The 65 has been sitting for too long. My blocker has been several welding projects that need doing before I can start working on body work and paint. Blocking that has been my total lack of welding experience. So, over the past year, I have been making progress on addressing that. First, I got a welder and took a welding class. Next I got a rotisserie so I can get the 65 into a place I can start the welding and eventually paint prepping and sanding. Time to get the 65 on the twirler.
It was delivered on a palate as expected. Not too much involved with assembling it. Basically I just had to put the wheels on it. Each side can move independently before it’s connected.
When I got it to the stage where it can roll around, I thought I was missing the center bars to connect it together. I called Summit, where I ordered it from, and they reached out to the manufacturer. Evidently this is a frequent question. I missed that the center bar was stored in the horizontal bar of each arm.
The whole thing slides out and goes in the short leg over the caster, making a bridge to connect the two sides. Neat idea, but maybe the directions could mention it for those of us who are new to this. With all the parts on hand now, I have a complete unit.
The wheels are big enough that it moves around pretty easy. The idea is to get the 65 onto the lift and just the right height so I can attach each end, then connect them and raise it into position to twirl.
For the mustang specifics on the Auto Twirler, I ordered the mustang attachment kit. It basically is just different arms that are horizontal rather than vertical like shipped, plus some minor differences. The rear has those non painted brackets in the above picture, which attach to the rear leaf spring shackle mounting point. The arm will need to be taken off and turned 90 degrees forward and kept loose until the right width is identified as its mounted to the car.
The front is basically the same as the arms it comes with, but it has an extra hole drilled for attaching to the bumper bracket mount points on the front rails, also horizontal. This is a key point to note the Mustang sits lower since the arms are horizontal. I had to crank it up about 11 inches to find the center of balance. Also, I didn’t pay enough attention to exact center when mounting the rear, so it was slightly off center and listing. A little hammer adjusting with the lift supporting the car fixed that.
It looks like its centered, but its ever so slightly left, causing it to be heavy on the right. I also hadn’t yet jacked it up so that it would clear the center bar and rotate 360 degrees. In the default low position, its too close to the ground to spin, but you can see they have a safety stop hole a foot or so up to raise it up with the jacks.
From here, I still had a few parts to pull off it, but it didn’t take much longer to get it totally stripped down and balanced. Ready for the first long overdue project of installing the lower control arm camber adjustment plates.