Heard about this once, though I did not see it. Counterweights were landed, and they had staged chain fall locations through the hoistway using counter weight bracket locations, or newly made pick points, depending on where in the hatch they were. Was a 4 chain fall jump before they had the car at the bottom.
I have always wondered if a sky climber couldn't be used to lower a stripped car...take the cab off to lighten the load, take it to the top with sky climber and cables, rig it, and lower the frame back down on a climber...