Barry,

What I do with convertibles, which tend to be more felxible than even
the K-body cars, is to weld braces into the car while still on the
frame.  Get some 1" square box tubing and weld it from the kick-panel
area to the rear inner quarter at the top and bottom of the door
opening.  Then use 1/8" flat stock and "X" brace across the opening as
well.  

If you do this while the body is on-frame and the doors closed, you
should then be able to remove the body from the frame and replace the
floor braces and hog troughs in full without any obstructions in the
way.

I did this on my '62 ragtop, while still on the frame, then removed
the body and supported it on a 4X4 that was on cement blocks across
the two firewall mounts and the two rear body (in the back of the
trunk) mounts.  While only supported at the two extreme ends of the
body shell, the doors still open and close like they did when the car
was on the frame.

Lee DeLaBarre
Daytona62

Barry,

I have not had much time for Studes this year but I am almost complete with
building the boxes on my 64 convertable. I am using 1/8 inch 2 inch angle
iron. I did not strengthen the body when I removed the hogs. I knew one side
of the old boxes had some rot but when I removed the undercoating I found
the inside side of both of them was gone also. I do not understand this as
after I removed them i had shiney floor board metal underneath them. I had
to adjust the drivers door a little but did not have to adjust the passenger
door. The drivers side of this car is actually the worst side as far as rust
goes, which is really strange. These floor boards are really solid with only
a couple small patches( installed before this effort) so I figured removing
the rotted out hogs would not hurt as they were not really doing that much
anyway.  When I removed the original boxes I think I could have filled a
trash can with all the hunks of rust that came out.   These things looked
much better on the outside than they were on the inside.

I built the boxes by using the angle iron to form a u channel on the inside
and outside of each box. I used this method as it allowed me to manever
around the frame supports.  I could not have gotten a u channel in there
with the length I used.   The outer rails are close to 6 foot in length
which gave me the strength I wanted as they run from the front floor boards
to just in front of the rear wheel well.  This is my first convertable and
it seems that the area under the rear window was not supported as well as it
could have been originally as that water running down into there from the
rear window had a poor design for removal or draining..

I placed a galv plate across the bottom of the two u channels ( two pieces
of angle used to make a u) I really think the 8 pieces of angle I used are
better than the original hogs but they do not look as nice I guess. I
attached the bottom plates with screws and caulking so i can get in there
again if i ever need to. I ran 1/4 flat steel from each of the frame mounts
across the two u channels.

This method seemed to really work for me, the 1/4 flat steel supports the
outer u channel and still allows me screw the plate on the bottom. The galv
I used was pretty heavy and I put two ridges in it to add strength.

I do think that the door I had to adjust was due to the fact that I
"repaired" a saggy floor and someone previous had adjusted that door to
allow for the sagging floor.