This is something that separtes each project from another. Do you go wild with the body modifications and alter the lines of the car - or do you go with something that looks somwhat stock and period correct? The answer here is of course the best of both worlds. Have a car that looks somewhat stock, but update the car with moderm tecnologies and convenience items.
The body lines as well as paint scheme will resemble that of a stock Torino. Most of the chrome trim, badges and striping will remain as it was in 1968. Carbon fiber bumpers will replace the stock heavy ones.
The lighting will be updated to a modern halogen and/or HID lighting system in the front, and a custom LED tail light setup. Behind the scenes, all of this electrical will be controlled via a modern Mustang electreical system.
The chassis is updated to perform like a more modern car. This will be done by adding full length custom subframe connectors to increase the torsional rigidity of the chassis. Other areas of the car will be stiffened up where necessary. The front shock towers and cradle are being modified to work with the modern Mustang suspension and engine components. The firewall is also replaced with a modern Mustang to allow all of the various components to bolt up.
As you can see, we got a little carried away on this one too. Follow the links above to see what was done with each portion of the body system. Since many of these items won't be covered until the very end of the project.. it may take a while to fill the sections.
Body Rotisserie Design and Fabrication
All the talk about custom suspension and body modifications sound great during discussions about the project build until you actually think about what it involves. With the modification of all these parts comes the need to fabricate parts and weld them to the existing structure. While some of the areas are really easy to access to weld and modify, others like the underbody of the car and very difficult to work with. We would much rather weld the underbody of the car from above rather than lying on our backs upside down. A small amount of time invested here will be well worth the effort. The rotiseerie will also serve as a means of transporting the body for tasks such as paint without the need to have a running and driving or even a car that rolls. The section below will document the design and build process from start to finish.
Rather than spend thousands of dollars to buy a commercially available unit, we decided to do some research and build our own. Thankfully there are many commercially available units to reference when buildings ours. The objective of this is to build a portable body rotisserie that will serve several functions. It must allow the car to be picked up off the ground or off it's own suspension. This will be accomplished using hydraulic jacks. It must also be able to lift the car up and down from the chassis jig we built (as this is not a fun process currently). It must also have features to allow the body to be rotated with minimal effort and be adjusted to rotate the body about it's center of gravity. The fixtures that attach to the body must allow the rotisserie to robust enough that any type of car can be mounted to it. The rotisserie must be able to be transported back and fourth to a body shop for painting with a car on it, and also be sealed up to allow sandblasting to be done with a car mounted. The structure needs to be simple enough that it is easy to work around, but at the same time has enough bracing that it is stiff enough to resist deflection once a complete vehicle is set on it.
As you can see below, first a concept was drawn up in Solidworks to get an idea of what it would and should look like. We are still going back and forth on this one, but are getting closer to a final revision.
The next part of the process involved getting materials etc. We are still putting together a bill of materials on this one to buy, but there are several parts like the hydraulic cylinders that we will need regardless. We waited for the 3 ton long stroke units to go on sale at Princess Auto, and bought a pair of them once they were on sale.
3/14/10: Almost ready to build the rotisserie. Finally have the design near complete. Casters are ordered, I have the hydraulic jacks from when they went on sale last week, and also have a bearing/housing setup that I found kicking around. Just need to grab the steel. Rotating part is based on a std. trailer spindle which make things cheap and easy to find parts for. Also makes it easy to seal things up for bringing near the sandblaster etc. We will just run dynamic trailer seals on both side of the bearing. Worm gear setup on the end is from a Harbor Freight winch. Made this up in Solidworks 2010 - CAD sure has come a long way. Have this designed so it will pick the car up off the chassis fixture (remove the center section and add the 3rd set of wheels).
 
3/31/10: Made some progress on the rotisserie and the car. Most of the parts arrived for the rotisserie by the time Friday rolled around. Got a good portion of the cutting and drilling completed over and started into welding it together. Goes pretty fast once you get into the groove.
   
4/25/10: We bought a used Bridgeport a while back and finally managed to build up a phase convertor and got everything running. Believe it or not, we sold a restored Torino console to get the Bridgeport (and still had some money left over!). It sure is handy to have around. Got most of the machining done, so all that is really left now is welding an painting.
 
5/8/10: Almost done - just need to add the winch to the mix, slap on some paint and call it a day. Was able to lift it in the air and everything looks OK. For now it just uses 3 legs and does not tie the two sides together so it is easy to get on and off the chassis fixture. Once that gets out of the way we will put the tie bars in. We ended up just using an old set of bumper brackets for the front setup which made things much easier. Just need to clean the car out so it can be flipped over. Now I just need somewhere to put all of this stuff. In the end it was much cheaper than buying new, but cost lots of time.
 
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