I am working towards gettng the body off and have all the body mount bolts undone. All rear end disconnects are done. What are the steps for disconnecting the shifter (automatic). Does the shfiter stay with the body? Can the radiator, shroud and fan stay in if the side bolts to the core are undone? Does the radiator get drained? Can the master cylinder stay in if the brake lines are undone? What lines from the engine side through the fire wall get disconnected? Does the steering column/wheel get removed? I have the list of steps for the midyer removal, but it seems there are more things to do. If there are other things you can advise so I won't frget or haven't asked please let me know. Thanks for the help.

 

it's been since last summer when we lifted the body off a fellow club member's '80 so I can't remember everything (plus we all worked on different areas of the car so I wasn't involved in every single thing that was disconnected) but what I can answer is:

1. the shifter should be disconnected from the tranny of I remember correctly since it stayed on the body when we lifted it

2. you are better off removing the radiator & core support as it makes things easier.

3. Yes, if you remove the radiator you have to drain the coolant system - no big deal, just put a drain pan under the radiator and open the drain valve

4. Master cylinder can stay bolted to the booster and firewall. Just use a turkey baster to remove all the brake fluid from the master cylinder first than disconnect the two brake lines off the M.C.
Be very careful and put towels or rags down around the M.C as you do this as brake fluid will remove paint off anything it touches!

5. ANY vacuum or electrical lines coming thru the firewall that attach to motor or other items that stay attached to the frame must be disconnected. This includes AC/Heater vacuum lines, headlight vacuum lines, tachometer leads, accelerator linkage, speedo cable, etc

6. Steering column can stay but it must be disconnected at the ragjoint before the steering box

7. C3 batteries are in the rear storage compartment in the body, not mounted to the frame like C2's so the positive battery cable needs to be disconnected from underneath and the negative battery cable needs to be disconnected from it's attachment on the frame

8. heater hoses coming from the heater box to the motor need to be disconnected (yet another reason you need to drain the coolant from the system). Depending on what year your car is it can be almost impossible to remove them off the heater box until the body i lifted so remove them at the motor side and lift the body with the hoses still attached to the heater box

there may be one or two other items but that's what I can think of off the top of my head for now