I had spent a fair amount of time thinking about what would be the best way to separate the body from the frame so that I could roll the stock chassis out from under the body, and then attach the body to the rotisserie.

Piece O’ Cake!

As it turned out that once I had all the wheels and tires taken off so that I could get the chassis as low as possible, and all of the attachment hardware removed,  all I had to do was tack a piece of angle iron across the bottom of the firewall where the body mounts to the chassis and use a jack stand to catch the front of the body.  Then I positioned a couple of my Werner benches to pick up the back corners of the body.

Next I dropped the lift down until the chassis was on the floor, and in doing so, the benches and jack stand supported the body while I repositioned the lift arms to pick up the body near the front and rear body mounts.

After raising the lift back up, we used the floor jack to pick the chassis up from the floor and put the wheels and tires back on. Then rolled it back behind the body. Easy Peasey!

My good friend and neighbor, Art Bans showed up just before we started this part of the job. I want to thank him for thinking about me and figuring out that I might need some help with it!

Points to ponder:

• Next up, fabricate the mounting brackets to attach the body to the rotisserie. I am thinking about using a piece of box tubing with steel tabs to pick up the front body mounts and tie the front together.  The rear mount will be similar in that it will pick up the mounting points that are at the top of the frame kick up.  There is a rather stout brace running from side to side at that point.
• I did notice that my plan to brace the body without using a spreader at the top of the doors, looks to be a bad decision. There is too much flex going on without the body being on the frame. So before I go much further I will have to buy some more 1″x1″ 0.83 wall tubing to add to the top of the door openings after I re-align and straighten up the body, prior to mounting it on the rotisserie.
• Live and learn… every time I try to skimp on a small bit of money it bites me… sigh!