1955 Chevy 3600 “9 Years or Less”

[MadManAndrew]

Doors off, seat and gas tank out, bed cleaned out.

Got cordless grinder for Christmas, had to come up with some sort of organization to get all the tools and chargers off my workbench.

[joedoh]

ah the joys of a small garage build, space is at a premium!

looking good!

[Oldtruckwelder]

Nice project MadMan.
Great patience dealing with title.
Thanks for sharing.
JT from SC

[MadManAndrew]

Finally got around to getting the cab off. I used a shop crane (engine hoist) after seeing someone else do it here on the forums. Ended up doing even more damage than there was before. Definitely won’t be putting it back on the same way.

[joedoh]

thats rough!

how did you use it? I used the cherry picker method exclusively on a few trucks and the only trouble I ever had was having something to set the cab on, couldnt take it to the ground.

[MadManAndrew]

My boom is not long enough to reach the center of the truck so it was off balance side to side and the step was riding on the ram of the hoist. It seemed balanced front to back until I got it up and free from everything but it turned out it was way heavy on the front so I basically had the passenger front corner touching the ground and the opposite corner 6 feet in the air... a bit of an exaggeration but it was tough.

[MadManAndrew]

I don’t know if any of y’all care about this but I just noticed in the second pic in this thread, taken from my driveway, you can see they had just started doing dirt work on the other side of our street. In the last week I had three new neighbors move into those houses.

[joedoh]

did you use a 2x4 jig on the boom?

yeah getting the boom to the middle of the cab is pretty important, with the doors off the weight would have been to the front so I would have put my 2x4 jig right at the front of the door jamb.

well its off. anyway haha. live and learn.

[dsraven]

here is a pic of how I lifted my 57 cab. the wooden beam could use a longer link from the lift point which would allow the hoist unit to lower more before the wood hits the steel arm of the lift. no problems with too much weight on the front side but mine is an extended cab so that offsets a little. like said before, maybe use the crane a little tighter to the firewall side of the cab? anyway, I put the truck on stands so it sits a little higher to start with, then I lift mine off the frame and set it on some milk crates or something high enough to let the lift down without problems. some saw horses would also work.
before I built my lift attachment I tried some chain to the seat mounts on the floor. bad idea, the cab tries to flop over every time. if youre gonna try that you better have some help. I didn't and it got a little hairy trying to roll to the firewall side. better to lift from the top portion of the cab for sure.

[dsraven]

if youre wondering what that is under the cab, its an old hospital bed with a 2x4 frame on top to span the hydraulic rams and an old door for a work surface on top of that. it works awesome for cab work, box work etc. it has the pedals for jacking the table up or down so it makes working alone easier for sure. it came from a gov't surplus sale. cheap too. if it doesn't have body parts on it then it is holding boxes of parts. wheeled so it moves around easy to get it out of the way. highly recommended.

[MadManAndrew]

Originally Posted by dsraven

.
before I built my lift attachment I tried some chain to the seat mounts on the floor. bad idea, the cab tries to flop over every time. if youre gonna try that you better have some help. I didn't and it got a little hairy trying to roll to the firewall side. better to lift from the top portion of the cab for sure.

That’s what I did and that’s exactly what happened. I actually bolted some of that punched steel tubing to the seat mounts and then eye bolts to the tubing so I would be able to balance it but I still attached the chains too far back. I like your method but your boom is way longer than mine. Might just have to make a longer boom for the next time.