One Man Body Lift
Discussion
There was a call to arms on the S forum to get a team together to lift the body off an S3 followed by some witty banter about other priorities (Watford playing at home, holidays, wrong type of day etc) so I offered to post some pics of a one man lift I did recently on my 3000S. Apparently the S-series lift is somewhat different to an M-series lift so it was suggested that I post here.
Pre-requisite for the following sequence is that all the bolts, bits and wiring have already been disconnected so the body is free to come off and you have plenty of 4x2 hanging around and a couple of scissor jacks (oh and the wife and dog have gone for a long walk - experience tells me it reduces the number of 999 calls). Estimated time is probably less than 2 hours if I did it again but first time round it took longer so if you have a team then that is certainly the quickest way.
The first move was developed as a quick way of having a peek at the chassis before the body lift proper. So I jacked up the body with a jack under the tub around the seat belt mounts. A short piece of 4x2 protected the tub from the jack. This lifted the back end quite a bit and I was able to support this with some more bits of 4x2 so that I could have a good nose around the chassis without the tub falling on my head.
At this stage, I realised that I could move the jack to the top of the chassis and get enough lift to slide a piece of 4x2 between the tub and the chassis and get rid of the jacks and other supports.
This 4x2 cross piece was then fixed to the tub with large screws/washers through the drain holes behind the seats so that the rear could be lifted and dragged back to get the cross member sitting on the highest point of the rear part of the chassis. At this point, I realised that the 4x2 was too low to clear the rear tyres and too long to fit inside them - so I had to take it off and shorten it.
From this position, it was possible to drag the body back far enough so that the front footwells cleared the chassis by enough to be able to lift the front up and level with the back. Lifting the front was easily done by hand since this was a rotation rather than a lift. So it was easy to lift it high enough to slide another 4x2 cross member under the front.
In retrospect, it would have been better to drag the tub back further so that this cross member could be placed behind the handbrake lever and gear stick. As it was, the only hairy bit of the whole process was getting the front cross member over the gear stick - a bit of lifting, wiggling and pushing did it but there's probably an easier way (I took the handbrake lever off but couldn't find a way to remove the gear stick). From this position, I was able to drag the tub backwards off the chassis an onto a strategically placed table.
With the rear supported, I was then able to rig up a longer front cross member under the front of the tub so that it could be supported on a couple of chairs so that it was clear of the chassis and the rear tyres. This allowed the chassis to be rolled forwards and away from the tub.
The 2 front-to-back lenghts of 4x2 were meant to give a better base to slide the tub along but didn't really help so I took those out for the final push.
Getting the tub down on my own involved a series of jacking up and then down to a lower support, alternating between back and front. A set of castors screwed to the cross member ends allowed the last move with the scissor jack to put the castors on the ground and slide the jack out.
The castors allow the tub to be moved around easily but the frame will need a bit of strengthening to avoid too much flexing.
So, this is one way of doing it solo, I'm sure there are other, probably better, ways of doing it but it just sort of developed from the intial lift to have an early peek at the chassis. Needless to say, you need to be sure at each stage that its not going to fall on your head and do damage so make sure you rely on stable supports at all times (scissor jack are totally unstable so always back them up with axle stands) and if you are unsure at any time STOP and go and watch Watford.
HTH
GB
PS the chassis rust seems to be all surface rust with no holes that I've seen so far. Maybe the sandblasting will find something but its not going to be major.
Pre-requisite for the following sequence is that all the bolts, bits and wiring have already been disconnected so the body is free to come off and you have plenty of 4x2 hanging around and a couple of scissor jacks (oh and the wife and dog have gone for a long walk - experience tells me it reduces the number of 999 calls). Estimated time is probably less than 2 hours if I did it again but first time round it took longer so if you have a team then that is certainly the quickest way.
The first move was developed as a quick way of having a peek at the chassis before the body lift proper. So I jacked up the body with a jack under the tub around the seat belt mounts. A short piece of 4x2 protected the tub from the jack. This lifted the back end quite a bit and I was able to support this with some more bits of 4x2 so that I could have a good nose around the chassis without the tub falling on my head.
At this stage, I realised that I could move the jack to the top of the chassis and get enough lift to slide a piece of 4x2 between the tub and the chassis and get rid of the jacks and other supports.
This 4x2 cross piece was then fixed to the tub with large screws/washers through the drain holes behind the seats so that the rear could be lifted and dragged back to get the cross member sitting on the highest point of the rear part of the chassis. At this point, I realised that the 4x2 was too low to clear the rear tyres and too long to fit inside them - so I had to take it off and shorten it.
From this position, it was possible to drag the body back far enough so that the front footwells cleared the chassis by enough to be able to lift the front up and level with the back. Lifting the front was easily done by hand since this was a rotation rather than a lift. So it was easy to lift it high enough to slide another 4x2 cross member under the front.
In retrospect, it would have been better to drag the tub back further so that this cross member could be placed behind the handbrake lever and gear stick. As it was, the only hairy bit of the whole process was getting the front cross member over the gear stick - a bit of lifting, wiggling and pushing did it but there's probably an easier way (I took the handbrake lever off but couldn't find a way to remove the gear stick). From this position, I was able to drag the tub backwards off the chassis an onto a strategically placed table.
With the rear supported, I was then able to rig up a longer front cross member under the front of the tub so that it could be supported on a couple of chairs so that it was clear of the chassis and the rear tyres. This allowed the chassis to be rolled forwards and away from the tub.
The 2 front-to-back lenghts of 4x2 were meant to give a better base to slide the tub along but didn't really help so I took those out for the final push.
Getting the tub down on my own involved a series of jacking up and then down to a lower support, alternating between back and front. A set of castors screwed to the cross member ends allowed the last move with the scissor jack to put the castors on the ground and slide the jack out.
The castors allow the tub to be moved around easily but the frame will need a bit of strengthening to avoid too much flexing.
So, this is one way of doing it solo, I'm sure there are other, probably better, ways of doing it but it just sort of developed from the intial lift to have an early peek at the chassis. Needless to say, you need to be sure at each stage that its not going to fall on your head and do damage so make sure you rely on stable supports at all times (scissor jack are totally unstable so always back them up with axle stands) and if you are unsure at any time STOP and go and watch Watford.
HTH
GB
PS the chassis rust seems to be all surface rust with no holes that I've seen so far. Maybe the sandblasting will find something but its not going to be major.
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