I am wondering what all of you who don't have a lift do.

I have never done it myself, but from what I read here was to use yourself and 4 -6 of your closest friends and lfit it up in place.

We need a sore back smiley

I was thinking that if you had a big tree limb over your driveway you could use a hoist to lift the shell. But then I thought about how unpredictable the strength of a tree limb can be. In some cases it can hold a tremendous load and in others it can fail if the wind hits it wrong. Imagine a suspended 914 shell pancaking into the pavement, followed a microsecond later by a tree limb smashing into it!

Reminds me of the Tool Time episode when Tim drops an I-beam on his wife's Chevy Nomad Wagon!

Here's how I did it. For starters, my car was already up on jack stands and there were 2x10s on top of the jack stands running across the car to get it as high as possible off the floor. The front was easy, the lift was only about 2 inches to get to the bar to mount up. The back was about an 8 inch lift, using the engine mounting bar as the lifting point. I did this by myself - I used two very large floor jacks and placed three 2x10s one on top of the other on the floor jacks. Then working from the back of the car I raised both sides of the car up to the point to bolt it up. My lifts just barely allowed the lift to that point. Obviously if you have a beam and can use a hoist, so much the better.

I was thinking of using 4 tractor jacks (they go up to 4 feet high) and placeing some 2 4x4s between the jacks (from left to right) then jacking it up.

Someone on this board used a fork-lift truck from work

Another possibility is to use the engine "cherry picker" and chains....lift one end at a time to attach onto the stand.

Of course the car will have to be on the highest jackstand you can find then lift it up....however, it maybe alot easier to lift it up when the car is somewhat gutted...light weight!!!!

That's how I did with 356s....I know it's a different car but that's how I did it....

It is easy if you have an engine hoist.
Put hooks (I bent 2 long 5/16 bolts) into the bolt holes in the brackets for the seat tilt adjuster in the middle of the car. Attach a short length of chain from the hooks to the hoist and lift away. It is very close the the cg so only 1 person needed to steady the car and 1 to pump up the hoist.
If the car is totally stripped those brackets are plenty strong, unless the car is badly rotted in that area.

"Put hooks (I bent 2 long 5/16 bolts) into the bolt holes in the brackets for the seat tilt adjuster in the middle of the car."

Chris, bent bolts hold well enough?

Anyone have a pic of this method?

I was planning to get my car onto my rotisserie using jacks and wood blocks, but lost my nerve. This is getting way to precarious and I still have a ways to go:

Click to view attachment

I'm picking up a 2-ton hoist this week that I've been thinking about buying anyway. Lifting the whole car with the hoist is much more appealing that lifting one end, since then I don't have to worry about whatever is holding the other end slipping. I figured I'd have to find 4 points to strap te hoist, but if the seat bracket holes can work, great.

engine hoist, right off the ground.
Bolt on the bars to the car.
Pick up one end and put the two wheeled stand on it, put the pin in to hold the car level.
Move the hoise back and pick up the back so the car is now level and the first two wheel piece you put on rolls up to plumb.

Its simple and not scary at all.
After its up in the air, install tie piece to tie the two end pieces together.


Rich

Two wheeled stand? You mean the rotisserie stands? Hmmm, mine both have three wheels, and so the car has to be all the way up, and close to level, before I can fit the bumper attachments into the stand. They can't tilt forward, as I suppose they could if the third leg bolted on.

"Hmmm, mine both have three wheels, and so the car has to be all the way up,"

I seriously hope that your rotisserie stands have the piece that bolts them together......

I shudder to think of rotating a car on two separate stands that are not connected together.

Stu

For the sake of you and anyone working with you, tie you rotesserie together BEFORE you put the car on it.
What you are showing here is VERY dangerous:


You need to tie the frame together at both ends like this:


Otherwise the car will not sit evenly, and the rotisserie will kick out and collapse the first time you try to move or rotate the car. I am speaking from experience here. The picture I posted up is mine, and that is the MkII version. The MK1 version of the rotisserie looked like yours. The car was on it for under a minute before I had to pull it off due to the very dangerous attitude of the rotisserie uprights. The front wheels will want to lift off the ground unless there is a steel bar holding them down.

I put my car up on the frame using 5 people, including myself. One at each corner, and me running from side to side getting car properly mounted.

if you get 2 inch square tube, it should be a perfect fit into the upright.

Zach

While having the ends tied together is absolutely a good idea, I would like to hear why you feel it is dangerous if it is not?

(Edit, I just re-read your post and you describe problems with your original rotisserie that wasn't tied together. By looking at the OPs photos it looks like the rotisserie was built using the plans I have put up on the 914 Wiki. As mentioned below I have not experienced the problems you describe with my design. However I still recommend (even in the plans on the Wiki) connecting the ends together for ease of moving and to prevent extra stress on the body while moving.)

IMHO, I think if you have something (i.e. bolts) that prevent the ends from sliding out of the stands you should be OK. In fact I think those are mandatory even if your ends are tied together. You should not rely upon having it tied together as a way of preventing the rotating mounts from sliding out of the stand.

Mine has been "untied" for years and I have not had a hint of problems. I can't count how much it has been rotated and rolled around. However, I would say the #1 advantage of having them tied together is that when you move it around, it doesn't put extra stress on the body. Example being if you are moving it and one end catch a crack in the ground or hits something that stops it from moving, but the other end is free to move, it will put an unnecessary twisting load on one or both ends of the car where it mounts to the rotisserie. And if the body is not in good shape to begin with, then anything can happen regardless if it is tied together or not.

To the OP's question. I personally think that if you can easily get five people total (as Zack describes) is the easiest way to do it. It is very easy for four people to handle if the car is completely stripped. I personally think that unless you have proper equipment (such as lifts of some type), that trying to do this by yourself by cribbing up stuff, etc. that you risk damage to yourself and/or the car if something slips and the car slides off.

Richard

Going out on a limb here, I'm guessing that Rich, Stu and Zach are using a rotisserie that has 2 stands with 2 legs and 2 casters each. That's what Zach's picture seems to show. That rotisserie certainly needs to have the stands bolted together or it would be very unstable. The rotisserie I made, the same one Richard uses (I made mine based on his plans over at Roadglue) involves 2 stands each having 3 legs and 3 casters each. The third leg protrudes under the car several feet. The load held by each stand is therefore centered between these 3 casters.

I don't really see how this could fail, even if the stands are not bolted together. It certainly can't tip toward the middle with the third leg there, can it?

However, like Richard said, I doubt it will be very stable for moving the car, or at least doing that could put a lot of strain on the bumper mount area, so I do plan to connect the ends.

If I'm missing something, and you guys still think this system wont work, please tell me where you think it will fail.

The third leg also means the method for lifting the car that Rich described wont work (since the stand cannot lean forward). I'd like to go with Racer Chris's method and lift the whole car with my hoist. Just not entirely sure if I'm understanding where to attach the crane and if those seat seat tilt adjuster eyes are strong enough.

I wish I had a picture, but that was more than 6 years ago and I didn't have a digital camera then.
I wouldn't lift anything but a stripped tub the way I described though.
The holes I referred to are where the toothed tilt adjuster pieces bolt to the crossmember. So I guess it wouldn't work on an early tub with fixed passenger seat.

"Going out on a limb here, I'm guessing that Rich, Stu and Zach are using a rotisserie that has 2 stands with 2 legs and 2 casters each."

Honestly I have never used a rotisserie, but have planned on one in the future.
However, I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night.....;-)

The issue that scares me is if the rear wheels are too close (in the vertical plane) to the mounting surface on the bumper, then the tipping moment of one stand (when you push it across concrete joints or rocks....) could be enough to torque the mount points to failure.

I picture crashing down....:-(

In this pic:



See, if you pushed the car directly forward, and the front two wheels hit the crack in the concrete, that would apply a huge torque to the mounting bolts in the bumper.

Now admitted, we dont go pushing these things around while working under them, but I cant stand crawling around anything with a welding hood on that I cannot trust 150%.


If you just throw that extra support in that bridges the two stands, you could roll it down the street.

Stu

ok, IC the difference in designs.
I personally like the tied together design...its rugged.
If you plan to leave in in the same position, I suspect it may be fine, I would have two people tip it so one of the stands does not have a chance to get funky or walk away from the center.

Given that, and given your design, I would add some info.
Stripped tub weighs about 275 lbs.
Its about a similar wieght to a beetle body.

Get some people over there, stick two 4*4 through the wheel wells side to side...pick it up and put it on the stand with four people.

Rich

A follow-up:

I end up using a hoist attached as Chris described - at the seat adjuster brackets. A hoist made everything easy even as a solo operation. No drama, just operate the crane with one had and balance the almost-balanced load with the other. The weak point is probably the brackets themselves. As Chris said, I wouldn't use those as lift points if they were rusty or otherwise suspect, and would only do it with a pretty much stripped tub.

As for the rotisserie, it seems very stable, even without a support between the 2 ends. It could be dangerous if one end caught while rolling though, or at least could end up tweaking the bumper mounts or even the frame. I don't plan to move it much, but it's easy enough to clamp or bolt on a connector piece if I want to, and moving with 2 people is easy enough.

Overall I'm very happy with the rotisserie. I think if I had it to do over again, I might either go with 2-legged stands (like Zach's) to make loading without a hoist easier and make storage a bit easier, or I would have included a hight adjustment. It wouldn't have been that hard to make a piece that slides up the stand using a come-along, which would have avoided all the lifting issues.

Here's a couple pics of the car on the spit:

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Thanks for all the help

--Steve