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Rotisserrie question


auxilary

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If I was to build one or purchase a used one, how necessary is it to remove all glass? The car currently has a 4 pt autopower rollbar and baddog rails running front to back. Is it stiff enough to put on the rotisserie without having to take the glass out?

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You're going to want to take the doors and hatch off anyway. The last thing you want is to spin the car and have the door slam on the ground because you forgot to close it all the way. The windshield and quarter glass won't be heavy enough to cause a problem, although the windshield might change the center of gravity enough that it might be harder or easier to spin the car around than it otherwise would have been.

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I just don't want to go through the hassle of replacing the seals, and my primary issue was the windshield. The hatch and doors I was planning to remove, since it's about 150lbs of weight. But otherwise the body won't be tweaked?

 

I'm seriously considering rotisserie because I have no desire to lie under the car with a wire wheel while cleaning it up, and then painting it.

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If you are doing stuff like replacing the floor pans or chassis rails - leave the doors and hatch on!

 

Last thing you want is to replace these sorts of things and then go to put the doors back on and they dont fit anymore!

 

I left all the glass in and all the panels on the car - except the front panels - they came off earlier and didn't bother reinstalling them for the work I was doing on the Rotisserie!

 

My Rotisserie was made from two 900kg engine stands and just extended upwards - so I didn't have the roof slamming into the ground when I flipped it over!

 

Also - when you flip the car over it will want to go awfully quick once you hit about the horizontal, caught me out the first time and scared the cr#p out of me :-)!!! and it can be an absolute b@stard to spin back over the right way!

 

To get around this I welded a lever bar onto the very end of the Rotisserie support vertically - allowed me to use this as a massive pry bar and made spinning the car back over much, much easier!!!

 

Instead of me and a mate heaving away for 30-40mins, was able to do it by myself in 2mins easy, with all the glass, doors etc still in place!

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I'm seriously considering rotisserie because I have no desire to lie under the car with a wire wheel while cleaning it up, and then painting it.

 

Rotisseries are SO NICE. Having spent over a solid year helping with cleaning/prepping/painting/cutting on a rotisserie car, there is no way in hell I would try and do it with the car on the ground. I think that both my cars will eventually go up on one for that treatment.

 

I would be surprised if leaving the glass in caused you any problems, but I don't know anyone who has done that.

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Also, to avoid some of the back aches with spinning the car, make your mounts so that they are offset to equal out the balance point from the top of the car to the bottom.

 

I'd imagine somewhere around 4-6" up from the bumper mounts to be around the center of balance. Although I didn't have any doors or glass in.

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Also, to avoid some of the back aches with spinning the car, make your mounts so that they are offset to equal out the balance point from the top of the car to the bottom.

 

I'd imagine somewhere around 4-6" up from the bumper mounts to be around the center of balance. Although I didn't have any doors or glass in.

Good point. This thread suggests an offset that worked OK for me: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=104151

 

You can also add a counterweight like zlalomz did if you want it to spin with little to no effort. Mine was bottom heavy at first, after welding in the cage it is now top heavy, and I can still manhandle it over without too much trouble, and I'm not a weight lifter or anything.

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excellent :-)

 

think I can build one with a generic 110v mig using flux wire? :-)

 

I used a 185amp EBAY Gasless Mig for mine - just turned up the power and wire feed to maximum, however this killed my MIG, after building the Rotisserie the wire feeder stopped working :-)!!!

 

Also, to avoid some of the back aches with spinning the car, make your mounts so that they are offset to equal out the balance point from the top of the car to the bottom.

 

I'd imagine somewhere around 4-6" up from the bumper mounts to be around the center of balance. Although I didn't have any doors or glass in.

 

That is a very good idea - my Rotisserie connects straight out from the bumper-bar supports, not offset at all, makes it a bugger to turn back over when the car is upside down, the pry-bar I welded onto the Rotisserie support got me around this issue, but offsetting the connections would have been a better way to construct the Rotisserie!!!

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Yes, but you'll do better welding stuff to the car with gas shielded welding.

 

well, yeah... I don't have a gas conversion on my mig (little astra that's 90 amp, i think, will double check when I get home). Pretty much all the welding that needs to be done has already been done to the car. This would be for cleaning, paint, maybe fill in some holes

 

So my concern is whether a 90 amp mig can handle welding together a rotisserie? I'd obviously use gussets and v-cuts for deeper penetration (uhh huh huh)

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Shouldn't be a problem. I have a friend with a rockcrawler who welded his leaf spring perches to the frame of his truck with a 110V with flux core wire. It won't be as pretty and it won't be as strong, but the shell of a Z doesn't weigh very much, so it doesn't need to be.

 

Are you going to use cut up engine stands or build your own from scratch? With the cost of metal right now, you might get out of it cheaper with the engine stands.

 

EDIT--Did you see my previous post about putting the car on the rotisserie with engine hoists? Engine hoists are the shizznit.

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yep, i did search and read :) So what I gathered so far is that there won't be any flex to crack/pop the windshield, and I can leave the doors in if I want to (they'll be locked all the time anyway, all the stuff I'll be doing will be on the bottom/wheel wells).

 

I plan on taking out the suspension, but leaving in front/rear crossmembers for rigidity/reinforcement.

 

I'm looking at HF, and their 750lb stands are $50/each. I don't think I'll have more than 1500lbs in the car if I remove teh suspension and wheels. Everything else is already out of the car anyway, right? Not to mention if I weld in a couple of beams to support the stands, should be more than fine.

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Also, to avoid some of the back aches with spinning the car, make your mounts so that they are offset to equal out the balance point from the top of the car to the bottom.

 

I'd imagine somewhere around 4-6" up from the bumper mounts to be around the center of balance. Although I didn't have any doors or glass in.

 

Here's what I did to avoid the out-of-balance condition.

DSC00546.JPG

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