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January 12, 2005
2.0 Hours

Rotisserie Update

Judging by the amount of E-mail I get about it, and from the response to the plans being posted at autobody101.com, a lot of you are wondering about my rotisserie. Wonder no more--it works perfectly!

Tonight I put the Buick up on the rotisserie. The process was quite easy--I bolted the body braces to the body using fender washers to space the body off the braces to prevent damage. Then I slid the braces into position on the tripod and locked it all down. Using a floor jack on each side of the body dolly's side rails, I jacked up the body about 6 inches and secured the height adjusters in place. Lowering the jacks allowed me to roll the body dolly out from under the body and it was on the rotisserie. Easy.

Body was easy to mount on the rotisserie. I still have to cut the tie-bar
to length so I can fit it between the tripods to join them together.

When I tried to rotate it, it moved easily--even Julia could rotate it. The catch was that my garage ceiling isn't high enough to allow it to rotate even 45 degrees. So I rolled it outside, taking advantage of a 60-degree evening (in January! in Cleveland!). Moving it was easy, and the tripods rolled easily as I expected. I need a few adjustments--the body mount up front hits the very end of the tripod; I need another inch of clearance there, so I'll redrill the mounting holes in the front body brackets and give myself some more room. I'll also move the rear tripod closer to the body by again drilling more holes in the brackets. Otherwise, the whole assembly won't fit in my garage. Still, with the height problems of my garage ceiling, I'll never be able to move it 90 degrees indoors, so it will have to be done outside. Nevertheless, I can still do a lot of work underneath with it at about 40 degrees.

Rotisserie rotates, but the body is just too big for my garage. A little
adjustment to the body brackets will give me enough clearance to
rotate it 45 degrees (arrow).

Body rotates effortlessly. Note how rear brackets are bolted to the body.

I locked the rotisserie in position and crawled around underneath, checking out my earlier floor repairs. I plan on dressing all the welds to make the repairs invisible, and the rotisserie will make that easier. I think the first thing I'll do, however, is send it to the sandblaster's place and get it all stripped down. There's still a lot of rust and even the patches I've made have some surface rust. I'd rather have it stripped then I'll treat the whole thing with Picklex-20 to prevent additional rust while I work on it.

Easy access to the underside. My new floor brace is
in place, but the welds need some attention. I also need
to spot-weld the brace to the floor and repair the holes.

And in case you don't want to take my word for how well the rotisserie works, here's one built by a reader, Rick Doritty. He's restoring a Camaro using a modified version of my design. It turned out well. Thanks for the photos, Rick!

Rick Doritty's rotisserie. Nice!

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E-mail me at toolman8@sbcglobal.net

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Last modified on 02/07/2005

Thanks, Fidget!