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Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:20 pm

BigPaddle wrote: Aaron wrote:
MATERIALS! Oh boy. We were doing a "run" of them and wanted them all to be identical. For this reason these were made with all new materials which got costly.

OK C'mon, how much? :D

I believe we were in the $1200 range per unit, this does not count any of our labor or materials that I had laying around, like the raw material for the aluminum rollers.

Mon Dec 08, 2008 5:59 pm

Very cool setup.

Mon Dec 08, 2008 6:22 pm

That is very impressive.

Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:19 am

So, Aaron, you working on the "Big Hoop" Highroof edition?

Mon Jan 12, 2009 12:59 pm

another bus in the Lennox-Johnson rotisserie. Very very pleased with its function. This bus has only two panes of stationary glass, and everything else is removed, including a significant amount of sheet metal. We were concerned about its balance because the weight is distributed differently than Camerons 15 window. Fortunately the hoops are designed perfectly and my bus is VERY well balanced. The dolly allows the bus to be moved around by one person with ease.

Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:24 pm

Sweet now all you have to do is clean out your garage so you can work on it :D

Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:36 pm

Jake that looks amazing! I need to come over sometime and see it in person.

Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:54 pm

YOUBUGME2 wrote: Sweet now all you have to do is clean out your garage so you can work on it :D

yeah, youre tellin me! It is quite messy from the rotisserie operation..normaly much more tidy and spacious.

Arthur, come by any time, Im always around

Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:10 pm

Sweet work guys. Nice bus cooker attachment. :o

Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:53 pm

Inspired by this thread I decided to "roll my own".
Built this rotisserie from a drain pipe transporting spool and mostly scrap metal I had laying around. Total build cost was ~ $75 which included the rum & cokes it took to build it. 3 weeks of spare time from start to finish. Told the local St Louis bus club "Missouri Micro's" about it and they showed up to check it out, and I caught their picture in it like caged animals. Could have also been the mention of a heated garage and a crock pot full of chili that made them show up :lol:

Many more detailed pictures on this link: Enjoy!
http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c328/rjonas2309/Rotisserie/?albumview=grid

Some of the Missouri Micro's: left to right...Shawn, Me (Roy), Rick B, Rick D, Bill B, Kent

Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:04 am

ooook. Well I suppose imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. So you welded the bus inside this cage...? one time use rotisserie? The rollers have no guides for the hoops and the two rails on the floor are not held together square. Yes, youre rotisserie looks cool and might work ok, but I would be very concerned with doing substantial reconstructive work with a bus in there

lemme get this straight...you took this bus and clipped in a full frame and walkthrough front end from another non sunroof bus? That makes no sense. Why not just clip in the 21 window roof to fake the funk. The bus shown below definately appears to be a saveable original paint bus...but now it is a monster machine. Make sure your rotisserie is 100% square before welding this transplant back together

I like the rocker gap. Going to use those gerson panels to fix?

Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:05 am

That's a little harsh.
No... the splicing of these two buses took place long before being put into the cage.
I assure you this rotisserie can be removed from the bus with ease.
Guide for the rollers? You don't see the 1/4" thick angle iron holding the rollers together? There is 24" of "Guide" there.
The reason my bases are not held together is the hoops are connected to the bus at four corners (see the drip rail clamps) and the bases are not on casters. They are left to "float" on the floor. Tell me where these two hoops are going to flex and get closer or further from each other requiring the bases to be "square". If I need to reverse it's direction I just "C" clamp the bases to the hoop and drag the whole thing across the floor.
My first idea (over 2 years ago) was to just set the hoops on the floor and block them with wood but the roller base and setting the front hoop at the "B" pillar were ideas I borrowed from this thread. This rotisserie is very strong and secure. We shook, rattled and rolled this thing all day at the party. I am no amature when it comes to iron work. I could point out several areas that concerned me with the "original" design on this thread and how I resolved them.

By no means am I trying to enter the market selling rotisseries.
Just trying to share my homebuilt take on "your" idea so maybe others get inspired to make their own.

As for my savable original paint bus...what you don't see is the totally rotted out floor, frame, pans, bulkhead, lower nose valance, cab roof, doglegs, etc... I found a very beat up but solid hardtop deluxe from Colorado and used the cab, frame and floor and spliced the 21 window to it. This leaves me only front floors and Gerson rockers & belly pans to install. I refer to it as a very large donor section. If I restored the original bus it would still have just as much non-original (repro) metal plus 15 times the work involved and I would still be left with a bench model when ideally I wanted a walk through. I have about $1000 invested in this bus and here in the midwest, deluxes (if you can find one) that are not rotted out (yea right) are non-existant and buying one from the desert costs $$$$ that I don't have. Ultimately I am turning a left for dead behind a barn in Missouri since 1979 mouse hotel sitting nose down without sunroof vinyl rusting the crap out of the cab but leaving the rear quite nice into something I am going to love. Yea it's a Frankenbus...It's MY Frankenbus. Not trying to hide or fake anything. The bonus is that I now have 2 sets of glass, doors, deluxe trim, drivetrain, etc...to put my bus back together with.

But thanks for your concern.

Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:05 am

theres alot of haters on this forum,dont let it get you down,your bus cooker looks great

Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:03 am

rjonas wrote:

I would say you've just about accomplished the first "pan-off restoration" I've seen on a bus, and they said it couldn't be done. Nice work!

Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:17 am

Hater? Im not hating. Do we just have some extremely thin skin here?

just curious, what improvements would you have made to the rotisserie with my bus in it shown above..the builders may want to make necessary changes.

I did not design nor build the rotisserie.

Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:55 am

i think more and more lately that frame off will be the future,maybe not like this guy has done but the frame literally removed (at spotwelds not just cut and paste)

if you have a proper frame fixture you can properly replace everthing (tophats,outriggers,crossmembers) nicely then refit it to the body,beats pussyfootin around with little patches

Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:01 am

rjonas wrote: . I could point out several areas that concerned me with the "original" design on this thread and how I resolved them.

please do! point this out for me, I would like to know what you felt were issues with our design? I am curious to know what you changed for ease of build and what you thought was nescessary? we were originally going to install simular gutter clamps but deemed them unnesscassary once the rotisseries were done as there is no flex.

for the record, I do not care that you coppied us. that is why we posted the pictures. I beileve Aaron even suggested it in a post? and I have offered "plans" to people. you should have contacted us first, we would have shared what we thought should have been changed!
we got alot of interest in making more from viewers but decided against it for liability reasons.

I would finish your "cart" and add casters if I were you, I have been steadily working on my bus in my rottiserie for 2 weeks now and I constantly flip it around to get to stuff at least like 10 times a day! sliding it would be a drag :lol:

I am also curious about the balance of your design, looks bottom heavy in the pictures based on the center of gravity of a stripped bus shell being about the botton of the VW emblem?

Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:08 am

hugheseum wrote: i think more and more lately that frame off will be the future,maybe not like this guy has done but the frame literally removed (at spotwelds not just cut and paste)

if you have a proper frame fixture you can properly replace everthing (tophats,outriggers,crossmembers) nicely then refit it to the body,beats pussyfootin around with little patches

I agree! there is actually very little holding the frame onto a bus and half of the spot welds to the crossmembers need to be re-welded due to flex over the years! the only real pain with a frame swap is going to be the area behind the beam, the inside rail is burried, might require a bit more than spot welds! I always think people are crazy with massive amounts of frame patching, or quilting as Sled would say! when the frame can so easily be replaced.
Adam is going to show us all how it is done on the bucket SWR/BG 15 this summer .....right?

Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:11 am

have you see much of the barndoor work the guys in the UK and europe are doing? theyre already doing complete body offs.

http://www.ssvc.org.uk/phpbb/

Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:56 am

shit the europeans are always on the forefront,yep the 58 15 will be my first "frameoff" and it actually seems way easier than working on the frame with the body in the way