The Toyota Landcruiser Owners Club

[ThePiper]

Hi all

It's been years since I posted on here but still have my trusty Colorado. It's now 25 years old and the back axle is rotten. I've patched it twice but now is time for a new case which I've bought at Milners. I've decided to do a body off chassis restoration whilst at it as it's very scabby and ultimately I want things to last for many years to come so going to put some time and money into the old girl. Anyway, I was sure at one point in the past I'd seen a guide on here for lifting the body off the chassis but having searched and searched I can't find it. Maybe I imagined it, but can anyone point me to it - if it exists??

Thanks,

[Google]

[AlPrado]

Sounds like a big project , you are a braver man than me , Good luck  

[Andyk80]

I've not seen a guide on here specifically, but there's body lift guides on Youtube you could start from and the process is pretty similar from truck to truck.

I know someone who did it on an Isuzu pickup, then had the chassis sent off, acid bathed and then galved.  That was years ago, and the chassis on that truck looks pretty much as it did when he had the job done...

If I remember right, he followed the body lift process in removing chassis > body bolts in addition to disconnecting anything that connects the body to the chassis (steering column, wiring loom branches etc etc), but rather than doing a side first, I think he lifted the back of the truck, then put big tree trunk slices a foot or so outside of the corners with a thick wooden beam between them and moved forward so the body ended up resting on 3 wooden beams resting on 6 tree trunks if that makes sense.

He works in council ground maintenance, so getting that sort of thing is no problem.  There may be something else you can use in place of those, but basically you want something you can have the body off the ground by enough that you can wheel the chassis out from underneath it to work on it and know if the body gets knocked, it's not going to fall over.

[ThePiper]

Hi,

Thanks for the comments and advice. The job is currently in progress and going well so far.

Thanks again,
Ryan

[Andyk80]

Nice!  If you're going to all that work, I'd definitely suggest an acid bath/hot galv if you can.  If you want a chassis to last for a long time, it doesn't get much better.  The acid will show up any areas needing welding before galv too.

[ThePiper]

Thanks for that. Sadly there aren't many places local to me (Northern Ireland) that can do the acid dip/galvanising thing and not sure my budget would stretch that far anyway. So I'm going with sand blasting and have bought some epoxy mastic (EM121) from Rustbuster to prime/treat it all afterwards. I've bought some Eastwood Internal Frame treatment for inside the chassis etc. It seems to have really good reviews so will see how it goes. Cheers

[Andyk80]

I've not heard of Eastwood before, but I'm looking for a system to hit the inside of my chassis currently.  I'll give that a look, thanks!

[Tractionman]

Karl on 120 series has recently used Eastwood products with good results. Extensive prep beforehand, looks great.