On a fresh day, I trimmed the edges of the floor pan and removed the bottom section of the firewall off the coupe.

I picked the body off the driveway and rolled it across the drive so I could roll the prepared frame back on the drive, side of the now basically bare coupe frame. With the coupe body high, I positioned it above the Dakota frame and started lowering it. The plan was to trim either the coupe body or the Dakota firewall a little at a time until the coupe was sitting on the firewall & floor pan. Originally, I started trimming the sides of the Dakota air box (the top part of the firewall that houses the wiper parts and all the heat/vent ducts for the heater & air condition pull air from.) Early on it was determined that was a flawed plan. I cut across the firewall under the floor of the air box leaving only the lower vertical portion of the Dakota firewall. The lower portion is where the heater, the brake booster, the steering column base mounts, anything originally attached to the Dakota firewall. I also ended up cutting about 4" of each side of the firewall. Once the firewall was trimmed, the coupe body sat on top of the Dakota rockers. The rockers were marked to trim. The Dakota outer rockers were already rusted off, leaving only very clean inner rockers, I had to trim the front 1/2 of the inner rockers off at the marks. Once the rockers were trimmed, the body slid down into place. I had to support the rear of the body with a piece of wood across the frame at the rear end of the trunk. The body was squared on the frame according to the firewall body mounts and by measurements along the side & rear of the body and measured for height. Once I determined the body was in the correct position, a few contact points were tack welded to hold the body in position and another day was gone. Have some pictures for the next installment, I think. Gene