Gerahead's 71 Dart

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Seems like even spending all my free time the last week on this rotisserie, I should be farther than I am. Seems like all I've done the last few nights is drill holes. Some of which I will need to re-drill 'cuz they werent' big enough the first time. Grrrrrrrrrr:sign3:I got a couple of new pieces of pipe so the swivel joint will fit together and started welding those in last night. My son is visiting with his kids until next week, so the kiddos got to see what welding looks like though a helmet. I have to go get a couple more sticks of square tubing to make the telescoping lower tie bar and fab up the mounting adaptors to attach the body to the rotisserie frame, attach the casters and it is ready for paint. :cheers::cheers::cheers: Here's a shot of progress from a few days back. L8r
 

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It is finally done!! What I started out thinking was going to be a good weekend project has turned into a 6 week monster. I can now, however say that the rotisserie is finished. It turned out to be a whole lot more work than I figured. Plus, I wanted to make sure that I got some paint on it right away so it didn't turn into a rust sculpture on me either. Just in time too, we are supposed to be getting our first snow of the season tonight or tomorrow. I am really happy with the way it turned out and am looking forward to the work that it will save me. I will now wait until Spring to mount the body on the rack. I won't really be working on it now until then and if I mount it now, I will need to find a place to keep the front and rear suspension parts until they are ready to go back on. This time of year Momma starts wanting to get her car back in the garage because for some reason she doesn't like scraping windows before she heads out on her travels. Here are a couple of pix of the completed rotisserie. L8r

Jim
 

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Got it done just in time. Woke up this morning to 3" of snow :sad10:.

I guess that there is no denying that it is now winter and time to hunker down for the duration. L8r

Jim
 
I can store that rotisoirie for you under my scamp for a few months. Just trying to help you out. LOL! Great car and keep up the good work. If you were bummed out about the 3 inches in november what do you think now? LOL! If you need anything mopar call.
 
...........I've had several offers to help me out by storing it until I need it. It's great to have friends! I haven't been up to anything on the Dart since winter rolled in. I referee youth hockey to finance my car habit, so I am kept pretty busy this time of year. Yeah man, I am tired of moving snow!

I spent the week between Christmas and New Year working on my wife's daily driver. Its a 1999 Olds 88 and the intake manifold sprung a leak so it was sucking all the antifreeze through the engine. Fortunately it was going out the tail pipe and not into the crankcase. It was the first time that I have dug into a port injected engine, so there was a fair amount of learning to do. Thank God for garage furnaces! I got through it though and all is now well. L8r

Jim
 
You are doing some nice prep work on the body. I know its cold up there and its hard to get motivated to go out to the garage.............
 
oddarve440 said:
hello nice jobb whith the rotisery
but how will you be able to rotate the car in it?
Click to expand...

The brackets on the ends of the extension arms (ends toward the middle of the unit) will bolt to the body at the bumper bracket mounting holes in the front and in the frame cross brace in the rear. Then I will use my engine hoist to lift the end frames high enough so that it can pivot all the way around and still clear the extension bar across the bottom. The extension bar is a telescoping set of tubing that bolts into both end frames to keep the assembly rigid once the body is mounted. The whole assembly can pivot around the piece of round tubing that joins the two uprights at the top. It might not be too easy to follow my description, but if you search on this forum for rotisserie, you will find several member's cars mounted on one and it might make more sense than my description. Welcome to FABO! L8r

Jim
 
383Duster said:
You are doing some nice prep work on the body. I know its cold up there and its hard to get motivated to go out to the garage.............
Click to expand...


Thanks 383Duster. Yeah, you got that right! My son lives in Fredericksburg, TX and you guys have gotten your share of unusually cold weather as well this winter.
 
......ok, so winter is supposed to be over and time to get back after the project. Any of you guys out there that have mounted cars on rotisseries have any helpful advice? With any luck, I will be able to have it on the spinner within the week. I don't feel a compelling urge to re-invent anything, so I'd be happy to learn from others experience. Fire away! L8r

Jim
 
Man, it seems like forever since I have been here............. I have finally been working to get my Dart's body ready to mount on the rotisserie. I nearly buggered one of my fingers up pretty bad last weekend while jacking it up to get the suspension out from under it. I had replaced the jack stands under the back of the car with a couple that had more reach. The ratchet style that I had originally used was sitting on the floor right next to me, so when I tried to stand up from my knees on the floor, I put my right hand on top of the stand to help push myself up. The damn ram collapsed and it caught the end of the middle finger between the ram and the tubing that it slides into. It hurt like the bejeeezus. I was almost afraid to look. It could have ended up a lot worse than it did.....tore the cuticle away from the base of the nail.

I had to tweak one of the bolt holes in the mounting plate on the front of the car and I have gotten both of the end frames test fit to the body and all looks good. I am hoping to get it all bolted up and lifted and balanced tomorrow. I will post a couple of pix when I get her swingin' in the breeze. L8r

Jim
 
Good luck with getting it lifted. Hope your finger is getitng better. I smashed my little finger bout a year ago and just now the nail looks right. Can't wait for the pics.
 
I got the body mounted onto the rotisserie, finally :hello1: I need to get it rolled outside to get it balanced, but the beautiful weekend weather predicted has turned to drizzle. Maybe later today or tomorrow. It feels good though to at least have it mounted. Now I just need to talk a neighbor into giving me a hand getting the hood and deck lid off and I will be ready to start stripping the old girl's bottom!!! L8r

Jim
 

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Hey Jim. Have you tried to roll it over yet? Looking at the car on the rotisserie looks like the rotation point is to high from the car. I wish you luck and I hope I am wrong.
 
Hemipar,
I did get everything out of the garage yesterday, the rain didn't last too long. I needed the rotation axis to be that high so that the body would clear the lower bar when I turned it on the doors. Once outside, I was able to loop a couple of axle straps around the inverted T-bar to better balance the center of gravity as it turns. It is now balanced so that I can turn it with one hand and it pretty much stays where I stop without locking it down. :happy2:

A couple of things that I have learned already..... I should have drilled a hole near the top of the leg of the inverted T so that I could install a clevis or a pin to lift from. That could have made it an easier operation. There is just enough clearance under the main frame of the rotisserie to get my frame jack under and its a good thing. I had to lift and block the end frames a little so that the frame legs of my hoist slid under the rotisserie in order to get close enough to lift the body up. I maybe should have also spent a little more on the casters that I bought. Even with 6-1500 pound casters, they do not turn very easily so moiving it in and out of the garage is going to be a bigger PITA that I anticipated. TodayI plan to get the underside cleaned up a little better to see what I have there and then start eliminating the undercoating.
 

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Glad its working out for you. good luck getting undercoating off.
 
I was actually surprised to not find more undercoating than I did. It is amazing how much better you can see standing upright than lying on your back!! I found a number of places where it looks like bad judgement may have been used for jack locations or where off-road hazards may have impacted the body's belly. More opportunities to fix stuff that nobody will ever see!!!

Hosed it down well and gave it a good scrubbin' with a hand brust to try to clean most of it up. Need to work over the tranny tunnel with some engine cleaner or something like that. Pretty oily mess in there. There was also a 40 year collection of junk in the frame rail gutter under the upper control arm mounting location. Even found an extra camber adjusting cam under the crap. Cool, the car even came with some spare parts!! L8r

Jim
 
................my pneumatic scraper:love4:. I broke it out tonight to see how well it works for removing undercoating and I am in love. It just whistles through the undercoating and leaves the paint alone if you don't get too steep an angle. I got it at Harbor Fright for about $10, I figured for that, I couldn't go wrong. It has a built in regulator so you can control the stroke speed and doesn't use a whole lot of air. When my compressor kicks on, I can keep scraping away and the compressor can catch up while the tool is running. What is left behind I could easily wipe off with a shop towel and naptha. This may not be such a bad exercise after all.
 
You may recall that the disassembly of this car was started by the previous owner. Now that I can rotate the car and actuall see what is under it, I found these two bolts and don't know what they would have held in............This is the bottom (ground) side of the driver's side front frame rail. The big bolt heads are for the K-member, what are the two little bolts for????? There are no bolt holes like it on the passenger side. Thanks. L8r

Jim
 

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Looking good,nice work.I believe those two bolts are for the splash shield
 
Really? The only splash guards that I recall were between the fender and the rear apron. Any idea what these would look like? I definitely don't recall seeing anything there that I removed and I didn't run across anything in my part inventory exercise last fall that I didn't recognize. This might be something that I need to add to my list of stuff to get. Jeez, just when I thought I was almost done! Thanks. L8r


Jim
 
In looking at it again, there are holes in the frame rail on the other side. For some reason I ignored them. They are in exactly the same place as the holes on the driver side. They are sheet metal screws that were installed on the drivers side and I thought that there were captive nuts used in the frame. I guess this is what happens when you assume...... L8r

Jim
 
Yes there is splash shield that go there. About 8" long plastic somewhat of a right angle. give me a few days, remind me, and I will see if I can find 1, take a pic for you. I think I till have , if I remember 1 was broke off. All let you know. glad the srews were there or you would have missed it huh?
 
Jeff,
You are absolutely correct........if I hadn't seen the screws, I would have never been the wiser, sort of. I certainly would appreciate a pic of one of these if you have one handy. Like I said earlier, I have never noticed one on another car before. I guess that gives me a failing grade in observatory skills. L8r

Jim
 
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