IF I were to offer any advise (and you really don't have to take it) on removing the body I would do the following:
Measure and photograph as much as you can before you start. Measure the height of each wheel arch from the floor and top of the wheels or centres (although this can change with rebuilt suspension) If you can from the chassis to the arches. also the amount of overhang on each wheel to body. Done be alarmed as they will not be equal!
and the height of the front lower valance and rear section from the floor. This will help with realignment later.
Carefully strip out all the interior so you can get to the fixings body/ chassis and drill out. They will most probably be pop rivets (is that what you call them?)
take out all/both front and rear screens. Be careful with these! we have replacements made over here but there very expensive to get them over to there! This will make the roof very fragile and will move around alarming. If you can, drill and screw wooden battens across these aperture to support it.
Remove the fuel tanks so you can cut along the bottom of the sills.
fixings in the engine bay
in the trunk either side of the angled tubes and usually the rear lower cross beam breaks off anyway. The inner trunk is a separate molding.
take the doors off which will be a fighter but will reduce the overall weight when lifting/storing the shell. Also, and this is hard, part the steel door hing plates from the chassis and really
you need to remove them from the body as well as you will struggle to get them past the chassis when lifting. They are bonded over tags to the inner face of the wings.
Undo/remove the windscreen wipers and gearing as these fix the dash board/scuttle to the chassis.
and down the inner sides of the door hinge plates
get lengths of 2x1 timber and screw them lengthways along the sides of the car across the door apertures and definitely around the boot (trunk!) area.
Screwing through the body is not a problem (as you will have more than a few holes to fill!) and will help support the body/keep its shape.
go buy a load of beers and invite your friends round for a drink...timing is everything so don't let them have too much before you mention you have a body in the garage you need removing.....
Get as many hands around the wheel arches and timber rails (that you've already screwed across the door apertures) and lift the body up off the chassis.
Now the best way to support the body whilst it isn't totally supported by the chassis is through the headlamps/wheel arches, across the scuttle/dash board and across the back of the rear seat/parcel shelf.
If you take the time before you lift it off to make yourself a timber mule based on the measurements you can take off the chassis then that would be great, if not, sit the body on the floor and get to making one real quick
These bodies don't like sitting like this as there no real strength in them.
If you can replicate the front angled engine bay tubes. dash board cross tube, rear seat/parcel shelf cross tube and bottom rear boot cross tube then it should be ok.
Then you can see what you have to repair on the chassis. Don't kid yourself that the tubes you can see when you bought it are ok, they were very poorly made with no protective finishing on them and there 55+ years old. Replace what you can because when the body goes back on you will never see them again!....and have you ever seen GRP when it catches fire when welding....don't go there!
Engine bay, central transmission areas will be fine as the TR engine has a self preservation mode built in...it leaks like a strainer!
outer sill tubes, floor tubes, upper/lower rear cross tubes etc will need looking at. I did away with the grp floor pans and welded thin steel sheet floors, up the side of the sills. this made it far more rigid.
When you get all this straight you can start to drop the body back on and try and pull the damaged areas straight and reinforce from the inside and then refinish the front face.....but that's a long ways down the line my friend.
When you take the whole car to pieces that's when you are at your lowest point and to be fare the car is pretty worthless SO DONT STOP! keep plugging away and will start to look better...or you'll start drinking before lunch...
Hungry for more photos and anything I can help with I will. I'm sure there's stuff I have forgotten and there should be plenty of members out there that can pitch in and advise too.
Hi: Further notes from a restoration serial offender
1.
Making a wooden body mule (on castors) is a very sensible first step. The body (less glass and doors) is very fragile, and needs all the help it can get.
The GRP will distort with exposure to temperature and if heavy things are left on it. It's not waterproof. The A and B pillars are only reinforced with bits
of wood, and they didn't paint the wood. The spare wheel well will not support the weight of the body for long. At some point you will want to roll it on its
side to re-skin the underside (to make it waterproof) and this is easier if it's strapped to the aforementioned mule.
2.
When restoring the chassis, rebuild the suspension first, and only do the final weld-up when you are sure that all the wheels are pointing in the same
direction, at sensible camber/castor angles. Getting the chassis 100% square on the bench might look lovely but be prepared for assymetric de-dion tubes and
other spurious effects. These cars are +/- half an inch (at least) in most dimensions and notorious for taking left and right corners differently. Getting the
wheels in the right place sorts this out. You don't need a posh chassis jig or laser alignment, just a flat surface, some string round the wheels, and a good
builders spirit level. Alan Stanniforth's suspension book is useful if you've never done this before.
3.
When you get the body back on, take a deep breath, and walk round it a lot before you bolt and glue it down. It's different left and right. The doors are
different. The seats are different shapes. Taking measurements (as Nigel says) is great, but if you've got all the wheels right at least one of the arches
is going to look wonky, so aim for the best compromise and live with it. It's a 60 year old hand-built car.
Welcome to our world of madness. Help and advice always available.
I had the chassis sandblasted, and given the fact that it was suprisingly good and required little to no welding, i decided not to take off the body. Firstly because the body was sitting quite evenly on the chassis given the ground measurements i took. So to put it back that nicely would have been tricky. Secondly because there was very little welding work to be done and all was nicely accessible. Thirdly, 85% of the chassis was sandblasted, 10% was done manually with a wire brush afterwards, the 5% that wasn't accesible is on the top were little corrosion is possible. and finally, the body only has some small fiberglass repair work to be done do i did not want to risk doing major damage to it by taking it off and letting it sit.
The chassis was treated to prevent rust with metal prep and POR-15 paint. So we should be safe for the future 20 years. Is it wisely to change the fiberglass floors to metal one's?
Now it's time to overhaul the engine, gearbox, and differential, while the body goes to the paintshop to repair the fiberglass body on some places and have it painted. Any good adresses to get the gearbox and differential rebuilt?
Nice work so far. You were very lucky getting your hands on such a good example particularly if the body only needs minimal repairs. From my own experience and looking at other examples, the body is usually where the bulk of the work comes in. The original on my car (#86) was so bad I had to commission a new body from Ian & Celia.
Re the floor pans, general impression is that, yes, replacing with steel is a good move and something I've just undertaken. They're currently at home with me getting primered, undersealed and having sound deadening applied prior to going back to the workshop to be welded in place (once the lockdown is over).
