Dave's la(te)st buggy build...

X8GGY wrote: And the Suzuki owner in me says it’s CHEAP! :woohoo:

The alternative...



... is £78 :ohmy:

Now it’s ok?

:laugh:

It's looking great dave. If it performs anything like as well as it looks like it should then you're in for a lot of fun

And now I see how the winch works. Even if you borrowed the idea you've still done well to re-engineer it

Me and my Jimny wrote: It's looking great dave. If it performs anything like as well as it looks like it should then you're in for a lot of fun

And now I see how the winch works. Even if you borrowed the idea you've still done well to re-engineer it

THANKS! :woohoo: Yes, it's coming together... I hope it is as fun as it looks too!

I'm itching to get it finished and get out for a wander around our beautiful countryside when lockdown comes to an end...

Dave

Bah! Missed Sunday and Wednesday last week, as other things in life got in the way!

But back to it today... my plan for the day was to "finish" the back (driver's side) so that I can soon push the buggy over to the other side of the garage to get the passenger side done...

So I started with the elliptical tube diagonal, I've had these tubes for a few years as I originally wanted to emulate the Ford EX Concept car (seen briefly in one of the Jurassic Park films) -



But this la(te)st buggy is a mixture of inspiration from that, and a Brazilian UTV buggy I also like the look of -



So the first job was to try and work out how the hell to shape the end of the elliptical tube to sit on a round tube, i.e. the back loop of the buggy 'tub' -



Playing on the bench with the marked end of the elliptical tube and an offcut of the seamless tube the same size as the rear tub loop...

Committed, I went for it!...



I didn't take many photos in the morning as I'd left my camera in the shop on my backoffice desk, so these were taken with my iPhone, which is always in the garage for Spotify



The top where the elliptical rube slotted into the original soft-top body diagonal, the idea being to replicate and extend the angle / line of it...



IN! quite happy with that, plenty of grinding and sanding and just a minimal touch of body filler to finish it to...



Back to my usual camera... partly as I HAD to go around to the shop to turn the alarm off! I'd made such a racket that the glass break detectors at the front of the shop above the windows had triggered! Whoops! :lol:

Notice the high level brake light bracket / guard has also been added, and also note the bits of wood batten marking where the matching little "wall" needs to be on the passenger side?...



Extreme close up of the brake light bracket Note how it's position shouldn't effect my rear vision through the mirror



The diagonal in place...



And from the other side...



Back round to the shop, to collect this, this is one of the four display panels I had made (by my Dad's steel fab firm) to display Bits4Vits products at shows back in the day... so it's nice that some of the material from it is going into the buggy!

Chop, cut, grind, weld. swear, adjust...



And a perforated sheet small wall is made to go behind the passenger side rear wheel...



To match the waffle board rack on the other side..





Final photo of the day, happy with that, good progress, but now home and showered and about to join the rest of the family for a "fakeaway" KFC treat for Father's Day...

Back to the front on Wednesday then, hopefully...

Looking back at the photos last night, they didn’t show the joins in the elliptical diagonal very well, so here’s some closeups...







That needs a little bit of filler to finish it off...

That's looking very neat so is that somehow tied into the rear cross bars or the roof halo?

No... it’s just welded into the cutoff back of the soft-top body to try and replicate the angle of the top of the rear quarter window...

Ok so it's into the bodies existing rops structure. Guess you could always have a short vertical up to halo tie it all together?

Not sure how that would work (aesthetically for me)...

What’s a rops by the way? Roof? Yes, the diagonal is into the body’s original soft-top hoop, which is braced with big X tubes... that should be sufficient for a bit of greenlaning?

Roll over protection system. Yeah I can see it would start to look at bit fussy and for none competition use it's as much about aesthetics as anything.

Ahhh, everyday you learn summit new!

Yes, if I was going to compete I’d do it a different way, but this is just for some fun in the sun!,,,

Looking good Dave! It's at that stage in the build where it resembles the finished product and the end is in sight by the looks of it.

Kirkynut