The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Lifting Cab?

I took all the sheet metal off the front of my 54 GMC and the engine and trany have also been removed and I would like to lift the cab off the frame, so I can clean/paint frame and underside of cab and then replace cab bushings. My question is what is the best way to do this. I am space limited so I am hoping to either jack it up on a couple of 4x4's or suspend it from the rafters directly above it. A friend of mine suggested I could open the doors and suspend the cab from the rafters using ropes, but I don't think that roof of the cab could support the weight of the cab. Has any one ever done this sort of thing before?

I put an old matress on the frame behind the cab and just pushed it over on the back... be careful tho.. or jack it up and slip a couple of 4x4's under the front and rear of the cab.. then brace that up, or have 4 buddies carry it off.

Just did this. Stick a 2x8 thru the door openings and using your engine hoist (if you have one) center it under the 2x8 and balance the cab and lift it. You can then move it out of the way and set it down. The cab, when stripped, is pretty light. You can tilt\prop to most any position you need to work on it. I have mine sitting on some casters so I can move it around.

Check the archives - this was addressed recently..... there were many good ideas.

However - I have done it both ways that Rusty mentions....

First, space is a huge issue for me (see my link and look at the shop) so I've had to be creative.

If you have room on the side of the shop - you can build a frame to support some 2x6s (stood on the 2" side to reduce sagging - we nailed two of them together for each x-member) from one side of the shop to another. Think rafters. Just lower to the ground. We then just spaced the 2x6s so the cab would fit on it's back and the bed would fit as normal. Rolled frame under 2x6s, put up bed, rolled back some more then tilted the cab onto its back (and subsequently on top of the 2x6s) and then rolled frame completely under cab and bed.

Later - when the cab came back from the sand blasters in the bed of a **** , two of us just picked the sucker up and carried it the 20ft to were the frame was sitting. The hard part was stepping over the frame while lifting the cab.

Again look at the link below to see how we did it.

- Ryan

One problem is I am doing this frame-off out of order. When I bought this truck and it had just been painted, but nothing had been done to the engine bay or frame. So I started slowly taking things off to clean and paint the front frame and engine bay and before I knew it I had the entire front of truck removed and the interior gutted. The only thing sticking out the front of the truck is the hood and frame. The problem is since the truck is already painted I need to be very careful with all the painted parts when I take them off and finding a place to put them is also an issue. That is why I wanted to just lift the cab off the frame and keep it above the frame(2 foot or so) and work under it to clean/paint the frame and then put the cab back onto the frame. I think I will try a slight adaptation of one of the ideas suggested and attach a couple of 2x6's to the side wall and place the other ends of the 2x6's on a heavy duty saw horse system I have and place the cab on this while I work on the frame. Thanks for the ideas. Here is some pictures of my truck when I bought it for your viewing pleasure: http://community.webshots.com/album/109000222xCReJD