RyanB's Buggy

[RyanB]

Thanks Lee. I should check with the local VW place to see if they have those. In fact, I'll do that today.

Took a pair of heads down to have them machined for 94's. I've got an old shortblock that was a complete motor and the people I got it from left it in the rain. Filled all the Cyl and made a mess of the heads. Pulled heads and Cyl/Pistons and everything else inside looks great. Picked up a set of 94 piston/Cyl and now working on getting it all back together.

Also replacing the front brakes. The guy I got the front full beam from said everything was in good working order but it's very apparent the wheel cyl have been leaking for some time. At least now I should be able to feel like it will stop.

Need to find a good German E-brake handle. The junk I bought from the local supplier keeps coming apart.

I'll take some pics of what I plan to do with the front bumper and a mount for a winch. Picked up a 5k lb Winch from Harbor Freight. Not really meant to use on a regular basis. Just in a pinch.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

A good tear down inspection of the beam is never wrong. If it looks like maintenance is old then check everything out and replace the soft parts that can dry out from not being used.



Don't forget to inspect the underside of the shock tower for rust, like the beam I was building had, before you start then weld the seams. Preventative maintenance before you take your buggy off-road.





If you can, I think I would beef up the shock towers at a minimum. On the beam build a while back I covered stiffening up the beam and I did it in the traditional way. One posts on that string (the guy embedded a square tube) got me thinking that maybe stiffening the tower up with some angle might be stronger and easier to do. It covers a smaller area, and ends up giving you a triangle which is strong and can stop any twisting that might happen.

The top picture was a test to see what would happen and it was old bed frame. I found that the legs were longer than I wanted but it gave me an idea of what I had to buy.

The second photo is the angle welded in. I beveled the top then welded in a triangle to keep sand and moisture out.

It is done now and I can take a picture of it later on today if you want.

[RyanB]

As always Lee, one of the most informative and helpful people on this forum.

I pulled the grub screw last night and jumped up and down on the beam. Then realized there are indents in the beam as well to keep the leafs from spinning. Uhg. So much for that idea.

I did get the drivers side brakes rebuilt and mocked up the bumper and winch mounting. I like how it is going to turn out. I'll put up some pics once I get my domain problem worked out.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

This is the center of a BJ beam where the grub screw goes into the dimples on the spring stack; a K&L beam has a big square the same shape as what is on the trailing arms. As you said, the grub screw just locks things in place and the center section does not rotate.

Lee

[BAJA-IT]

To do what you want you would have to cut the center out of the beam and weld a tube in. You would also have to shim the arms at the end of the beam to keep them from moving back and forth in the beam. It would be easier to remove the springs and then drill a hole in the end of the arms and run a through rod from one side to the other, This could be undone if you wanted to go back to the leaves later on.

[RyanB]

Thanks for your input guys! For now, it looks like I am going to leave it as is. Not that it is a bunch of additional weight, but I have added the bumper and winch to the front.

Here is what I came up with. I am using a HF 5k lb winch. Also a HF Winch mount channel. I got a piece of scrap 3/8's " thick sheet that was large enough to weld the bottom two tubes from a double-tube bumper setup. I then drilled holes for the beam bolts and got longer bolts. Ran the beam bolts through then welded the channel to the top of the bottom tubes. I also welded a piece of metal between the top of the channel and the large plate. Then I welded all along the bottom of the channel to the tubes. The upper tubes I welded flat plates to and setup for Ubolts to the beam. I am considering additional tubing from the upper beams to the channel as well.

Tell me what ya think.

[RyanB]

Hi all. Still here I guess. I am updating my local VW chapters page fairly regularly but wasn't sure if people here were still interested. Currently working on the roll cage. Pics are below. I think it's coming along nicely. This will give me a chance to re-position the steering wheel. My only issue now that is a big deal is the person who will be the main driver moving forward will be my step father. Who is like 6' 4". I lowered the seat basically as far as I can get it by re-welding things. But I am sure his head is still near top bars. The good thing is that they really just want to drive mostly access roads. Nothing serious at all, but He's gonna have to wear a helmet for sure.

EDIT: I am not re-sizing the damn images. Really disappointing that this limitation is still there. no other boards I post to have this size limitation. Copy/paste the url if interested....

EDIT2: To be clear, the links I originally supplied DO work in other forums. just not this one. Extra work to keep images in multiple locations to accomodate. Anyhow. Should be "fixed" now for the ones I uploaded to photobucket or follow the link provided.

EDIT3: Guess not fixed. This board cannot take "resize" commands in the IMG tags, and that means I have to manually resize my images.

Front lower mount. This will also go through the body to an exterior tree bar.
https://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot ... e=55739F38

Front cage is tacked up.
[img width=600 height=800]http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn16 ... G_1219.jpg[/img]

Side view. I'll also have a mount from the cage to the window that is removable. This will strengthen the window from bouncing around. Kind of a common problem on buggy's. It's not pictured as I haven't worked on that yet though.
[img width=600 height=800]http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn16 ... G_1220.jpg[/img]

Tree bar mocked up. I kept it simple. I think it looks decent.
[img width=600 height=450]http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn16 ... G_1266.jpg[/img]

Here you can see the full cage. A few things left to do on the tree bar. It is bolted through the body to the main mounts on the pan for the roll cage. I think it all ties together nicely.
[img width=600 height=450]http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn16 ... G_1265.jpg[/img]

[dustymojave]

One of the issues with your posting of pics is that the links you are posting are just that...links. Not image files which would have a ".jpg" or ".png", or ".bmp" suffix. in order to show in the post, the link needs to reference an image file.

For instance, your previous photos were from photobucket and included a ".jpg" suffix. and had after.

"http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn16 ... Custom.jpg"



600 x 450 should post fine.

[dustymojave]

Regarding the cage, do you plan to include rear braces? As it is, the cage would very easily collapse to the rear.





Braces to the fiberglass are pretty popular in fiberglass buggies. But unless they're supported under the glass with other cage structure, bracing to the glass alone is like hanging the braces over nothing.

[RyanB]

Hello Richard,

Thanks for the reply. I am going to build in some support for the direction you mention. Eventually I will probably come down from the rear hoop into the rear bumper/cage. But I am limited in time. This buggy is going to my Mom. Knowing them they are ultra conservative in their driving. So speed and off camber area's they will stay away from.

For now, see below image I nabbed from you and added the blue line. This will be on the outside of the car along with the tree bar tying into the interior roll cage.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Ryan, you really need the two down bars on the back of the cage to support the cage from collapsing in the direction of the red arrow. The proposed bar might give you side protection but the cage could still bend back above the blue bar. My cage has them but they are way too close to the "B" hoop for my liking. I'll try to send you some pix later tonight when I can get back on w/o all the troubles I have during the day.

[RyanB]

Fruits of my labor this past weekend. Passenger side is done, just needs a few things cleaned up then I can paint it. Drivers side is about halfway done.

This bolts through with grade 8 bolts into the interior roll cage. It will give it some rigidity to keep from collapsing backwards in case of a rollover. Eventually the plan is to go with down bars from the back but I have a month left to finish this and get it down to Cali for my Mom.


https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot ... e=55B9428C