Lift'em Up Part II

Where do we start on installing the lift kit?  The seats have to come out first.  How long should that take?  Maybe 30 minutes, right?!  Try four hours.  What I discovered is the bolts were absolutely rusted.  One was bolted right next to a body bolt...now how did they do that?  Another problem is when removing those cool laid back seats, the seats limit your ability to see the bolts.

Do you like playing blind man's bluff? One of the bolts had to be pulled through the body because, whoever installed these, did not use washers.  The nut was so badly stripped, the only to get it out was pulling it through the channel.  Another bolt had to have the head cut off and then puched through to the bottom. You see how badly the brackets are rusted, this gives you some idea of just how bad the bolts were.

With the seats out of the way, I needed to peel back the carpet.  Oh look there's some foam.  Probably used for sound installation.  OK....What's under the foam?  Oh @#$%^%$#@!!!  Look at that rust!!!  OK, this is not good.  I specifically asked the guy I bought the car from if the pans were good and he said "Yes."

 Even though I was discouraged, I started to tackle the task of removing all those nuts and bolts that hold the fiberglass body to the chassis today. There are about 25 of them. Of course I'll start with the easy ones - right by the doors.  Once again more rusty bolts.  One snapped in two, and several required the help of my lovely bride.  Believe it not, she used to race stock cars when she was younger, so she knows how to turn wrenches. : )

At some point I had to face the inevitable and order new pans.  That's going to mean some adjustment to my budget.  Therefore, I can only assume that there will be many more parts to the Lift'em Up saga.