And the Body is Off!

Big thanks to Dave, Eric, Andrew, and Greg who helped out in the rain on Friday to lift the body off the chassis. The process went mostly smoothly except during the first two attempts to lift the body off, something was still attached to the rear of the car. After the first body lift attempt, we noticed that the hand brake cable was still attached to the inside of the car. Once this was removed, the second attempt was hindered by the hand brake cable pulley system under the car which anchored the cable to the body and rear brakes. Finally, after the hand brake was completely freed from the body, the body transition went fairly easily with four guys lifting and Greg and I sliding the body rig underneath.

The last snag of the day came when we tried to push the body rig and body all the way into the garage. The shifter got in the way and after a quick shifter cap removal and unscrewing of a bolt, the shifter came off without issue.

The body rig has provided us with a huge convenience factor. It is easily rolled out of the garage with two people and can be rolled by one person, but not as easily. We now have convenient access to the chassis and rear suspension and allows us to store the body in a one car garage. It feels good to have finally hit a major milestone in this project.

Evaluating What's Underneath
The condition of the chassis underneath the floor panels was as expected given the condition of the floor panels. There was a lot of surface rust on the chassis, but we cannot be sure if it's any worse without sand blasting. Despite my annoyance with grease and it getting all over my clothes, the grease has actually helped to protect the chassis from rust in some areas. Wherever there was grease residue, underneath the chassis was in fair condition with some original paint still present.

Things Left to Get to the Bare Chassis

• Finish removing front suspension
• Remove rear suspension
• Remove engine, transmission, drive train, differential

Final Cruise Day at Kimball's Farm (Westford, MA)

Kimball's Farm is an ice cream stand near where I live and throughout the summer they have Cruise Nights where people get to display their classics or modified cars. Cruise Day wrapped up the summer of Cruise Nights and there was a pretty impressive set of cars on display. Sadly, no Triumphs were there, but there was an Austin Healey Sprite.

Austin Healey Sprite

Corvette

1930s Mercedes-Benz Kit Car on VW Beetle Chassis


(Note the Tear Drop Camper)

Plymouth Car with its own mini-Plymouth trailer

Progress Worthy to Blog About

With rain and other weekend plans, I have only been working on the Triumph every few hours here and there with not much progress to actually blog about. I finally removed the last rusted bolt attaching the body to the chassis. Using a Dremel with a cutter bit, I cut a notch into the top of the bolt so that I could use a screwdriver to hold the bolt from spinning as I loosened the nut. With this last bolt removed, the body is FINALLY ready to come off.

Today, Chris and I finished drilling holes and fitting the crossbeams for the body rig. We decided to use bolts so that we could easily store the body rig in the garage until we could bribe some friends with pizza and have them help lift the body off the car. The finished cross beam consists of 3 bars across the top, one at the back bottom, and one diagonal beam on the back for stability. We have to leave the front of the body rig open to slide over the chassis when storing the body.

The plan is to leave the doors on the body when we remove it because we are afraid of the car bowing at the door frame. The floor panels around the concerned area have rusted through leaving the bottom door sills as the only support.

Hopefully we can get the body off this week or next and start looking into removing the engine.