Good day all, I am going to be hopefully (wife willing) beginning the metal work on my 58 Ford Custom300 4 door. I have a rotisserie as the body is in pretty rough shape on the lower areas. The passenger side is particularly bad and will need floors complete and braces as well as rockers and the cab corner. My main concern is that the trunk area that would usually be the mounting point for a rotisserie is toast. My thought was to build plates to mount inside and outside of the taillight area and use that to mount the body to the rotisserie. Do you feel that area would hold the car?
I built a rotisserie a couple of years back using the Redwing plans as a guide. I wanted to use it on my 32 coupe body and chassis (separately!). All went great but I wondered about working on really rusty stuff. I figured I need to modify the rotisserie so that there are a pair of rails from end to end with 4 mountings on each side. Doing that the body is on a frame so there is less change of stresses being introduced by any misalignment of the pivots. Also it would be possible to temporarily remove some mounts to gain access whist still keeping the body secure, and rotatable. Try doing that with 4 mounts with one mount removed!! Chris
The strength of that body at the rear is in the trunk floor pan and wheel well openings, especially with a 4 door. Pictures would help, but IMHO mounting that high up on the body in the rear will cause significant sag unless some bracing is added.
There isn't a standard plan for mounting a car on a rotisserie, you just wing it and hope for the best. Pictures would help.
I had purchased a rotissarie for an OT vehicle that needed all new floors and rockers, and rear quarters. Braced everything up 1” square tubing, but even after, and fabbing up mounts to the front firewall, it (firewall) started to bend/buckle even though it wasn’t that bad. In my case, the body was long and heavy (IH Traveler). I had to make additional 3/16” thk plates that went on the inside of the firewall to match the holes I already had on the plates mounted on the outside of the firewall. That worked, so you’re on the right track thinking of using plates on the inside and outside. In my case those plates were flat to match flat areas on the firewall, so it was fairly easy, but have no idea what the rear tail light areas are on your Ford.
Being its a 4 door.............My suggestion would be to crawl thru the trunk area with trunk lid removed and place several small tabs on the doors to jambs and tack weld them in place. They can be removed later, but they will do a lot to keep from sagging and mis-alignment. Then put an x brace (or 2) inside from side to side. I would replace the trunk floor before using it as an attachment place for the rotissere. You will find that getting the correct pivot point for rotating the body will most likely require some experimentation, so how you attach it will vary some with what you have with the rotissere. Whatever you use for the attaching, allow yourself some room to adjust it. I made a bracket that bolted to each end of the vehicle and then attached to the rotissere but make it where you can move 6 inches or more from where you think you should be. You have a firewall in front to attach to, so that should be pretty easy to mount and move. On mine, I had no firewall so I made bracing to fit in the cowl. In the rear I made a rectangular box tube frame that I could attach to both the floor and the inside panels. I'd suggest the same on your Ford. More ridgitiry and more adjustment. In your case, When you get the body rotatable (with new trunk floor already installed) I would rotate it upside down . Then I would use some of those foam blocks like you get in crates and boxes and wedge them under the roof near its perimeter to provide additional support. You may need some buckets for risers to hold the foam and give support. Once all that is stable, I'd cut the floor out of it but slightly smaller than the finish size. Lay the new floor on top of the removed floor and mark its perimeter on the original floor. Cut to finish size and tack new floor in place. One thing I should have mentioned earlier. If you need new rocker panels, replace them first because you will need them in place for support and to weld the new floor to when you get to that point. Thats how I would try to do it. Remember to allow enough room for the roof to rotate above the bar connecting the two ends. I'd also make sure you have a Mig that will weld .023 wire on hand.
I tossed this one together fro no $ out of some scrap tubing , and some truck brake parts for a 65 Falcon that I needed to fix a bunch of rust on. The car was on it for a long time and when I took it down there was no problems with sag.
Being that mounting the body in a conventional manner is not possible because you need to replace that area you could use the rear panel as a mount but I would recommend you add substantial temporary bracing to the panel. As mentioned in a previous post bracing the door area would be a good idea also, with four doors there is a big gap even with a B post. When I mounted the my Comet body on my rotisserie I used the bumper mounts. ( uni body design) you also have to take into consideration the balance of the body once it is mounted so when you spin the body it is balanced.
I would try to make something from tubing and some flat stock that bolted to where the trunk hinges mount going to the taillight area to try and stiffen up the trunk area.
Kustom292, JMO I think you are putting the cart before the horse so to say. The rotisserie is more of a finishing/painting tool. Metal work, especially structural, should be done on the flat. This way measuring points and level/straightening can be done before stressing the body. Once the body is repaired mounting points for the rotisserie will be obvious. Best of luck with your project. Joe
Yeah, a rusty 4 door with a bad rear section is not going to be happy suspended. Either brace the heck out of it, or do all the rocker repairs while on the chassis first, then the floors, then finish it out on a rotisserie. For mucsle car unibody restorations, they often use a body cart when removing all the rear structure. After the shell is solid, they will move to the rotisserie as shown by @kabinenroller. There is no way I'd attempt this with something rusty. I will add that you can watch Cold War Motors and how he's repaired some really rusty stuff. He doesn't have a rotisserie, but his work is pretty solid.
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