out?
I appreciate the comments from everyone. They are very helpful! I've got a gallon of "After-Blast" to treat the metal and then I'll use Rustoleum. When I first got the car in 1966 I sanded down the inside of the fenders, then painted them with Rustoleum and then a coat of Sears' undercoat. The stuff is still in great shape! Since this car is unlikely to be driven in the snow (salt) conditions and will always be garaged that should be good. On that broken bolt: I'll first try to reach in with a needle nose vice-grips and turn it (I'm keeping it soaked with PB Blaster.) When that doesn't work (fine display of positive attitude...) I'll try drilling it.
Heat it cherry red and back it out with vice grips. You can probably get it hot enough with a propane torch.
So I got a generic Scotch-Brite type pad for my angle grinder and tried it out today. In fact, I wore it out today: This was about $10 at Home Depot, so I found some cheaper ones on-line. Hopefully they'll work as well. If not, it's back to Home Depot! Speaking of Home Depot, here's my newest toy. It makes the old compressor run a lot, but I still get enough CFMs to make it work fine. I have a bunch of Scotch-Brite pads coming in tomorrow for it: Notice that I added a disposable water filter onto it as my compressor does like to put out a lot of condensation in the air line. I also oiled it well before and after using. I have a lot of air-tool oil on hand, but I usually only use it on my model airplane engines when they don't get any use in the winter. Results: panel on left is the "before" Better view here. Near panel is "after": Pretty clear that the wire wheels just don't quite do it. The scratch pads work much better. I'm almost to half-way using the scratch pads so have another day for general cleaning and then I'll go back over it and try to get into the small areas better. I have a big can of degreaser for clean-up and also a rust inhibitor (and big rubber gloves!) That operation is coming soon. Ugh.
I know you are well along in the cleaning/blasting of rust removal but have you ever contacted a "Dustless" bloasting service that is quick and they come to you I think they are reasonably priced form this service with a minimum mess. Just my 2 cents
I'm with the other lazy guys. Tried stripping manually - couldn Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Couldn't get into the nooks and crannies and had the body and frame blasted by someone who did a great job. Paid him $700. Well worth it. Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Those red scotch pads are not cheep. Some of them a e $1.50 each. Then you look in the floor and you have $30.00 to $40.00 worth of used ones in the floor.. since we have to buy our own materials in the body shop I tend to be conservative. The Dustless Blaster seems like the way to go to me. Frank
bought my 40 sedan in 2008 with 80's grey tweed interior. when re-doing interior in 2014 we found original brown covers under grey tweed...went with red/wht pleats
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