Who has done this?

Hey everyone. I am wondering about those of you who have done your cars with a rotissorie. Is there any need to do some bracing of the body and frame before spinning it into all these different positions. I would think you might risk some bending/warping of the body shell. Just curious about this before I mount mine.

 

I just rolled mine over yesterday on 2 home made stands. It actually rolled over pretty smooth. I didn't experience anything that I would call stress to the body. Remember that when the shell is stripped, it doesn't weigh very much either, so I guess that helps too. I don't feel that I am going to have any problems.

 

I had no problems with body flex on my rotisserie.

 

Thanks for the input guys. Just don't want any problems with body part alignment when it goes back together. I agree it weighs a lot less but with out the windshield and back glass ect. in you also loose some structural integrity and you are putting the car thru stresses at various angles that are not normal.

 

How much rust damage are you trying to repair? If the floors and torque boxes are rusted out then you might want to put in some frame connectors first.

If you're doing it with the doors off, it probably isn't necessary, but you can tack in a door bar for some peace of mind.

 

You will mostly only see support braces on convertibles. As stated above, as long as you don't have major rust issues you shouldn't have to worry about bracing anything. The roof is your support.

 

Kind of resurrecting an old thread, but mav1970, do you have any pictures of the stands that you built to roll the Mav?

Thanks

 

I'd like to see a set of home made stands as well. I plan on building a set in the future.

 

I'll chime on this too.

I'm dying to see a setup like that. Hopefully I can take my restoration as far as that.

 

I got a free copy from http://www.autobody101.com/rotisserie.php

 

since these cars are unibody i would expect the shell to have enough strength not to twist or warp. pulling off the suspension and a few body panels isnt going to cause an extream lack of structural rigidity

if you had a full frame car and were pulling the shell then yea, you should probably brace that

 

I posted a thread with some photos, of these home made roll over stands, last year. I copy and pasted the link for you below.


http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=36458&highlight=roll


These stands made removing surface rust, cutting out bad metal, removing undercoating and paint a breeze. I also cut my floorboards out for the sub-frame connectors while it was on it's side. Not one speck of anything in my eyes. I believe I have less than 150.00 into these things plus I can always convert them back into engine stands when I'm done. Actually, after I rolled the car back upright, I just pinned it in that position and continued to work on it. You can't go crawling around in or on the car as it is still just pinned on it's 2 pivot points. I guess if you were able to jack stand it that high in the air, you could do whatever you wanted to it.

Another plus for leaving it up that high is I can store my lawn mower and grandson's battery power quad under the car.

Rolling this over did not seem to be causing any stress or bending of the uni-body at all. If I had to do it over again, I would move the pivot point up a little more towards the roof. It did roll over a little top heavy but nothing that I didn't get used to. Just freaked me out a little the first time it rolled over.

Whatever you do, just be very careful and good luck.

 

Thanks for the info - the balancing information is great, too. I like the relative simplicity of your design and something like that should do me just fine. Getting my Mav on it's side is the next step in my project.