Disconnecting the Body from the Chassis

The weekend of the fifth and sixth I was out of town, and Saturday was the Rosarito to Ensenada bike ride, so little progress has been made. The present task is to prepare the car so the body can come off the chassis. This involves mainly two things: unbolting the two pieces and making sure nothing is connecting them.

There are nine bolts running down each side just inside of the running boards. At the front of the floor pan there is a pair of bolts on each side. Underneath the back seat there are four more bolts. In the luggage compartment there are two more, underneath the gas tank, and bolting onto the top torsion bar. On the back (and it took me a while to find these) are two more. These are behind the rear wheels. I was fortunate that not one the bolts broke or bound. They're rusty, though, so I'm thinking of replacing them with stainless bolts.

As to other things connecting the body and the chassis - at the front end is the (previously removed steering column), hoses and electrical connections to the brake master cylinder, and the gas vapor line running down the right side of the car. This disconnects at the front and back at either side of the running board. Moving towards the rear, the cables connecting to the starter need to be removed. I elected to disconnect them at the regulator, but they can be disconnected at the starter. Also in this area, disconnect the heater control cables.

Underneath the car, the heater hoses need to be removed, best at the front where they connect to the body. At the front of the transmission the reverse light cable should get disconnected. (I did it the wrong way and disconnected the cable in the engine compartment. This leaves the cable still connected to both the transmission and to the hole in the body to the engine compartment. Now I'll have to thread the cable back through. I probably damaged the cable doing it this way.) Inside the engine compartment, everything coming from the wiring loom at the upper left get disconnected. If memory serves me right, this means disconnecting wires at the distributor, coil, oil pressure switch, and generator. These are the wires to be removed:

Ahh, and look at that lovely rust spot. That's one of the worse ones, but not the worst.

Also to be removed (and this one I forgot) are the hoses from the air filter to the vapor carbon unit underneath the right rear fender. Sound like a lot, but mostly you just need to visualize the body coming off and make sure there's nothing connecting the body and the chassis.