I thought I'd start a thread where we could all tell tips and tricks of doing shop and truck work.

I'll start with my "kitty-litter" recycler. I got tired of just throwing away kitty litter every time I had a cleaned up pile from the floor. I mounted a 55 gallon drum on a 4 wheel cart, and cut a hole in the side for my scoop. It has a removable expanded metal screen recessed in the open top. I just sweep up the pile, trash, bolts, nuts and all, then dump it in the top. The kitty litter falls through and the trash get's dumped in the trash can. It has brackets for three brooms, a dust pan, and small brush. Works great and saves me a ton of cash!

 

Nice one Don, I like the bin opening at the bottom. I'll toss a couple out here, this is a car rotisserie I put togeather out of truck air brake "S" cams and a slack adjuster. I use a wrench to turn the adjuster which turns the car body to facilitate working standing up (that's important to an old guy like me). I needed it to replace the floors in my 65 Ranchero.



And here is how I actually made a HF bead roller useful.

 

So........Where's the pics?

 

Next on my list. I've been wanting to build a new welding/cutting/fab table.

This is what I've come up with!

 

We need pictures, I need a car rotisserie for my Merc

 

You guys don't see pictures? I posted them from my Stuff album. I found the problem, had the album marked private. Allen, I have some detailed drawings of one from a fellow on the HAMB that raises and lowers the car along with being able to rotate it. The one I have was thrown together in a day out of bits and pieces I had on hand.
Send me an email address and I'll try to get them to you.

 

For those of you restoring a full frame vehicle, it's nice to have a rotisserie for the frame. I used two engine stands, and made tubing cross peices to attach the frame to the stands. One thing to make sure of, that the stands are vertically straight up, and are not angled back, like some stands, otherwise it will be difficult to turn the frame (found this out the hard way!)

 

Nice trick Pat! Harley and I made a set similar to what you did, but we made the stands out of re-bar. Worked great for harleys Uni frame. Now we want to build one like Mike's for his uni body. All that's left is to do a little more bodywork and it's ready for paint.

 

I need make something for the body of 1947 Merc 4 door.

 

I've got it back!!!!!!!!

Back in 1996 I was running a shop here in Condon, and had a bunch of requests to build flatbeds for some pickups. Soooo, I built a gimbal (what you guys call a "rotisserie") It worked great for building flatbeds, and looks a lot like Mike's. Well, Harley thought he would stop by my old shop and see if they would sell it back to me. Long story short, they said YES! Harley bought the whole thing back for 150 bucks! I love my son!

Of course I think Harley had alterior motives. He needs one in order to do his Unibody work..........lol

I'll post pics next week when Harley brings it back...

 

I'm a hoarder, there I admitted it. I save all kinds of what looks like junk to most people but when I need something I have stuff to build it. Case in point, this sandblaster made out of things I've collected up and had laying around from the sixths. Most of it was things I got for hauling them off. The sand pressure pot is an old portable air compressor tank stood on end, the compressor is one a maintenance guy at a golf course had to blow out the sprinklers and the tank under it I've had laying around for ages .

 

I don't think that's an OSHA approved compressor ;-)

Sorry, we're getting really nuts at work about safety and that kind of stuff really stands out to me.

 

A kindred spirit! I just knew it!

A great old family friend told me almost 50 years ago, " never turn down something for free, somebody will be willing to pay for it" He died worth over 30 MILLION DOLLORS! I figure Harley and I have somewhere around 100 tons.........Yep! Harley is following in my footsteps. Looks like we need to buy another building......................lol

 

Anyone doing restorations will probably have to deal with spot weld removal. Some of the places they are located can be tough to get a drill into. The cutters are so short, and it makes it tough to get close enough. So, I went to Lowes, and bought this handy bit extension. The spot weld cutter fits nicely into it, and makes it a breeze to cut out welds in tight spots.

 

Got this idea from a fellow on the HAMB. A bowling ball mounted on a stand made from a wheel, a piece of drive shaft and an inverted water pump pully makes a great planishing anvil for repairing compound curved metal surfaces.