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Good progress is being made once again on my resurrected 1956 Packard Panther Project! I and two good local Packard friends (Bud & Lance) SAFELY and SECURELY tackled pulling the body off my 1956 Clipper Super (5647) -- to be "Panther" -- chassis and separating same so I can more easily work on and modify the chassis.

The purpose of this thread is to provide some detailed pictures and discussion about this exercise. I posted this in the regular 55-56 Forum because there's nothing custom or modified about doing this. Hopefully, this will be guide for someone else who wants to separate the body and chassis, but isn't sure how to do it or would like some ideas about same.

We did this body off separation over 3 work 1/2 days spread out over about a week's real time. We took this amount of time because Bud's 73, I'm 67 and Lance is mid-40s, but has back problems. We vowed we weren't going to hurt ourselves doing it. Besides the last two days, the outside temp was 111F+ in the mid afternoon. We solved the heat problem by starting at 6AM and stopping around 9AM. Also, I left my portable swamp cooler on all night for the front garage and turned on the wall A/C unit in the bonus room (rear single garage) ditto. That really helped fend off the otherwise oppressive heat for a while.

I'll post pictures of each of the 3 day's work in the next 4 posts. Feel free to comment on the pictures and/or my comments.

Craig

First day: we figured out how to use my Harbor Freight collapsible "Cherry picker" to lift the body off the chassis. I'd seen pictures of this being done on other threads on other websites, but there was never any detail and it wasn't a Packard!

Using the "Engine Levelizer", the four extended chain ends were bolted to the four (two on each side) body-to-frame attachment points after those bolts, pads & washers were removed. Underneath, we used the appropriate length 2x4 on each side to support the body sheet metal and put the bolts (head side down with big washer) underneath. The chains on top were attached with big washer and nut. The bolts were grade 8 and the chain extension is hardened steel chain.













With the trunk lid removed, the body was almost perfectly balanced. All we had to do was add some ballast at the rear (rear disc brake rotors for the upcoming modification!)


Quitting for the day, we put the body back down on the chassis with 3 4-ft long 2x4s per side between the body and frame. It safely stayed that way for for a week until we could meet again.

Day 2: our goal for this day was to get the Panther body lifted and supported front and back with what I call "saw horse A-Frames."

This picture shows the clearance with the body raised:


The "heavy duty saw horse A-Frame" for the rear. The cross beam is 2x6, the legs are 2x4, the bottom of each leg pair is reinforced with a horizontal 2x4 to form the "A" and finally the left and right pairs of legs are stabilized with a diagonal 2x4. All attachments were with wood screws. This "saw horse" is not going anywhere other than doing its job when in place:


Rear sawhorse A-Frame in place:


The front of the body was lag bolted to the top of the 2x6 of the front saw horse A-frame, mostly to make sure it wouldn't slip off. (The rear one was captured in place by the body):


Bud (left) and I (right) are pleased with our progress for this day:


Lance and "helper dog" Koni are also pleased:

Day 3: our goal for this day was to construct and install the mid sawhorse A-Frame, remove the cherry picker whose legs were blocking the forward movement of the chassis and move the chassis forward into the front garage.

The mid sawhorse A-Frame had to be notched to clear the body sheet metal (see 2 pix below). The doubler was in place to reinforce the notch-weakened cross bar.






Bud (left) and I (right) admiring the "big fish" we just landed, i.e., the chassis rolled forward away from the body.


Lance also admiring the "big fish". Lance immediately wanted me to explain to him how the Torsion-Level worked now that he could see everything (he has a 1955 Clipper Constellation):


The Panther chassis rolled forward and to the side of the front garage for later work. My 55 Pat still fits on the other side of the front garage (yeah!):

Day 3 finish. Here are some pics of the body off and supported with the HD sawhorse A-Frames.

Fantastic thread Craig. I so wish I could have drove the 400 miles and teamed up with you, Bud and Lance. Great pics and technicals. Safety is always paramount.

This was a very new experience for me, and what a honor to work with Craig and Bud. Truth be told, It is one of my top memories the feeling of accomplishment when we finally separated the two completely, Since I am getting to know my Clipper Constellation, Craig has been an inspiration on this new endeavor, and when asked if I wanted to be part of this Panther Project, It is all falling into place. The time and effort to remove and see how the engineering is and how as Craig puts it the "elegance" of the torsion leveling system, and well my eyes are being opened to a whole new world, the Packard world.

Craig,

thanks for posting this awhile back.

i'm going to be using this soon to lift my body off for cleaning underneath and seam sealing all my repairs top and bottom.

also will make linseeding and herculining way easier and wont make a mess on my frame.

i'll will post pics in my blog, hope to start this weekend.

Hank

Craig,

Really good to see the Packard Panther coming along so well. It was a sad day for me when you announced on your website that work had ceased. The Panther website was the first Packard site I had found on the internet up to then, and it helped point me to the other sites and forums that were available It was really fun to get back into Packards, and I'm grateful to you for the right turn your Panther site gave me, in addition to being about a project that was so close to the kind of re-engineered Packard I'd dreamed of. Nice to see your dream Packard coming to reality. Best of luck.

55PackardGuy Quote:

Thanks for the kind words. Sometimes reality intervenes into the best laid plans. Happily for the Panther Project and me, there is now sufficient $ and motivation to restart the project. The 1955-56 header subproject is something new, but it is happening and is a lot of fun. There are a surprising number of guys interested in the headers. I shall do my best.

Craig