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TR6 TR6 body removal

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71tr

71tr

Jedi Warrior
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Getting ready to lift the body of my '71TR6 off the frame. All wings, doors, bonnet, interior have been removed. Planning to use an engine hoist after bracing door openings. Any suggestions on best fittings; chains, tow straps, cables, rope. Also best attachment points; straps under entire body, cables attached to hinge fittings etc.
 
71tr, Four guys and don't give out food and beer until it's setting on the saw horses or what ever. Where are you in NC, I might have a few names for the engine rebuild. Wayne
 
Yea 4 guys works the fastest, but if you need to do it with the hoist there's a good diagram in the "complete official TR6"shop manual on where to hook up. well its in the "C.O.4-4a" manual (same basic body tub) I can E-mail you a scan of it if you like.
 
Hi,

I'm planning a "lift" soon, too. And, I'd like to rig something for repeated future use, that one person can handle so as not to need to rely on locating 4 to 6 helpers.

I've been looking at chain hoist, possibly from Harbor Freight. It occurs to me that these would also be useful also for lifting the motor/gearbox into the car, although not as mobile as a standard engine hoist. (Move the car under the chain hoist, instead of moving the engine hoist to the car.)

I was planning on using two, but this mainly is because of concerns about the the ceiling to which the hoist will be attaching, not the hoist's lifting capability. I'll be bolting to floor joists above the garage, which have a bit of a span, and two separate hoists will distribute the load better on those.

For anchoring points, I'll make a couple from heavy angle iron and install them with as many big lag bolts as I can. This garage is finish/sheetrocked and insulated, so I will have to bolt from below, although I'd prefer to bolt into the side of a joist or truss for this sort of thing.

I also considered using block & tackle with heavy rope, four instead of two. If the body were being lifted only very briefly and immediately set back down on something, I think this would be safe. However, my car is a bit less disassembled than yours so is heavier, and I may need to leave the body hanging for a few days and, briefly, work under it.

I looked at Northern Tools website and found "2000 lb." block and tackle setups, with 1/4" rope! I *don't* recommmend those! No way 1/4" rope would be adequate!

Another option if not lifting too far, use an engine hoist at one end, a ceiling mounted chain hoist or two rope block & tackles at the other.

Or, if not lifting far, it might be possible with two large engine hoists, although I'd be careful doing this with both on wheels.

The attachment points on the car, as suggested in the TR4 factory manual: The hood hinge mounts (front/inner wheel arch) at the front. The seat belt anchors at the rear. I have a roll bar in the car, so will be using that at the rear.

These car bodies weigh less than we tend to think and really aren't hard to remove. Still, it's better to be overly cautious about this sort of thing. If I were doing a lot of this sort of lifting, I think I'd set up a redundant strap system as a safety precaution. And, if I were permanently in this garage, I'd make an A-frame gantry to better support the hoists.

Cheers!

Alan
 
Trust me, it is not that heavy. My brother in law and I pulled my TR4A body off the frame and set it back on the frame when it was completed (new floors, outer and inner rockers, front and rear valances, etc...). The two of us flipped it over many times over the course of working on it. I built a wooden jig to support the body while it was off the frame. Keep in mind that I am talking about the stripped shell w/o doors, fenders or any removable sheetmetal. I would estimate this weighs 300 pounds or so. Two can remove it but four guys would make it easy.... make sure you have the door openings braced but if the body shell is in good shape even this is not necessary.
 
Ever considered a rotisserie. A buddy welded one without too much hastle and mounted his 4 body on it. Made body work and painting hard to reach areas a snap. Nice to be able to walk up to your body and spin it to reach any spot without turning yourself into a pretzel. You will be amazed at how many nooks and crannies there are in these cars. These are the areas that rust without perfect prep and paint.

Bill
 
No rotisserie planned. Will deposit the shell atop a rolling stand made of 2x6 lumber. High enough to allow the rolling chasis to be stored beneath. I'll devise some mechanism to tilt the body for better access to the underside.
 
71tr and Allan.....
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but please don't get your personal body right under the car body while it's supported only by rigging, you MUST have a secondary blocking in place first.
If you are rigging off the long span garage ceiling joists then be sure to place a temp vertical prop somewhere under the load bearing joist to transfer the load to the ground particularly if your garage trusses are like mine and have those metal spikey splice plate thingies (real technical) in them.
 
A used twin size mattress or two makes a beautiful, cheap,and disposable rotisserie. I did a 62 tr4 that way.you just have to be careful if you plan on doing any welding,cutting, or torching
 
Alright! I love the twin mattress rotisserie idea, that's thinking outside the box.

Graham, not to worry I won't put myself under an unsupported shell. Again, the plan is to use an engine hoist, rollout the chasis and roll-in the 2x6 rack with 4x4 posts supporting.
 
Gangnails, Graham! That kind of thing happens to me too, forgetting words I mean.
Simon. (TR4a now named "Humpty Dumpty" as wife thinks all the Kings horses and men won't get it together again!)
 
We used 6 guys to lift the complete body off my son's TR6. We built a wooden frame using measured attachment locations from the replacement frame we had prepared. We suspended the body from the wooden frame with chains to the garage joists after reinforcing them with doubled 2X4 posts to the floor. In looking back, we could have used another 2 guys.
 
You have to strip the body shell down to the basic form. This means no fenders, hood, trunk, bumpers, grill, windshield, doors, interior, etc..... to get the weight down. It really does not weigh very much in this form, the chassis frame is much heavier than the stripped body shell. Not only did we lift this off and back on the frame (with just two guys), but we flipped it over many times in welding the floors and rockers in. I also built a 2x4 frame to mount the body on when we were working on it, this works pretty well. But honestly, it really does not weigh that much and you don't need hoists and reinforced ceiling joists to lift this off. Just be sure you find all the bolts or it will seem really heavy!
 
Its done! Used an engine hoist and two 15ft nylon tow straps. After building a 35" high wooden platform complete with castors I lifted the car and safely placed it atop the platform. Now the rolling chasis can slide underneath the car when not the center of attention. This was really easy and makes a good system for prioritizing the work flow.
 
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