Hi,

I'm currently building a rotisserie to help me restoring my (stripped) FB. I was wondering about how to mount the body in it, though.
In front, I can pretty much see how to make some brackets, that attach to the frame rails. But at the rear I'm uncertain. Can I use the bumper mounts?
I believe I've seen pics of 1st gens mounted on a rotisserie like that, but can someone confirm?
It'd be a real PITA should my car fall down when hanging upside down, obviously :green:

 

Bumper mounts front and rear. You aren't only looking for strong points of attachment but also points that will provide the best balance between top and bottom.

 

Thanks. Will the bumper mounts be strong enough? I'm a little scared of hanging the car on those couple of bolts...

 

In the front there are 3 bolt holes on each side of the frame rail. In the rear there are 2 bolts on each frame rail. You'll need to make custom mounting brackets which shouldn't be a problem if you're making the rotisserie. Would I try to rotate a car with the full suspension, interior and drivetrain attached, no. But once stripped to the bare unibody these pickup points have proven to be adequate. Make the brackets just long enough to clear any remaining body for rotation allowing room for any hand work needed between the rotisserie and body.

 

If you search under my name, I should have a Post showing the buildup of my cars, and there are some pics of it on the rotisserie... I cant remeber what detail, but it might help. For the rear i mounted it to bumper area and the rear trailing arm mounts.

 

I've seen rotisseries made from two engine stands. If the car is stripped of the suspension and all the heavy bits, this would work well. A brace could be made the attached to each bumper shock location with flat metal in between and then a piece of pipe that would go into the engine stand pipe location.

 

I'm building mine from scratch (nearly finished) because engine stands aren't always long enough, meaning you'd need to cut them and make them longer (higher). By making my own stands, I could incorporate a lifting system using hydraulic ram jacks, making the whole thing a lot simpler to work with.
I'm using an empty FB shell, but it's a european model, meaning no bumper shocks. The mounting holes should be there, though.

 

The rotisserie will be able to lift the shell about 40cm (16 inch), on top of the clearance allready present, since the car (shell) is on axle stands. So that's going to be fine.
I'm sure not going to put a complete car in/on it. Just the shell, so I can clean up the underside, and install the fuel system (pumps, lines...) once the underbody has been repainted. It'll also help to get the exhaust-routing sorted out, even if I can't fit it completely.

 

Please post pics of the rotisserie when it's completed. I looked at some of the manufactured ones before I started the widebody but couldn't see spending 1200-2k for one.

 

Yes please post pics, i'd be very interested in seeing what you come up with!

 

I'll post pics if the car doesn't drop from it
The basic design is based on what I found on internet-pages. I made sure it was hydraulic, since that's the easiest way of lifting the car high enough, for the needed clearance.
The mounting brackets are going to be overengineered, since I don't want to take risks, and be RX-7 specific. When using the rotisserie on my NSU's I'll have to build another mounting bracket, but it's a lot simpler than building some universal brackets.