Body Braces

The doors are off

Into storage for a while

After spending at least six weeks--or roughly half of the time that I have had the Ghia--designing and building a dolly to hold the body separate from the chassis while I work on the two halves in essentially the same space in my driveway, the day for the actually removing the body is getting close.

While building the wooden dolly basically turned me into a carpenter for a month or more, I've really been building up the urge to bang around on some metal.  And, although the last step in the process involved metal, it was not 'good' metal (of the rusty and/or automotive type) that had my attention, but a few strategically placed lengths of angle-iron to brace the body and keep it from collapsing like a fortune cookie when it is lifted up off the frame without the doors.

Bolted to the body

Steel angle iron braces

Of course, I first had to remove the doors, which proved to be less difficult than I imagined, but not so easy as it ought to have been.  This was not because the the big bolts holding the doors had become a little rusty (which they had), but because a tricky little hinge pin hidden inside the door required more finesse than force requiring me to think rather than simply wrench and remove.  With Richard's patient help and few brain cells later, I had the doors off and the car ready for the braces.

Ready for liftoff

The frame locks it together

I had originally thought I would have to weld in these braces, but fortunately after the doors came out I found a couple of perfectly placed openings in the body both fore and aft that permitted me to bolt them in instead of welding.

Eight bolts later, we're braced for liftoff.