my baby is coming home

[tscott9330]

Well, I bought a house and I now plan to move my cute little 78 home to my 2 car garage.

I have a few questions for all you guys who have done a frame off chassis restoration.

I am giving serious consideration to pulling the body off my 78. I think I will get a much better product if I do it this way.

So my questions are as follows:

1. I have limited space,(just a standard 2 car garage) and I need pointers from all you guys who have done this in tight areas. ( I also plan to rent a storage unit to store the body until i get the frame how I want it)

2. what kind of reinforcment will I have to do to my roof framing to make sure the weight of the body doesn't hurt my new house?

3. and lastly, I want the frame to have a good look to it so I was considering using the paint on bedliner stuff to coat it. I just want to know if anyone has tried this?


Tom

 

[69MyWay]

Tom,

Where in Florida do you live?

You can do plenty in a standard garage...trust me!

It depends how your ceiling is built, but what I have done (twice now), is reinforce the joists on either side of where I am putting the lift by running long runs of 2x4s sandwiching the orginal rafter. I then cross brace to the upper rafter. Finally, I slide a 4x4 with angle iron on both sides of it through the cross X of the rafter reinforcements. I try to span at least two..so you need more than 4' of post.

Then, in the center, I pop a hall in the ceiling drywall board, wrap a chain around the steel reinforced beam, and allow a hook to hang from the ceiling.

This will give you plenty of strength.

Frame wise, you can go POR 15, or the Coreless products from Eastwood, or ship it off and have it powder coated. I would not spray the bedliner stuff on the frame rails.

I am doing a frame off right now. Visit my website for more details. Click the last tab on the lower left to see it.

I am updating it today with a couple of more pics.

 

[tscott9330]

Thanks 69MYWAY, thats pretty much what I figured on doing to the roof.

I live in east Orlando over by the university of central florida, where is that relative to Orange park?


Also, of the 3 options for the frame you mentioned, which would you say gives the most bang for the buck, and how much of a mess will they make?


Thanks ,
Tom

 

[69MyWay]

Tom,

I am about 2.5 or so hours (give or take I4 traffic) from you.

I did the Eastwood frame system, but I hear better things about POR 15.

The 71 Vette on my web page just got the powder coated option.

Bang for your buck....paint, less mess....powdercoat--because you drop it off, and pick it up finished.

 

[tscott9330]

Thanks fro the info, I think I like the way the por-15 sounds. It seems like it would be alot less work than anything else and it should last forever.


And next time i'm heading up to your neck of the woods, I'll drop you a line, I would love to get a look at killer and your other projects.

Tom

 

[70 VETTE 454]

Tom

Just doing the same thing right now in may garage as we speak to my 70....
well I live about 5 mi from 69MyWay (Jacksonville) and he told me how do the support in my attic for my body lift.

I just put a 6' 4x4 beam from home depot, across 4 joists, and drilled a 2" hole in my ceiling for the cable from the come along to go thru, attached to the 4x4 with a chain. I can take some pics if you want to see, how.

I have my car in 2 pieces right now in my 2 1/2 car garage, and I don’t have a problem getting my car disassembled at all. I have the body all the way to one side to leave me enough room to work on the frame which is what im working on now.....it works fine for me.

not sure how big your garage is, but if you can get 2 cars in there and open the doors enough to get out, you should be fine.

as for the frame, im fixing to use POR-15 here for mine shortly. just need to remove 3 more parts and then flip the frame and wire wheel the underside. then its time to apply the POR-15. ill be posting pics of that as well as of the body lift I did 2 months ago.

feel free to ping on me for anything, im doing now what you will be doing soon, so if I can help, just ask.
Dave

 

[tscott9330]

Dave, Thanks for the info on the roof supports. I shouldn't need pictures though. I am pretty handy with a hammer and nail, I just wanted to make sure that the trusses were strong enough. I crawled up to the attic earlier to get a look and I'm pretty sure that with a little bit of country know how I can brace it up nice and sturdy.

2 questions though:

1. do you have to have the frame down to bare metal in order to apply the POR-15 or do you just have to get rid of aall the major rust?

2. I noticed you said your care was in 2 pieces, body and frame. I noticed that on some web sites, like 69myway's he took the body off in 2 or 3 pieces, Nose, Rear, and dird cage. is this better than just pulling off the body and is it necessary?


from the looks of the pics on 69myway's website it took alot of fiberglass cutting to get it into all those pieces

Tom

 

[70 VETTE 454]

Tom,
I didn't have to nail anything at all, I just laid the 4x4 over the joists where they meet in a triangle section.

Ques 1

you don't have to, POR-15 can be applied right over it and it will prevent any more rust.......BUT, since you went to the trouble to take the body off, might as well do it right.
now, you don't have to go down to bare metal, but just removing the surface rust, is sufficient. as long there isn't no rusted out metal there, you should be fine.

Ques 2

the reason for more than 2 parts like mine, is cause a little more work was involved to get what he has now. more damage was down there, like rusted completely thru. mine was not in that bad a shape, and I did not need to do that. but if you have rusted out frame sections, then yours will have to be similar to his. it is not necessary, only if needed. puling the body off itself in one piece is good enough if you can.

Dave