Rotisserie Question

[seattletom]

I'm in the process of setting the rotisserie pivot points for the front and rear of the chassis. This involves accounting for the radius needed to get the roll hoop corners to clear the floor on full chassis rotation versus the height of my engine-stand based rotisserire pivots. This forces the chassis pivots to be higher in the chassis than my swag at the chassis' verticle cg. Perhaps two-thirds of the chassis weight would be below the pivots and one-third above. Not ideal.

With an estimated completed chassis weight of 225 lbs, that leaves 75 lbs. of imbalance to wrestle when rotating the chassis on the rotisserie. Given I have no experience using a chassis rotisserie and a questionable back, is this imbalance going to be a problem?

[horchoha]

Hey Tom

I've run into that before, although not that much imbalance.
What I did as a solution was to clamp on a counter balance weight(s) to the frame. Easy peasy rotating!
You have access to any bar bell weights?

[Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F]

Hey Tom

You have access to any bar bell weights?

Neighbors child? Wifes china?

[rx7locost]

You can raise the pivot points as I did. I needed to clear the roofline at the gutters. I cut the stands and inserted a trimmed down 2x4. The 2x4 is not secured at all. Gravity does the work. It has worked fine for me over the last 3 years. (OMG, has it been taht long?) When I'm done with my current build, I will weld the uprights back together and return them to use as engine stands.

[Lonnie-S]

Hi Tom,

I had my rotisserie mounted to the front frame and rear most cross tube of my chassis. When the chassis was upside down, virtually 100% was below the CG. It was a bit of a lift to turn it upright, but I did it by myself a number of times, including after the full 16 gauge sheet steel was welded as the undertray.

It might be nice to have a helper when it's upside down, but you probably can do it on your own.

Cheers,

[davew]

If you plan to move "roll your rotisserie - engine stand around while working on the chassis" drill a small hole in the back of the engine stand head tube, and install a small bolt, to prevent mounted from sliding out, while moving the rotisserie. The head is much easier to slide out when you have taken the one center wheel off, the engine stand, to get the pivot axis close to level. The other option is to weld or bolt a long connector tube between the two engine stands.

[a.moore]

I just went through this as I needed to get my Mini back in the air. The PO that started the restoration made a rotisserie from very heavy angle iron that didn't have good locking provisions or a way to rotate it. I kept his chassis mounts and the 13' long tube and chucked the rest.

My version has a locking plate to keep it where I want it, a pair of tubes for a lever, and I designed it to be able to be disassembled and stashed somewhere easily when not in use. I have no problem rotating the body by myself. It is probably twice the weight of your Locost chassis and is also seriously imbalanced (a lot more metal in the floor than the roof). Just make sure the chassis's CG will be within the width of your rotisserie's base for the full 360 degrees.

[seattletom]

Thanks for the input/ideas, Gents. Lots of solutions I can use there. And loved your video, Chuck.

I've ordered some more $teel for the rotisserie mounting br@ck^ts, so moving forward. In the meantime I've been making (and grinding flat) all the horizontal welds I can reach while its right side up on the sawhorses. Should have her spinning after a little spring break. Then there'll be a lot more to do when she's upside down.

[RichardSIA]

So buying an actual rotisserie made for the purpose, "used once", is cheating?