Lifting and transporting my '50 3100 cab (completely stripped) about 5 miles for media blasting. Cab will be transported on a landscape trailer. Planning on lifting cab with some very strong friends and a hoist.
Question: do I need to weld any supports in place for the lifting and trip? If so, where? Cab is solid minus a quarter-sized hole in each cab corner and a fair amount of rust/holes in the cowl panel on the passenger side.
This comes up all the time and it seems like every one is always agonizing about how to handle the cabs. They are a unit body that when mounted on the frame simply floats on a couple of rubber pads and two shackles. So it is self supporting as long as nothing is rotted away or has been cut out. Lifting thru the center with a cherry picker which 99% of us have or have access to had been documented hundreds of times and is the simplest and safest way to handle the movement of the cab. Once on the ground for blasting/grinding/chemical striping, it can set on the bottom of the floor boards and can be rolled over on the cowl by one person to blast the bottom. The weight of the cab is less than it’s engine and about what your average light street bike might tip the scales at. Although I have some doubts and wouldn’t recommend it myself, I’ve even heard of people rolling the cabs over onto the back side with an old mattress for a cushion to work on the floor boards. There was a YouTube video on line a while back of a guy that had a whole entire muscle car body on a simple rollover frame. He rolled it out of the garage into the driveway and rolled it up on its side, then dropped it down and rolled it back into the garage. Did this all by himself in about five minutes and he wasn’t a big old moose either. DG
Its been awhile since I watched this, they have a frame work to lift the cab someplace in the video. Mine is made of wood and looks just like the one in video, kinda. Just keep watching till it comes.
I made a beam out of 2x6s that go through the door openings and lift at the top of the door sill. That way your cherry picker engine hoist just goes under the frame. I have 2 2x6 uprights that go down and a long bolt to pin it to the hole that a bolt for the chain goes into. It works great, the factory lifted the cabs that way and even with the doors on. I don't think I'd do that with good doors though. I would not lift through the front and back window openings on the pinch welds, don't want to run the chance of putting a warp in the top of the window frame. The factory did not lift them that way.
Last edited by Truckrolet; 06/01/20112:45 AM.
Kicking self for selling off my Taskforce trucks. Still looking for an LCF or conventional big bolt in decent shape.
As of 10-26-2022, A 55.2 Taskforce long bed now the work begins
