ctuinstra

Anyone pull the body off with pulley mounted to the ceiling? I was thinking that a guy could mount four of them and run cable out the front of the garage to hook to a vehicle or something to pull it up.

I have a 3500lb tractor that I could use to pull it up. Or I could use the loader, but that may not give me enough height and as it goes up, it does it in an arch that could make for a very rough time lining things up when it goes back down.

I have a 11' tall ceiling in garage and if secured well enough, it could hold the body up and out of harms way other then the bonking of the head if you try to go under it.

DUB

I have a half ton chain hoist attached to my roof...but it is domed and steel trussed with many supports.

The body can be removed manually....I have been a part of many...and I know it will work.

DUB

ctuinstra

My detached garage has 6" wood truss over a 30' span. I'm just not sure about the weight of the body. It should be fine, we've had 4-5 200lbs guys up there while shingling it, but it just seems like a lot.

80Baby

If you use a double pulley set-up you'll gain the mechanical advice necessary to lift the body by hand.

Procrastination Racing

I can't remember exactly, but I believe a body is roughly 1000 to 1200 lb. You can help by having the seats out, the t-tops off, the convertible top out, and on a coupe, remove the doors.

I remember that 5 of us lifted my '63 coupe years ago with no doors, no seats, no front end, and no windshield, and it was a bit heavy.

I've lifted them with a single 1-1/2 ton chain lift before, running to four straps located at the fenders. However, I had a 12 inch x 6 inch wooden beam supported on 6x6 posts with a 20 foot span.

The weight handled on the roof is different than the weight hanging from the bottom of the trusses. I'd put a couple of 4x4 at least across several of the trusses and mount my pulleys to the 4x4s. And I would use large heavy duty pulleys, capable of 500 lb each.

andy67

hi i pulled the body off my vet with 4 ratchet straps. the body isnt that heavy so if you can put a 1/2 inch pipe through the joists and hang straps from them. i dont like the tractor or cable idea because if you miss something your gonna tear it apart

jnb5101

A body without the seats weighs less than 700 pounds. If you have access to the ceiling joists, make an "H" from 4x4s. Use 8 foot lengths (or longer) for the rails and a 4 foot piece(use two side by side if you're worried) for the cross connector, and attach a chain fall to it ($50 at Harbor Freight). Shim the rails so that the stress is evenly distributed onto all the joists. The extra height created by the H will give you plenty of lifting height. My crystal ball predicts disaster if you use a tractor!

TheSkunkWorks

I'd highly recommend dividing the body's weight with a couple of temporary load support "beams" resting across the bottom chords of at least 3 or 4 trusses to avoid exceeding the dead load design limits of your roof structure. They're fabricated out of 2x6 rather than 2x4 material because of the 30' span, NOT to increase their load capacity PSF or PLF. Just bringing this up in case you weren't fully aware.

ctuinstra

I really like andy67's idea, however ratchet straps have such a limiting travel. I may still do something like this. It will make it easy to at beams such as TheSkunkWorks suggested. The holes can be just large enough to get the strap through and easy to fix later.