toolman

Orginially I was thought I could get away with repairing the frame rails. But after cutting open the frame rails, corrosion made them unrepairable. So rail replacement was necessary. After checking out the replacement floor pans and frame rails available, I decided to construct my own. Normally one can get away without bracing the body to do the replacement. But I found some corrosion on the front of driver side rocket panel. Could not determine how strong the rockers were without cutting them open. I constructed body bracing inside the car just above the floor pan. The bracing was mounted to the two lower door hinges mounts. The outer seat belt mounts were used for the other side of the body brace. 1" square steel tubing was used in a crossing pattern to provide support for the floor pan. I want to make it bolted in instead of just welding it .Construction took about two days with all the fitting that necessary. floor panel corossion pics of removed rusted areas lower door hinge mount top view of the body bracing above the floor pan close up view of door hinge mount picture of repaired crack in rear transmission tunnel frame rail rust

I forgot to mention that for safety reasons- a pair of rubber wheel chocks are placed under the curved wooden section( on each side) of the rotisserie. Never hurts to be safe. Sunny

Not to worry, I used to be a bodyman before and am familiar with splicing vehicles. As to the question about how much to tear down the car, it depends what you are trying to fix. The lighter that you can make the vehicle, the easier it will be rotate over. Also keep the center of gravity low as possible makes rotating easier too.

In planning to do a restoration of my 240z, I knew that I would need a rotisserie to repair the floor panels properly. Most automotive rotisseries run about $2000 not including shipping. A used one would run about half that amount. For me, the problem was most rotisseries are large and take up a lot of space. As I have only a two car garage, this type of rotisserie was not an viable option. After searching the Internet, the idea of a tilt rotisserie was found. The best version for me was a wooden tilt rotisserie. This style is very compact and can easily disassembled after used. Second the cost is very low. I spent less than $100 for lumber and hardware(bolts, nuts,screws and nuts). With the vehicle on its side, the floor panel, frame rail, and rocker panel repair is readily accessible. Construction time was roughly 3 to 4 days. Sunny head on view of rotisserie in sitting position rotisserie in tilted position front mounting bracket rear mounting bracket

[sharedmedia=videos:videos:301] Another video of the results of using dry ice to remove undercoating. Anybody has a good method of removing the paint on the interior of the car? I was planning to using the 4 1/2 grinder with a wire wheel to do the exposed areas. The confinded area would be sandblasted outdoors. Sunny

Removing undercoating is usually one of most labor intense jobs when restoring a vehicle. So when I heard about using dry ice to remove undercoating, I decided to try it. Dry Ice is usually found at industrial welding stores. The price runs from $2.00 to $3.00 per pound. When using dry ice, gloves and safety glasses worn to prevent frostbite. First, I tried using dry ice right from the package and just laid the block on the undercoating. The undercoating got to 15 degrees but didn't really remove large chunks of undercoating. So I tried the next method- put the dry ice in a 5 gallon plastic bucket and smash it till it resembles snow. Then I poured alcohol-92% (bought from CVS) into the bucket and mixed it till it was mud like. I checked the temperature and it was minus 15 degrees. I packed the mixture on to the undercoating( packing snow). After couple of minutes, undercoating made a cracking sound. The undercoating was so frozen, it cracked. Now all you have to do is to hit the undercoating with a hammer. The undercoating came off in small to large chucks. Inspecting the area shoes that there was hardly any undercoating remaining( came off very cleanly). I worked a small area 12" x12" at a time to get the most of the dry ice-kept moving the ice around slowly. I used about 15 pounds of dry ice and two bottle of alcohol to do the interior floor of the car. Haven't tried this procedure on the undercoating on the bottom of the car yet. Building the rotisserie now. Sunny [sharedmedia=videos:videos:297]