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

Makes my effort with my cargo net to shame and you had a quiet day too! I must try harder.

Thanks for sharing your build on this forum. Most of my modifications based on and inspired by your work I seen here. I get enlightened every time when I'm reading your threads so keep up the good work!

Thanks Hun!

That was quick! Good old Royal Mail operating well during this pandemic!



Ordered Sunday when I realised what I was short of... despatched Monday, delivered TUESDAY!

Fitted Wednesday?

Yesterday (Monday)...



I gave the electrical component mountings a first coat of red smoothrite paint...



This afternoon, I had a couple of hours off, so I crimped the connectors on the rear of the battery cables...

Note - I found the solenoid remote control too!



And then, having given the mounts a second coat of paint early in the afternoon, I bolted them in, crimped the rest of the cables and began connecting them up...



Closeup! So the left connector is the negative / earth and has four cables clamped in two pairs either side -

1) The original earth cable in the engine bay
2) An earth to the body
3) The earth cable running to the rear winch battery
4) An earth ready to run across to the engine battery on the passenger side...

And on the right, the right connector also has four cables clamped in two pairs either side -

1) The positive feed to the rear winch battery to charge it (when the switch is ON)
2) A positive ready to run across to the engine battery on the passenger side...
3) Two wires that run into the original main fuse box in the engine bay...

That done, I had a few minutes spare, and started to ponder the excess strap on the spare wheel Y-strap...?



Y-strap with excess strap, scissors (!), blow torch (!!) and wide mole grips?.... :ohmy:



No going back now then?!



Heat up the wide mole grips...? :blink: :blink:



And then clamp them on the end of the cut-off end... and hope for the best?!

Awesome a fused joint on the end to stop it fraying...?!



That;s better!

Cash up the shop, tea and a few beers, write this update... and all ready for another day of tinkering in the garage tomorrow.. Wednesday off

Bit more today...



The paint had dried on the switch plates, so I reassembled that and attached some of the cables...



Te switched side of the batteries are connected, but the two going to the actual battery haven't been fitted yet, for a couple of reasons - there's still welding going on on the vehicle, and, I've run out of heat shrink! :lol: It's been despatched though, so I can make up the cables one afternoon later in the week...

It being "quite quiet" Wednesday (eldest daughter working in my study above me), I thought I'd change the rear springs (you may remeber the stance of the buggy looked wrong one I pulled it out of the garage for a look the other day),.,



I started with a reference measurement... 7 ³/₄" to the top of the rear mudguard plate...



Rear spring out - the one on the right is what was fitted, that's a new front spring fitted to the rear to give around 1.5" of lift... the spring on the left is a JimnyBits 2" lift spring - you can see they are the same length, but much meatier on the lift spring...



Bugger! The same amount of lift with the lift spring in?



Ahhh... but on the passenger side Ihave 9" >!

Hmmm...



Lying underneath for a look... notice how tight the coils are compared to...



... the passenger side rear...

Must be the weight of the big winch battery in the offside corner of the rear of the chassis?

Hmmm...



A quick rummage through my old stock, and I found one remaining 15mm spring spacer.. ! And luckily, when I ordered the wrong diameter fuel filler hose, I also therefore ordered the wrong diameter jubilee clips, so they were used to clamp the spring spacer to the top of the offside spring...



That's better! 9" on the offside too... all sorted!

So I then reassembled everything - spring clamps, rear shocks, and then...



I could feel my sugars were dropping a little low, a quick prick test confirmed, so I had a cuppa and a KitKat to bring them back up again...



I then drilled through the X of the "rollcage" brace and the box section top of the little "wadig wall", and added a spacer over the big long bolt...



epeat for the other side, and then (test) bolt the spare wheel strap in place



Yup, happy with that, what's next then...?

LOL :lol: Soo, at two o'clock I decided to knock off early, write this, and then head for a shower and take the dogs out for a nice long walk...

So Sunday's a welding and grinding day!