Week #112

After spending a few days staring at the car in the garage, I mapped out what needed to be done next. I was left with the task of finishing the underside myself so I needed to get the car back up on the rotisserie. Over the last few months I had planned some changes to the rotisserie to make it easier to use and safer. I did not want a repeat of what had happened before!

The most important change to the unit was to lower it. The way it is now is the whole thing is as high as whatever casters you have. I'm using 10" rubber tire type casters and that put the crossbar at the bottom already at 12" above the ground. This would be better all around if it were a minimum distance off the ground... the car wouldn't have to be nearly as high in the air to rotate around fully and if the unit came apart again the end supports would not have anywhere to go and could not fall forward like they did with me earlier. This lowering, along with some other safety features, will be done before the car is mounted.

Another area I wanted to work on was my method of raising and lowering the car while it is mounted. Before I was using a "Come-A-Long" at each end, hooked at the top and wrapped around the pivoting point on the rotisserie. This system was not only time consuming but difficult to do. A buddy of mine built one of these rotisseries and from the start incorporated several of these features I'm talking about here, including a cool method of raising and lowering using a couple of old style bumper jacks. I know a great idea when I see it so I set out to do the same.

Lowering the whole unit was not to tough. I cut the tubes that the casters mount to and "raised" the mounts, using vertical extensions, which in turn lowered the rotisserie itself. The raising and lowering solution was a bit more complex but just consisted of a few brackets and additions to some existing parts. I had one jack in the shop but had to pick up another one... eBay to the rescue!

Another area to adjust was the attaching points to the car. With the fenders and hood now on the car, the brackets to the front needed to be a good 10" longer. This was easily accomplished by making simple extensions out of some heavy angle. I had never been too crazy about my use of only one bolt at each side for the rear mounts so I cut the ends off of the rear brackets and made sturdier 2 bolts connectors for each.

With these changes my rotisserie has become a much safer and user friendly piece of equipment. I still plan on adding another safety feature... a couple of pins in the long connector bars along the bottom to ensure that they don't come apart again. No one likes to admit that they are lazy, but should have taken the time to build this thing this way originally.

As far as the car goes, I have spent little time on re-assembly. I did put on the rear P-L-Y-M-O-U-T-H letters along with the side scoops and "Road Runner" scripts. At least now the car has some identity.