Lifting body off the chassis.

[Rob W]

Hi all,  I've got a few questions about lifting the body off the chassis.

1.  Bracing the doors.  Any suggestions on how to do this best.  I'm thinking some angle iron bolted between the windscreen mount and hood mounting points?

2.  Seen a few videos of people lifting the body with a good engine hoist.   Where is the best place to connect the chains/ropes too?

3.  Body mounts spacers etc.    Any suggestions on how to keep these all together.    

4. My plan when the body is off is to rest it on some wooden beams across the garage with sufficient room to push the chassis in and out underneath to work on.   Where is best to place the beams?  

Any advice appreciated

Bob

Edited April 20, 2020 by Rob W

[qkingston]

Hi Bob, couple of photos below, I used the body lifting pts shown in the workshop manual, made some steel brackets up and connected to a chain block with strops. The body then sat on a 'dolly' which I made up from a couple of heavy duty pallets/wheels which allowed it to be moved around the garage. The bracing I used was some Dexion bar bolted as shown below. It all seems to have worked ok; no sign of deformation 14 months later!

Rgds David

 

[rcreweread]

Bob - you need to make sure the bracing you put between the doors doesn't stop you from fitting the doors as they are an integral part of the body rebuild and alignment - I would also put some bracing across the bottom of the A and B Posts to stop them from moving about, which they will if you are putting new floors and sills in. A posts have a habit of moving outwards, and going unnoticed until you can't get your door fit to work - however having those cross braces in a real pain when it comes to renewing floor pans so they need to be removable and go back in exactly the same place, hence it makes sense to do one side at a time and have an additional fixing on the tunnel floor of the side you are not working on to stop the whole frame being rewelded on the skew even though they would be dimensionally correct across the car, if you see what I mean.

David's lifting photos are helpful but I can't help cringing at those pivot points, especially the front ones - they may be the lifting points in the manual but they may have been vertical lifting points - lifting the shell from a central point with the lifting shackles being at the extremities of the item being lifted will impart a bending force in the middle which is the last place you want it and if you bodyshell is weak in all the normal places, I hate to think what you might end up with.

I'm not a structural engineer, and David, no criticism of you, but be aware of the above - there are lots of far better qualified people on the forum than me in this field and hopefully they will drop in with their pennyworth - Pete bfg???

Cheers Rich

[qkingston]

OK I guess it depends on the strength of the shell, my sills are completely solid and the bracing resists the bending; as I said the proof is in the body tub back on the chassis, with no distortion

Rgds David

[Rob W]

Thanks for you input both.  My plan at the moment is to take the body off the chassis.    Inspect the chassis though it looks solid, paint it etc, overhaul all the running gear and replace all the lines, brake fuel etc and paint the underside of the car    The body itself is solid other than the n/s outer sill and bottom of the wing so once the chassis is back rolling I plan to reunite it with the body and do the repair to the sill before it goes off for paint.  I can touch up the underside if needed after welding.

Ive seen one video where eyebolts have been put in through the bonnet buffer mount holes near the bulkhead,   has anyone had experience of that? 

[ChrisR-4A]

Hi Rob, when lifting vulnerable items with a single point hoist, my experience is with Tractor Cabs and boat superstructures where spreader bars are used either in pairs or as a rectangular frame. As the word suggests they spread the load and do not have to be that strong as the forces are in compression 

Chris

[Motorsport Mickey]

1 hour ago, Rob W said:

Thanks for you input both.  My plan at the moment is to take the body off the chassis.    Inspect the chassis though it looks solid, paint it etc, overhaul all the running gear and replace all the lines, brake fuel etc and paint the underside of the car    The body itself is solid other than the n/s outer sill and bottom of the wing so once the chassis is back rolling I plan to reunite it with the body and do the repair to the sill before it goes off for paint.  I can touch up the underside if needed after welding.

Ive seen one video where eyebolts have been put in through the bonnet buffer mount holes near the bulkhead,   has anyone had experience of that? 

I should resist an impulse to use the buffer holes ! they are horizontal and not in shear, try using the closest hole in the inner wing you can get to the engine firewall bulkhead in the inner to outer wing attachment .

Mick Richards

[stuart]

Use the turret support mounting holes either side of the engine bay, theres quite a lot of strength there.

Stuart.

[qkingston]

As a matter of interest, I took my method from the workshop manual, same lifting points and a single point lift; Triumph must have thought it was ok for a solid tub......

[Motorsport Mickey]

1 hour ago, qkingston said:

As a matter of interest, I took my method from the workshop manual, same lifting points and a single point lift; Triumph must have thought it was ok for a solid tub......

Yeah...published in 1965 for a car that was then only 12 months old. Ask the same engineers who selected that method if they think it's still a good idea 50 years later with most of it spent outside.

Mick Richards