Ol'fogasaurus black buggy

[Ol'fogasaurus]

One of the things, even on the sand: is that a slider, if it is bent to fit in the body mount tube full length is going to act as a plow due to the change in direction; e.g., at an angle to the length of the pan. The main part of the tube (the door area) is also at a slight angle but it is at an angle. Its kind of a vague version of an oxymoron.

Lee

[dustymojave]

I started this post Sunday night, but I was coming down with a cold that I got from my son. I stopped when the post was nearly done to go fetch a box of Kleenex because I was sneezing my fool head off. I never came back to the computer until now. I hope that I didn't pass that cold on to others like Daron (CWB) that I visited with at the MORE offroad race on Saturday. I've read that you have a cold virus for about a week before you start to feel the symptoms. But then, I figure the best way to get rid of a cold is to give it to someone else. Warren didn't attend the race because he'd been off work Thursday and Friday with the cold. And he's one of those who don't like to take time off to get over it. He's got to be feeling pretty bad to stay home or to see a doctor. He did both, stayed home for 2 days (actually 3 because his boss wanted him to work Saturday, which he wasn't going to do anyway since he had committed to others to attend the race) and I took him Friday to the Doctor because he felt too crummy to be a safe driver. But he went back to work Monday. Warren went back to work yesterday and came home in the evening looking like a truck used him for traction. Then went to work again this morning feeling better than he did yesterday. So he's getting over it.

So here it is Tuesday afternoon, and here I am finally posting this up.

I agree on sealing things up for sand use as much as feasible. Any Bug or buggy that's going to see much water should also get things sealed up.

For the same size tubing, square vs round, like 1" round compared to 1" square...Square tube (and for this discussion rectangle is included with square) has a higher bend modulus than round...BUT ONLY if the bending moment is in precise plane with the sides of the square. Any push off direct alignment with the sides results in a dramatic reduction in strength. Round doesn't give a poop which direction you are bending it, it resists the same anyway you push from. In real life in a vehicle, ESPECIALLY an offroad vehicle, bending forces can come from many directions, often at the same time. For a given size of tube and wall thickness, round tube is also lighter weight than square. Both of these reasons contribute to why knowledgeable offroad builders vastly prefer round tube over square tube. Square is much easier to fabricate in most situations. That combines with the greater strength in plane to make it quite popular with road race fabricators. NASCAR race cars still have square tube "frames" under their round tube roll cages. But that weakness of square tube when the force is not applied in precise alignment with the sides of the square is exactly why square tube is never allowed by race organizations for roll bars or cages.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I pretty much agree with what you said but again, there are different reasons for each to be used. Round tube when going against a quad or, especially something bigger doesn't do much better than square tube does, seen that many times. Off-road racing I wouldn't think is going to go head to head with a squirrel on a toy who isn't paying attention and is going flat out.

One of the guys I know was entering the dunes (at a slow but proper speed) from a very narrow trail and was coming up the hill when a guy in a quad decided to jump down off the hill and onto the trail w/o having a spotter. The quad made out better than the rail but the driver of the rail did better physically (other then irked to the max) than the driver of the quad. He limped for over a year on that one (yes, we know him too) and it wasn't his only time in the barrel from doing stuff like this either.

[dustymojave]

Things like that are why I stress safety in play vehicles Lee.

A friend of mine was driving his buggy in an area that was used for races at the time, on a heavily used trail, and another buggy with very little side protection crossed at speed where there was no trail, and the other guy died. Just squirreling around dodging between creosote bushes as if he were the only guy out there. Uncaring that he was crossing a trail. Kind of like a kid running out into a busy street from between parked cars. My friend left about 3' of "skid marks" on the loose desert sandy soil of the trail before the contact point.

My friend then stopped offroading. The crash really didn't hurt his car at all, but he cut it up afterward blaming himself and his car for killing the other guy. Even though the other guy was simply NOT paying attention to what was around himself. I still have the nose off his car in my inventory.

It's like in that Batman Begins movie, the bad guy who mentors the young Bruce Wayne keeps teaching him to be constantly aware of all that is going on around him. "Situational Awareness" is like his mantra.

This is why my buggy has "nerf bars" on the sides. It never got raced in short course or track races where nerf bars are common. It doesn't get driven fast between trees. But I consider contact at the sides to be more of a danger offroading, than a nose-on impact. Playing much more so than racing.

A side bar made of square tube will protect from contact with a squirrel on a quad or a SxS better than round ONLY IF the contact is exactly square with the plane of the sidewall of the square tube.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

All of the tubes have their strength and weaknesses. I went with a square tube backed up with a rectangular tube as being pretty much (but not exactly the same) the equivalent to a 1 X 4. Stronger when the load is applied in the direction of the 4" side vs. against the 1" side. Round tube is better for torsional loading but flexes on the up and down or side load applications which is why you bridge it.

As far as side tree bars I am not sure just what I am going to do as they also need to support the running boards for both side hits but also someone stepping on them.

Since my wife's brother's suddenly passed away just before Christmas my wife and her youngest son are putting a lot of pressure on me to get rid of my "stuff" (which includes both buggies and a "healthy" 306 SBF V8 engine, trans and 9" plus all the accoutrements' that go with it [which is a lot]) after we have spent a lot of time cleaning up his house. 7 truck loads of stuff to Goodwill, 12 boxes of books to the library and untold weigh of paper not to mention the throwing away of "stuff" and we are only partly done. Right now I am too busy defending myself rather than continuing on with the build.

Kind of tired from the cleaning up of his place (not done yet) bummed out because of the pressure right now.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

My back is still screwed up from all the awkward and heavy lifting I did when helping to clean out my wife's brothers house. Got one or two more trips down the Gresham/Boring area left to do before we finish cleaning out all the rooms in the house.

Looking at the rectangular tube I currently have laid across the shock towers do you think 1 X 2 X 0.095 should by OK. I can get up to the 1 X 2 with an 1.8th inch if I need to. I am planning on using it to attach: the truss bar setup, the down bars from the cage and the fuel tank support bracketry. If it is a terminal roll over (not the passengers but the buggy itself) then I think it should be OK. Just need corroborations on the gauge of the material I currently have.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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I did some measuring of the angles between the spreader bar between the shock towers (~55°) and what it would take for the down tubes to match the cage ~16° higher than the top of the seat. That angle would be ~10° to ~15° different than the picture shows.

I could reset the angle of the spreader bar by messing with the bottom of the tube, slightly more than the width of the shock tower at each end, then using the mounting braces to support the change in angle of the spreader bar. Again, the thickness of the spreader bar makes a difference when cutting the bottom of it and the close out pieces at the ends of the tube should make a difference too.

I think Dusty said some miss-alignment of the down bars could be OK but I am not sure just how much is "some".

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I got playing around with the mounting of the cage and the down tubes of a cage today when I noticed (again) that the seats do not sit level. While it was OK when I was locating the seats front to rear but now I am past that. Part of this is that the seats sit so far to the rear that the rear mounts are on that raising area by the rear seat foot well. I also noticed that the floor is ~5° lower towards the outboard side of the pan and the body mount tunnel is also at the same ~3° to ~5° angle.

Since the buggy pan is sitting on jack stand and they are on wheels I checked the front beam, frame head and they are level. The rear torsion tube, rear cross-piece and the spreader bar are also sitting level. The side rails, fore to aft, are also level but the floors themselves drop off to the outside. It took a 1" piece of tube to level out the seat mounts.

I also remembered that my short wheel base buggy is similar; it took making three 1/2" spacers (plus some touchup grinding, if I remember correctly) to them to level the seats out. The front bolts and the outboard rear bolts required the spacers but I thought that was because, again, I was dealing with the raised area of the floor by the tunnel; around the foot well.

Is this normal.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I got some time in the garage today and found out that that 2 1/2° does end up being the problem and why the 1" spacers are needed on the outboard side. I thought I checked all that when I put the floors in but I guess not!

Be very careful and level things out better than it looks like I did when replacing the floors guys and girls.

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I made two spacers out of .125 flat stock then wedged it to the underside of the 1 X 2 rectangular tube on each corner then I clamped the 1 X 2 back on the shock tower. It changed the angle of the tube to 65° but now the angle the tube is sitting at is just about perfect but the angle for the truss bar is now very different.

The idea was to weld a couple of pieces of .125 flat stock to each end of the spreader then grind it to an angle but that little bit of change turned out to be a lot of change in the long run.

[dustymojave]

The pan halves should be level left to right at the front of the seat. At the back of the seat there is a foot well that spans most of the width of the seat, but the "shelf" next to the tunnel and the "shelf" at the outer edge should still be level with each other. Those shelves should be level with each other all the way to under the stock back seat, which I'm well aware is not present in your buggy. The flange that the pan welds to along the side of the tunnel starts to gain elevation a ways behind the seat. You MIGHT recall that when you were messing with the seat mounts a long time ago that I suggested you bridge the foot well depression the keep things level as you were concerned about the seat mounts not spanning the depression.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

I don't remember your saying to bridge the foot well for the seat but then there was no other way of doing it either. The seat is off-set as far to the tunnel side as possible in order to get the seat's most fore and aft movement and not contact the body sides.

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This is the rear seat and you can see the spacer to level things out.

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This is the front seat and again you can see the spacer. The 1 X 1 was what I was using to check level and I forgot to take it out when taking pictures.

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This is the top of the 3" body lift and...

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You can see just how level it is. Again, the top of the tunnel, the front beam and the rear torsion tube and where the spreader bar is are all sitting level.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Spent about 5+ hours in the garage trying to make a drill jig fixture (I have one but don't want to damage it) that I could do several different things with.

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I was using scrap material I had laying around... and add to that, it was much harder than it seems it should be.

I tried to do it a couple of different ways both of which looked good in concept but the end product ended up being a kind of big... no!

A big part of the problem was the main 6" X 6" piece of 1/4" steel plate that wanted to warp or move as soon as any heat was put to it. I did a lot of measuring, leveling and other double check things but the movement (and my skills) negated the end product I wanted. Oh well, take it a part (if I can) and try again.

If I drank I would be crying in my beer!

[Ol'fogasaurus]

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This is what I was trying to do yesterday. It has a slight lean to it that didn't show up until after tack welding things. 'ts funny, when laying it on a flat surface the whole thing rocked a bit where it didn't before I started to weld. I ran my fingers over the bottom and you could both see and feel the bumps where the heat had been applied. I finally got it flat but there is a small tip to one side so I am not sure if it is good other than to feed into the band saw (secure clamping is a problem that I was working on on the first try to build one).

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This is with the larger dia. of the two tubes I have to make the "saddle mount" sitting in place. There are several ways of cutting the saddle but I wanted to use my band saw to see if it could be done that way. I would use a hole saw at the top then band saw up to the ~2" mark and try to put a small radius (stress riser) on each corner at the top.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Back to the seats; the 1 X 2 rectangular tube under both legs of the seat track looked OK but after getting out in a sunny day with my bubble level, and a flashlight with a good battery, they are too tall as the bubble was jammed against the inboard end of the bubble level; it is looked like I need to go somewhere around 1/2" in height.

But to check I found a couple of 3/8" thick nuts and put them under the outboard end of the cross-pieces of the seat mount. While it was close, the bubble was still out of the center markings on the level. I then found, in my stash of unused stock, a ~4' X 1" X 3/8" thick piece of flat stock which I laid under both cross-pieces of the seat mount then stacked two washers (which added up to .50) for each end of the seat mount. While the bubble is inside of the marking on the bubble level it is touching one end of the markings of the level; it is going to be close enough.

Now I either have to cut and weld the 1 X 2 rectangular tube down to .50 or see if there is some 1/2" thick rectangular tube available. After doing some research it looks like .50 rectangular tube is smaller than what is available and if it is available then the wall thickness is going to be too thin. Solid stock I think is available... just how long and wide (I need 2 lengths of 1 X 2 X 2) and how much ($$$).

Lee