Rotisserie build

[mmccarty]

Those hydraulic jacks are a 24" bottle with a 20" throw.  I think when I got the spindles
mounted on the car they were around 26" high and it looks like I jacked the car
2 feet above that.  They might lift the car enough with a single throw, otherwise
you'd have to fab up some brackets where you could lift the car, pin the car, reset the
jack, unpin the car, lift again, pin the car, etc.  It was more than I wanted to plan
out and fuss with.  The jacks I used work well with a minimum of fuss.

We have a Harbor Freight here in Abilene and I picked up a nice hydraulic engine lift over
there for $150.  http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=35915
I noticed last week they were having a sidewalk sale and were selling them for $100.  I
couldn't even start to build one for that much.  I was telling my son when we were
building the rotisserie that it's too bad HF doesn't sell one for a couple hundred bucks...

[mmccarty]

Moparnocar, Here are some detail pictures.  The base is 5 ft long, the vertical post is 5 ft, the diagonal braces are 9 in on the long side.  The rotating bar is 4 1/2 feet.  The round spindle is about a foot long.  The sliding portion to adjust the arms are a 6 in piece welded to 3 in piece.  The L brackets are a 12 in piece welded to a 16 in piece.  There is an 18 in section of 2 1/2 in tube welded to the bottom of one stand and an 18" section of 2 in welded to the other stand so the stands can be slid together and rolled around for storage. (Weld these on the bottom of stand instead of to the face, with the height of the wheels the connecting bars underneath were an 1" too tall to clear my rear end and I had to jack the car a little to install them)  Also, the L brackets on the back can be omitted for an E-body.  Just come straight off the sliders on the rotating bar right to the back bumper.  The vertical adjustment isn't needed here.  You do need the vertical adjustment on the front to set the front spindle to the same height as the rear.  If the spindles aren't straight across from each other (on the same axis) the car will bind as you turn it...

The bottom stand of the jack was spaced a 1/4 in from the post to allow the spindle section to slide past it.  The tab at the top came with the jack and I had to trim an 1/8 or so to plumb up the jack with the post.  The lifting nose of the jack was cut off to fit.

That's it in a nutshell....

One of the pictures shows them removing the trunk floor.  The fellow is sitting in an office chair drilling out welds.  He just loves this thing!

[duodec]

Thanks for all those pictures; very informative!  I have got to get one of those...