New project

[Calimus]

very nice.

[vw_nick]

getting there.... working on a little bit at a time. Engine is ready to go together, just painting a few bits and pieces... CVs repacked w/ new boots, trans cleaned up, been working on the chassis.

got these today - had ordered the wheels a few weeks ago. A few days ago a new apprentice at work said he had a pair of new tires he had bought for a buggy that he never got around to building... they were 29x12.5x15. (the wheels are 8x15. the 10x15 wheels were almost twice the price) - after much debate the past few days and then actually mounting them up... SOLD! wheels, $158 shipped. Tires, $100. (they're about $130 ea. - and that's my "insider" price through work via the local tire distributor)

[vw_nick]

[vw_nick]

IRS, wheel bearings repacked, tubes in the front tires, chassis stripped, T3 rear brakes...

[Calimus]

Very nice. I also like the grave yard decorations. It's almost showtime for you!

[vw_nick]

spent several hours on the roll-cage cross braces and bars for the upper seat belt harness anchor.. also removed steering components in preparation for cutting off front end.

[vw_nick]

5 hours of fabricating last weekend, 5 hours of welding yesterday...

[Calimus]

Nice. Looking good Nick. Keep it up.

[vw_nick]

Friday I spent around an hour with the guy at the nearby race car shop, he's been in the sport / business his whole life, , I'd guess he was about 50. He totally quit and sold all his stuff a while ago but got back into it, seems his specialty is min-mod cars, said he built & sold 27 cars one year, but now only does 3 or 4. Super nice guy. Went through the parts department with him showing me all sorts of neat stuff. (He made the bends in the new tubing for me)

I spent 10 hours working on the buggy on Saturday with Mike. He wrapped his welder up in plastic and we parked it under an EZ up in the driveway with a tarp making a gutter to bridge the gap between the garage and the EZ up. Got tons done, the Only thing we forgot to do was weld the tab for the "dashboard" - but near the end we were in a bit of a mad rush because we were about an hour overbudget with the Mrs(s) and getting in more trouble by the minute. Also need to weld in the splicing tubes for the front bumper (front and rear bumper are to attach via 1" tubing splices welded one one end and bolted on the other, since 1.25" tubing flanges are about $2.50 each and not to be had locally. The rear frame horns are blocked off by a piece he cut out with a torch via a template I made out of cardboard worked out great. The bends worked well too. It got a little tricky for the front frame rails but it turned out in the end. My calculations for the front bumper dimensions worked out great too.

The rear bumper has a bit of an issue though.. we bent the upper chassis tube on Mike's receiver hitch to make sure it would clear the stinger / collector, which it does, but the vertical bars don't clear the rest of the extractor... not sure what I'm going to do there. I was planning on replacing it and had budgeted to do so but really didn't want to unless I had to... and I really don't want to rework the bumper.

However, overall I think if my chassis could talk it would say "how do you like me now???"

[vw_nick]

[Briano1234]

Nice quality filter ya gots there, but does it scoot?

[gull]

That's a nice, tidy installation.

[vw_nick]

Nice quality filter ya gots there, but does it scoot?

it's a cookie tin cover on an el-cheapo empi cotton gauze air cleaner, the idea was to keep mud off the filter but I'm having to ditch the cookie tin b/c it's too big and rubs on the exhaust plus it's rather difficult to remove... going to go to the chilton's (lawnmower parts, etc) shop across the street from work to see if they have a foam pre-filter that will work for it. And, of course it scoots! It has 1600cc and weighs what I'd guess to be 800lbs. engine is stock except it's got an 009 distributor and the carb has been re-jetted and slightly modified to eliminate a dead spot when running an 009, header, and stock carb. (34pict 3)

[Calimus]

Very nice Nick. Looks like it's a blast. You've really been busy on that.

[vw_nick]

two late evenings last week = primer and ~5 hours on Sunday = steering shaft angle, length, & bearing sorted, some rear cage braces, skid plate brackets, skid plate, dash mount and roof partially finished. (too thick to bend on buggy, need to regroup, possibly with assistance of cat D2 blade & sledgehammer) got to pop the cherry on coworker's new pole-parn with our buggies and we're supposed to paint it in there on Wed, reassemble on Friday. His buggy has a 1835 w/ 041 heads, c45 cam, forged cw crank, 009, etc... built many years ago for a street fiberglass buggy. Spent about a month adding bus gear reductions to IRS arms.. got videos of it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQyAfidqnoA