Work begins!

Finally a bit of sunshine and therefore Nick and I made lots of progress made on taking apart the sierra today! Nick hard at work:

A quick summary of what we have done today:

• Loosened the drive shaft and prop shaft nuts before jacking it up.
• Took off the exhaust system (its almost new condition so going to try and ebay it).
• Took off the hand brake cable.
• Undid the top of the rear shock absorbers.
• Cut the rear brake lines.
• Undid all the mounts that bolted the rear subframe onto the car.
• Then the whole of the rear subframe could be lowered and slid out from the car:

The diff, drive shafts and rear brakes were then all easy to access and remove. After that we started on the inside:

• Removed the handbrake.
• Took the steering wheel, dash and indicator stalks etc out.
• Removed the steering column.

Having initially been very doubtful about an article where two (semi professional) guys stripped all the parts needed from a sierra for a kit car in only 6 hours, i can now believe that might be done! As we are at least half way there, having spent about 6 hours working on it today, and we are relative novices.

I'm going to buy an engine crane tomorrow to lift the car up high enough so that we can slide the front subframe out once we unbolt that. We will need one soon anyway for getting the engine out of the Saab. I looked at getting one from ebay, but the prices go almost as high as a new crane, so might as well buy new. I am going to pick one up from a place near here that does them new at a good price.

Hopefully we will find some time this week to get the front subframe out...