Removing body off pan advice?

I've done three body off chassis to date , it is quite a bit of time and labor.

4 front bolts, 2 rear bolts, all bolts along the door thresholds ( you may have to cut an access behind the fiberglass) disconnect and remove the column, Pedal assembly, E' brake cables, possibly the heat hoses ,  shifter, fuel tank, battery & cables etc. . Look at what needs to be disconnected at the harness a majority of it can stay in place.  Hopefully someone ignored the step of fiber glassing the body to the pan. Start by prying ( I 've used a 5' digging pry bar) at the left and right front ( where the four bolts were removed then work your way back. To actually lift the body you'll need 4 - 6 strong young guys ( one each wheel well and one on the front and back) or you can use a come a long ( a 2-3 person job to keep it from swinging out of control) centered in the car with 4 chains with S' hooks , 2 hook into the L &R heater openings in the lower kick panel area. I bore a 1" holes on either side of the 2 round pipe that is under the rear seat platform and pass a chain under the pipe and back into the car. Be super careful that body is heavy. Once separated , put the rolling chassis on 48" tall 2 x 4 saw horses this makes for easy access to pan repairs etc. 

Alan Merklin posted:

I've done three body off chassis to date , it is quite a bit of time and labor.

4 front bolts, 2 rear bolts, all bolts along the door thresholds ( you may have to cut an access behind the fiberglass) disconnect and remove the column, Pedal assembly, E' brake cables, possibly the heat hoses ,  shifter, fuel tank, battery & cables etc. . Look at what needs to be disconnected at the harness a majority of it can stay in place.  Hopefully someone ignored the step of fiber glassing the body to the pan. Start by prying ( I 've used a 5' digging pry bar) at the left and right front ( where the four bolts were removed then work your way back. To actually lift the body you'll need 4 - 6 strong young guys ( one each wheel well and one on the front and back) or you can use a come a long ( a 2-3 person job to keep it from swinging out of control) centered in the car with 4 chains with S' hooks , 2 hook into the L &R heater openings in the lower kick panel area. I bore a 1" holes on either side of the 2 round pipe that is under the rear seat platform and pass a chain under the pipe and back into the car. Be super careful that body is heavy. Once separated , put the rolling chassis on 48" tall 2 x 4 saw horses this makes for easy access to pan repairs etc. 

Roughly how heavy is the fiberglass body and steel frame?

Approx. 550 - 600 lbs.

Don't forget bumpers and bumper bracket too.  I bet you could replace the pan haves (either side) without removing the body.

I agree with Wolfgang as long as you have a couple of inches around the pan perimeters you could, trim it out and reweld tailored sections of the new floor pans with an overlap... easier to do that.

I was recently looking at the underside of my Fiberfab Speedster and found that one side of the body is bolted to the pan using the body to pan screws and the other side (drivers side) has none of the screws and has no holes in the body lining up with the holes in the pan. I didn't build the Speedster so I am not sure what happened or how the body is actually attached on the drivers side. What condition would cause the holes in the body to line up on one side and not the other? I am guessing  this is why they don't have the stock bolts or screws in place on the drivers side. I will try to post pics later tonight. It looks like they might have spot welded the body frame to the pan at each pan hole just on the drivers side.  Has anyone seen anything like this?

Sounds like the "builder" only did one side of the body.  Those Fiberfab guys were a strange bunch.  

It's been over 20 years, but I don't remember ANY holes pre-drilled in the body frame when I did my CMC.  It was up to the builder to drill the body frame holes and fit fasteners.  I used all of the original VW holes in the pan where-ever I could.  I remember some pan-to-body bolts being accessible from the inside of the body and some were captive and blind.  Those blind ones I just drilled up into the body frame and inserted a "Clinch-Nut" from below.  I was lucky back then that I had a few mechanical designers working for me so I could get info on what would work best for the price of a (free) coffee.  I used a Grainger product.  Drill the hole slightly tight, pound the clinch nut up into the body frame, insert a proper bolt (I used metric everywhere to be consistent with the VW body bolts)  and as you tighten it down it compresses the clinch nut, making it captive (just like a winged wall anchor in your house).  Here is the Grainger catalogue page:

https://www.grainger.com/produ...33!!!g!538663077280!

Hmmmm.........   I thought mine were M8 and the biggest there is a 1/4-20.  That'll work, and you'll probably only need them in 4 places (the rest are where you can get at the nuts and those got the VW donor bolts).  Maybe they have M8 or 5/16" elsewhere in their line-up.  This page looks interesting, too - drive the knurled sleeve up into the frame hole and you're done.

https://www.grainger.com/categ...d-insert/nut-inserts

Good luck, and get the rest of those body bolts installed!!   There should be two at each front corner of the cockpit and two more each side (a little farther apart than the front) at the rear corners of the cockpit, then four or five more down each side about 12" - 14" apart.  Always nice to keep the body attached to the pan in a panic stop!

Probably held on with 4 tubes of silicon!

Thanks Gordon, I have all the front and rear corner bolts. I will work on getting the missing bolts on the drivers side installed.  The rest of the build looks very good. Not sure what happened with the missing body to pan screws.

There aren't nearly as many used on the kit as by VW.  CMC build manual says three 5/16" x 1 1/4" per side. Seems VW had a bolt every 10" or so.

Since the body is secured by way of 4 bolts up front and another two at the back , you can replace the use of the side bolts with  self tapping hex head screws with 3M  seam sealer sandwiched between the pan and body 2 x 4 steel. Seam sealer when fully cured is a good bonding material.. 

Thanks Alan. That sounds like the way to go.