Projects Lifting a body off the frame

I made this adjustable RHS steel bracket that attaches to engine lifter and used rubber strips to protect body. Angle iron on edges stops it sliding when raised. Just centre it in body and you're away. This car was slung through the doors and as you can see, it bent the roof and doors. Admittedly it's a lot heavier than yours and a tad rusty however you get the message of what can go wrong - Murphy's Law.

 

Well I got the body off. Used the 4x4 with straps front and rear. Still rearend very heavy. Will have to come up with a better way to balance so it sits level. No place to mount any bolt on brackets.

 

This worked perfect for balance on my car

 

We lift bodies with a piece of pipe with a chain run through it and an eye welded in the middle.
I've also mounted a lift on a trailer to move bodies around .

 

I reckon you blokes need more friends. Been done numerous times through the invite for an afternoon ale.

 

For lifting you need a spreader bar designed for your peticular situation. I designed two for the businesses I was in and it saved me a lot of grief. I routinely lifted 2000lbs hay beds to install on new trucks. It was totally adjustable so that the bed was balanced. Also made one to hoist zero turn mowers into the air so I could walk under them for work. It was a four point spreader bar. While I used these many, many times, a simple well constructed spreader bar , even for one time use, will be time and money well spent.




Bones

 

Two cherry pickers, but i had a roll cage to chain them to. It was still scary.

 

We used a rotisserie here,
Like a two post lift.
The body was 100% complete and finished,
Not removing any sheet metal so the body went down over engine for a test fit.

 

Didn't lifting it by the (rear of) the door frames yank the doors/hinges out of alignment?

 

Anything but through the top of the doors. I helped a friend many years ago to pick up a 38 Ford cabover truck from a farmer. The farmer figured he would get ahead of the game and "help us out" by lifting the cab off the big heavy frame that we were not taking. He put a 6x6 timber through the door openings, and lifted it with his front end loader, which immediately kinked the tops of the doors and the roof, cause he didn't have all the bolts undone from the frame. Pretty much destroyed the value of that cab, and made it really hard to fix.
I used to run a cherry picker in the oil patch in a previous life. A proper spreader bar makes your life a lot easier, but it should be suspended from the two outer ends of the spreader bar to the lifting device, not from the middle of the spreader bar. That's how the professional crane operators do it.

 

No,in fact that's the way Ford lifted coupe bodies..doors shut,top bow secure,off it comes.

 

This works pretty well well for me....

 

I used a spreader bar through the quarter windows, made a swivel attachment on top of the jib arm, works well.

 

This is the way I always did it in the past. Till last August. A few friends helped lift a 27 T body from a storage spot onto a trailer, then to a new location, and off again. All by hand. I was laid up from then till almost Christmas with back problems. I spent the first week sleeping sitting up with my head in my hands in a chair, cause I couldn't lay down, and if I did, I couldn't get back up. Several miserable months later, I can still feel the atrophy in my left leg from a pinched nerve in my back. Lost all the muscles in my left leg from my thigh to my knee, and went to physiotherapy till the middle of January to get my muscle strength back.
Lifting stuff by hand isn't something I do much now. I think twice. Never had any back problems in life till this. I'm only 64, not like some of you old farts, and my friends that come to help me at times like this, are having second thoughts now as well. A bit off topic, but very relevant to a thread like this. Lift carefully and take care of yourself.

 

This a frame worked real good for me.

 

Lifted the body of my panel truck and installed in on a Sunday afternoon.

 

I built one of these. It will handle big cars pretty easily.

http://redwingsteelworksplans.com/category/body-lift-roller-plans/