When the time comes and I want to lift the body off the chassis..er.. how do I do it? Where are the lifting points?
The thing is incredibly fragile and I don't want to break it in two.. Also, I need to make a jig that has the same mounting points so that I can repair the bodywork completely before mounting it on the chassis again.
This will make the body even more flimsy than before but there’s not much you can do other than but braises across the apertures and then you will have to repair those areas later and on and on.........it goes.
I think it's a phase one you've got isn’t it..........ha ha get cutting.
You can use a hand held saw if you want to take it slow and careful or save a week and cut with an angle grinder but please use good overalls breathing masks goggles etc as fibre glass when cut like this is NOT NICE
You will have to cut the bottom edge of the sill so it will clear
Remove doors, bonnet, boot, glass
Remove/cut the door hinge plates
Unbolt wiper mountings/dash board
Rear valance around the boot
Side/top of boxed area underneath rear side windows
Top of parcel shelf
If you can keep the sills attached to the rest of the body by this stage then you’ve got a good shell and I can’t see what all the fuss is about.
Oh and by now you’re about a year in and your skin still itches
To lift the body you need the following:
BEER
Oh yes this has an amazin effect on the lifting procedure
The second thing is
Lftin buddy (LB’s)
This can be obtain outside the place you bought the beer from, or ask the shop keeper who his best clients are.
So with your new liftin buddy's and beer you can attempt this critical maneuver.
Look at car.
Open beer, drink
go inside put feet up and look through MG's for sale mag..............
It's best with about four or five LB's. Make a timber frame that is the same as the dash board and rear parcel shelf dimensions that will help. If you can have a couple of spare blocks around to prop up the nose and tail then all’s good.
Trust me though it will probably break at the “A” posts as this is the weakest point.
Then you can stand back and admire your purchase, which has not only collapsed apprance but also in price. Oh and those beer buddy’s, I forgot to mention only get the ones with a sense of humor, your all going to need it.
It has been done before on my car, and the LH A post has sheared right off, the skin has come loose on the RH side. The nose is drooping so much that the bonnet hits the front carb leaving a 30-40mm gap all the way on that side. The rear valance is still in the UK somewhere(together with the half shafts) All in all it looks a bit nackered, and I was hoping to do this without making it worse. Careful planning is in order here I think...
Your reply also tells me that it won't be possible to fix the body off the car, as the sills and valance curve underneath the chassis and will only get ruined again. Am I correct? Then how did they get the body on the chassis in the first place?
I am starting to understand why only brave men and idiots attempt to restore these cars
We can always make you a new body !!?? seriously broken bits can be replaced and we are the people to do it !! Good luck, and thank-you Nigel for cheering me up and making me laugh after an awful week so far.
The Phase one has around fifty eight panels that are "glassed" into position.
they built the body Around the chassis. Phase two cars are far better designed and will lift in one. To get any degree of fit and finish you've got to repair the body after it's fixed back on a well sorted chassis.
That sort of explains why the bodywork wasn't painted on the inside then. Why is it that car manufacturers never think about people like us? I have seen so many IDIOTIC solutions and designs that I'm starting to think that either they are all morons or they must have a nasty sense of humor.
I drive a Ford Escort to work (yes it's sad)and I would like to kill the person who designed the dash. Why would you put a shelf in top if it? Stuff just keeps flying off when the car turns and because of it there's no other place to put anything. Brilliant bit of design, that...
Herald based Triumps as well. They drilled a 2cm hole in the chassis directly behind the front wheels for fuel and brake lines, how very clever...
Yup, that felt good!
Besides, half the fun of restoring is coming up with improvements.
Is it advisable to lift the body off with the glass i place or will this cause so much strain that it might shatter? Also where does the car rest on the frame?
I am thinking about making a sort of quick release contact behind the instrument panel so that it can come out easily and without having to tag all the wires everytime. Anyone tried this?
Celia and Ian, Im starting to think that the remanufacturing of body panels was a stroke of genius and it looks like I may have to take you up on that offer. Good Luck with the LeMans entry
Thanks for all the answers guys! It's most helpful
If you don't take the front and rear screens out (especially the rear) then as you lift the body the distortion is liable to pop it out unexpetedly. This will be the cause of much sadness and waste of good beer money if you fail to catch it as it falls and have to find another one.
Another technique that I've used, in the absence of Nigel's supplies of beer (and willing mates) is to carefully jack the body a couple of inches up off the frame, and insert 40mm square timber over the weight bearing cross members. There are four of these in a Peerless, and with the bonnet, boot and glass removed, only the dash is not directly accessible from above, and a couple of holes where the rusty bonnet catches have blown out the GRP won't hurt too much. I then use fencing "eye bolts" and rope through through the timber up to similar eye bolts directly above in the garage roof beams.
This is a lot easier if you've already taken the floor out, and it does mean that you can "inch" the body up in the air as slowly as you need to, and it's possible to do it on your own. It's a lot less stressy than a quick team heave-ho before we all open another beer, and saves a disaster if you haven't found all the securing bolts before everybody lifts. Just the bodyshell on it's own doesn't weigh a lot, even with the doors still in place to provide some extra rigidity. It's certainly no worse than hanging a boat, or a ladder and a couple of cycles off the garage roof.
I took my Warwick body off this way a couple of months ago, and once it's up in the air, you can just push/drag the chassis out of the way, and lower the body back down on to the storage frame. And do make up a body stowage frame on castors BEFORE you take the body off, if you stand it on the ground it will break up, because it can't take any weight on the boot floor, the front valance or the sills.
Now you can stand back and wonder why you took on a Peerless restoration.
As Nigel says, there is really no point in doing any structural repairs to the body until it's back on a sound and square chassis, because it depends on the chassis for it's shape and rigidity.
