Renault 4 Restoration – Body off

About five weeks ago I bought C840LEW, a Renault 4GTL. Since then I have been gradually dismantling it. Some things come off nice and easily and some take hours of wrenching and swearing. The body is held onto the chassis by 23 screws. It’s all pretty basic. My body was held on by 22 screws which was a problem because the missing screw was beneath a metal patch that had been welded in place years ago by someone fighting the ravages of rust and not imagining for a minute that anyone in 2016 would want to get at said screw to separate body from chassis. So they welded the plate to both chassis and body. That took me a while to sort out. But eventually I was pretty sure all screws were out and everything inside the car that connected to the engine or chassis or wheels had been removed . I also had to laboriously remove, with a heat gun and kitchen knife, all the horrible black sticky putty stuff that was between the two parts sticking them together.

In the end the body came off quite easily and it was quite a relief to realise that I had not forgotten anything and that the wooden dolly I had made to support the body was the correct dimensions.

 

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Next job is to get the engine out.

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