Body shift.

[Clone TIE Pilot]

Ran into a problem with replacing my body bushings. I am replacing the old rubber factory body mounts that were falling apart with poly mounts. I have the frame supported on jackstands and using a floor jack to lift the body up to replace the bushings. After replacing the bushings I discovered most of them are not lining up the caged nuts in the body. I can't get the bolt to thread in. I am afraid the body must have shifted as I jacked up a section at a time to replace the mounts. What can I do to shift the body to realign it back up to the frame? It seems the rear is more out of alignment than the front. From what I can tell it seems the body is a little too far forward on the frame and a little to much to the left (driver's side).

The body still has doors, seats, and glass in it. Hopefully I don't have to remove all of that?

 

[axisg]

typically if you change one side at a time it shouldn't shift. I have a 24" bar tapered at one end to help everything massage into place when swapping them out. Worst case the body has to come off the frame. Not much just enough to allow some movement.

 

[L92 OLDS]

Everything I had read about doing this suggested changing only 1 side at a time to help with alignment. I followed this recommendation but still had 2 or 3 of them that were difficult to get lined up. This was on a completely rust free car and I was careful not to disturb the cage nut position. I had to lift the body off the bushings and use a long phillips screw driver to make it work.