I had to remove the little chunk to make room for the saw blade for the vertical cut.

I turned the hacksaw blade sideways, but that didn't work too great. So out came the dremel again.

The B and C pillars went fairly smoothly, and in no time I had the top off.

The top is completely loose now. You can see why the top lifter is important now. The whole roof is hovering above the car.

The back side suspended in air.

I used the cordless drill to turn the threaded rods up into the ceiling, raising the roof.

That's a beautiful sight!

With the roof up out of the way, I can proceed to cut the posts down 2 inches.

One example of how careful planning helps. In this close up of the C pillar, you can see the extra thick steel on the sides. This is some reinforcement inside the pillar to hold the doors up. It's less than 2 inches long, but it will provide a good spot for some extra strong welds when the top comes back down. The thick part you see here will disappear, but the thick part in the roof section will give me a good spot to weld with less chance of burning through.

The windshield posts have an inner support brace. I planned this cut so that I could get to that brace from inside the car without having to cut an access window out.