My Homemade car restoration jig

My homemade jig is made from cold-drawn square tubing. The two rear wheels are from a lawn mower rider. A single front Go-Kart wheel in a turnable fork makes for a simple construction for walking the jig around. Three wheels are always in contact with the ground and will not twist the jig when outdoors on uneven surface.		The main tube sizes are 70x70x4 mm and 60x60x4mm. In addition there are two short 50x50x4 with welded-in stub-axles for the wheels.

		The holes in the vertical slider and the leg are not of same spacing, gives more adjustments

The sloppy fit of all the adustable items make for easy adjustments. It is possible to jack up at any corner and raise the car body with a single hydraulic jack on spacer blocks, corner by corner

Once the height is sufficient ( a bit more than half the width of the car) all sliders may be locked with bolts.

The rotating bay is simply a piece of the 60mm square split and welded in.

The sliding centre piece holding the rotating bay is locked with a set screw through a welded in nut.

The front lifting assembly and the rear lifting assembly are simply connected with two long 60 mm tubes.

This makes the jig totally adjustable.Since I only use my jig for lifting and working on empty bodies, I find this sturdy enough. I would consider crossbracing on all four sides if I were to lift and hold heavier assemblies.

On the Jaguar Mk IV body I had a subframe around the body to hold the large saloon.

This came useful when parts of the body were taken out for repairs.

Once the body is freed, I attached it to provisional axles to be able to move it onto a trailer.

Working alone calls for simple solutions. It is better to make a jig and move things easy, than to get something broken.

Prior to building the jig for the MGB body I had it hanging in my crane for estimating the best fastening procedure. When not in use it is easily stored.

To put the MGB Heritage Body into the jig, I made new attachment to go instead of the bumper fasteners out of flat steel. The rest are pieces of square tubing and profiles I had, attached to large spacers and bolts.

(tip:) On the rear jig fasteners, make room for attaching rear spring shackles.

Getting the body to balance in the jig during work. is by rough estimate. The pivoting point here is probably some millimetres too high on my version, because the body slowly drops to settle in a balanced upright position.

A hook attached to the jig frame and chain to lock onto a loose peg in the jacking point makes it possible to hold the body in almost any position.

Since parts of the jig bolts into holes in the body I will not trust this arrangement with much assembly of the Heritage body.