Mine is a Whirlyjig from Tn. They delivered it free to a local car show that they were displaying at. They have a website just add .com to the name.
I got one from Summit and am very happy with it. It's got lots of good features. Musclecar Review magazine did a story on buying rotisseries a few months back--might be on their website, I dunno. -Brad
Bought mine from Eastwood. Its called the auto twirler, and I love it. It sounds good to build your own, but the time and material dont add up to just ordering one. Spend the money on a good one, you wil be glad you did.
I got mine from Auto Twirler, the same one Eastwood sells. It works great! Very easy to get the car balanced on it.
Do it the hot rodder way and build it yourself. You will be much happier. While buying it from a vendor (they might even have some cool billet stuff as well.......maybe even some red paint for your wheels)might work for some, do it yourself is the real hot rodder way. This link has all the material lists as well as a full set of plans for a decent unit http://www.harwoodperformance.bizland.com/1941buick/Editorial_20.htm
I did the same. Found a pattern in the internet. Isn't as nice as the one hrm2k shows but it works. Doesn't take much. The steel, a chop saw, a welder. A friend and me made two one afternoon. Neal
I built my own. If your time costs more money to build one than i would just buy one. Sometimes its better to just pay $1000 dollars for the thing already built than to screw around making one.
Keep in mind that a rotisserie has to be double-adjustable. You have to be able to raise and lower the body mounts so the pivot head of the rotisserie is at the weighted center of the body that's on it. If you don't do that, the body won't be balanced as your rotate it, and it will be top- or bottom-heavy. If that happens, it will be difficult for one person to rotate the body by themselves at best, and at worst the body can over-center and roll on it's own and hurt the operator if they're in the wrong place, or hurt the body if there is something in the way. Secondly, the whole pivoting head must be able to raise and lower relative to the ground. You need clearance for the car's roof--without that adjustment, you might only get the car 2/3- rotated before the roof hits the ground. The one shown in the Harwood link is single-adjustable (frame built on an engine stand model). With that one, the owner can either balance the center point of the car body so it rotates easily, or he can raise it to clear the roof when it goes over. I suspect that with anything like a tall body, that one is going to be very top-heavy. These things might not be a big deal for a little roadster or pre-war car, but it'll make life shitty if you try to put a '54 Buick body on it. I know it's not "trad" and all that "I hate mail-order" bullshit, but I can spin the body of my '73 Duster with one person, with about as much effort as it takes to open a tool box drawer. It's safe for me, safe for the car, and most importantly safe for my 15 year old son who helps me a lot. Also, I've noticed that when guys build things at home, a lot of times they under-build it, using thinner wall (cheaper) box material. Look at the wall thickness of commercially-available rotisseries. They aren't putting beefy material in it because they LIKE upping the manufacturing cost of their product. They're doing it because over the years, they've figured it out through trial and error, and guys calling and bitching about the thing not staying square, being flimsy, etc. Which brings me to my last point: If you build your own, build it like a tank, because suspending a body in the air will tweak it if the rotisserie isn't built like a brick shithouse. -Brad
mine cost me less than $60.00. the only reason I needed to spend any money is I needed two sizes of tubing that slid into each other for the pivot. I spent almost no money and I'm sure mine works as well as any on the market. of course you have to be a metal scrounge to do it for free or cheap.
for out door work, make two 8 or 9 foot diameter circles of whatever strong stuff you find, weld in some adustable bars to hold the car and roll it out into the yard... aint gotta be fancy, just gotta be on it's side...
Brad, here are a couple of pics of the one we built. You have some very valid points that can be approached from a couple of different angles. We chose to make our height fixed as this would be the only car that we were going to use this for. Secondly, we found our body mounts could make up the difference in heights as well. We did have to add a metal stalk to each end of the car. We added weights at the top of each stalk to offset the other weight we were adding. When we were finished, we stuck the pieces of metal back into inventory. by the way, this fleetline hung on this for almost 2 years. When we took the car down and bolted the door back ( with location pins), our doors worked perfectly.
I bought a Whirlyjig also, Real nice unit, I use it all the time so it was worth the money for me. building a home made rig for limited use might be your ticket! FRITZ
Built mine my self, I still have the plans in pdf form if your are interested. I have about $500 in materials, jacks, paint and casters into it. It is big enough to handle my '62 Monterey Safely.
Mind you this is super crude but worked for me (Read this is my first frame off and I wont likley do another for a number of years) I sectioned my truck so the interior brace was left in and I built a frame work around the cab (as shown). I also added a brace on the side (so I could roll it on its side without hitting sheet metal) and a brace on the back cab so I could roll it on it's back without caving the rear curve of the cab. Unfortunatly I dont have any pics of that. Bottom line, free for the stack of electrical conduit that my buddy scored when his company moved buildings and they had to clean/throw everything left out and about $20 for the casters. Gotta bout an hour and a half invested in it. I could flip it around by myself though it was a bit bulky and did the job, triangulation was my friend. When I was done with it I cut it down and turned it into a cab dolly so I could move it around the garage (made a similar dolly for the bed as well) It may not be the prettiest in the group, and truck cabs are much lighter than your car body....Just a el-cheapo Idea for those like me who really cant even justify the cost for materials to build one....did it's job too, when I was done it got cut up and recycled saving space.
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