Tear down (part 3)
The Roadmaster....
Taking a car apart can be fun or a royal PIA (it's a combination of both), it's all really straight forward you unbolt stuff and set it aside piece by piece dismantling the vehicle, there are a lot of parts to disassemble and it all has to go for our version of a chassis swap.
A couple things I'll mention is to save everything you even remotely think there might be a use for even if it isn't for the current project, more than once I've went back to my horde of CV parts to use a item that I could have thrown in the scrap pile. You really can't rip and tear things apart everything needs to be disassembled either in assemblies or individually.
It's a given that you are going to label every wiring connector so have some masking tape and a good sharpie ready, and you're going to want to do this even if you're not reusing the entire harness like we will be doing because at some point you will have to mate some portion of the old harness to new wiring....by labeling every connector you have options and you can see what you're dealing with.
You're also going to want to save all the screws, nuts and bolts you remove, we just use a box that everything gets dropped into that can be sorted through at a later date....nothing sucks more than to need something that you threw away and all of it can be tossed after your done with the project.
Take your time....don't break stuff to get it out of your way, it doesn't take that much longer to just figure out how the factory put it together and remove things in that way, of course you are going to run into problems like stripped fasteners, broken blind nuts, and you can deal with them however you think is appropriate but I'd save the cutting torch or plasma cutter as a last resort you don't want to set your project on fire or cause more damage than is necessary.
Safety glasses and gloves are good protective options that I highly recommend........
You should also have a plan to dismantle the vehicle, you want to leave the battery connected as long as you can so that things like power seats can be moved while your unbolting them, as long as you're not cutting wires you won't be hurting anything just unplugging connectors and most of the vehicles major components can be removed with the battery connected....but if you are going to cut wires disconnect the battery first because there is no sense having to chase down blown fuses at a later date when you are trying to figure out why something doesn't work.
I normally work at the back of the vehicle first and work my way forward, since my wife was helping she started on the interior while I took the rear apart, I helped her get the doors off when she had them ready then went back to whatever I was working on....after the rear was apart I moved to the front.
I also try as things come off the vehicle to sort them into piles of scrap metal or junk plastic - interior that will have to be sent to the garbage...it just makes it easier to load the scrap metal if you don't have to sort it as your loading.
So this is where we are at Monday afternoon, we are down to the hard parts of pulling the dash, steering column, removing all the body bolts, pulling the wiring out of the car, then deciding where we will cut the body up into small pieces to make it more manageable, you don't want to damage brake , fuel lines or really anything underneath that isn't seen so you need to look really close before you cut things up.
Ideally removing the entire body in one shot would be the easiest, safest, and quickest way but your going to need a good way to lift the body off the chassis that is safe and secure, we don't have that luxury without calling in another favor so we'll cut it up into manageable pieces.
Don't forget to cut out the front of the firewall for patterns later.....
-------
Some Fact and Theory.....
There are so many different ways you could do a complete chassis swap, I've seen people reuse the donor vehicle firewall and dash cutting out the slick firewall and dash, or keeping the donor firewall and HVAC system but using the slicks dash, I prefer to try to keep as much of the original slick cab as possible and don't mind converting the wiring to use the slicks controls, to me it has a more original look....but the skies really the limit as to the amount of modification and fabrication you can do if that is what you choose.
Personally I've never liked the builds that cut the firewall from the slick and use the donor firewall and dash, they just never look complete and look a little hacked up (just my opinion) but there are few limitations to what you can do as long as you have the space or room to work with and the desire.
AC is one of those issues that a lot of people want or need and that is a contributing factor in the build, refitting the donor HVAC unit under the slick dash will leave about 2/3rds of it hanging out under the slick dash, it looks unsightly but I have seen builds where people have made a lower dash panel to extend the dash to cover it and it looks ok. Of course the best option is to just use a aftermarket unit that was made for the truck but you're going to drop between $1500 -$2500 to use that option and in my builds it's more than I want to invest in a HVAC system.
Actually I have found for my usage in the '62 that I like the one knob control the heater has. pushed in it blows out the floor, pull it out and it blows out the defrost, twist the knob and you have your blower speeds...simple, I did put a manual shut off valve in the heater hose to block the water flow during the summer and it worked out great. There are plenty of air vents in the '62 so unless you're sitting at a stop light it's pleasant even on the hottest days here.
But none of this changes the fact that you have lots of options in your build, it really comes down to what you want out of the build and to what lengths you are willing to go to achieve that goal.
I've covered the wiring before but again there are several levels of integration you could use from a brand new stand-alone harness to adapting the existing harness like we will be doing, I saw the other day where Jegs or Summit was selling a stand-alone complete wiring harness for any vehicle that is using either a LT1 or a LS GM motor, this was a complete harness with fuse panel, lighting, accessories, and engine connectors to wire any vehicle....they start at around $550 and go up to around $850, they also are selling a harness for 5.0L and 5.8L Fords with EFI which makes transplanting a modern engine and transmission in a old vehicle basically plug-n-play as long as you already have a ECM, these were made by Painless so other manufactures can't be far behind and will be at a better price point. ...but that's again too rich for me, since I have a harness that is already proven to work I'll be using it just like we did with the CV.
I guess I'm just trying to give you folks ideas if you're planning a chassis swap in the future, not really trying to justify what we are doing but show that there are lots of different ways to accomplish the same task based on what your wants are and the amount of work you want to do.
------
This weekend we will pull the rest of it apart.
Jon