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

Cool

You should have asked me about the bonnet... ive been cutting so many holes in Ulysses to allow for the throttle body carry-on lately that I know how its held together :laugh:

Its worth putting something in the gaps from cutting between the layers. This is to stop any vibration and hold the seams together a bit. I used some grey window silicone I had left over :laugh:

Thanks Riccy! I should have thought of asking you Yes, some silicone is a good idea!

I thought I'd taken more "during" photos, but I must have had my "no-blogging" head on, so I've nipped out to take some more incase it helps anyone in the future

This is the area under the flap...



..see how it's ideally shaped to take the box section?... there was some internal ribbing that needed removing to get to this shape. Note the hole-saw'ed holes they were needed to get to the nuts under the light-bar, as the box section enclosure for it is such a close fit (as can be seen in the earlier photos) that it was awkward to get the captured bolts through the holes without some wiggling, so the holes underneath had to be big enough to not get in the way of the threads at all...



The view from underneath looking up at the bonnet catch area... it was this square and boxy area that convinced me to take the angle grinder to the outer skin, hoping the shape I imagined might be under it... result!

Started today by trimming the passenger (Alan's!) side mudguard to fit around the snorkel -





And then drilled all the holes and bolted it in place... Also drilled the holes for the snorkel U-bolt, but I'm still waiting for half an exhaust clamp to finish it off -



So I just want the anti-crush bit to go on my massive U-bolt....



And also trimmed the front leading edge to suit...



And then started working out where all the ancillaries will live...

(Away from the exhaust! And the over-hanging pie warmer!)



Knocked up a bracket for the radiator expansion tank...



Folded it around the angle grinder 'key'...



Next the windscreen washer bottle... called in the bigger Clarke sheet bender for that...



Clamped in place... Hmmm, (engine / starter / little!) battery next then? More weight in that to support...



That cutoff of 4"x2" box section half will do for this...



Cut into three lengths, then cut to suit, some 1" box sides cut to suit (mostly as the bolts I found where just a little to short!) and some bracing pieces cut to suit... I'll weld them all up on Sunday...

Keep blogging Dave. I enjoy a good catch up reading this but don't always comment.

You have a following Sir!

Kirkynut

Thanks KirkyNut

I keep thinking no-one's readings this thread (and why do I therefore bother?) but then it's had 18.4K views to date

And I keep referring back to it for reference too!

Dave :laugh:

Just been tinkering in the garage as we're waiting for our main delivery of the week which is due midday...



The exhaust clamp arrived yesterday, so I disassembled it, the small U-bolt will come in handy one day, but I re-drilled the crush bracket out to 12mm to fit the new big (Ford Escort) U-bolt and then loosely bolted it in place...



On the A-pillar I'm planning on rounding the corners of this steel plate and welding it along the right hand edge to the snorkel tube... on the left side I'll drill three holes through the plate, and then drill through these into the 'cage's A-pillar tube and then weld nuts into the A-pillar tube so that the snorkel can then be bolted to it... (I'll shape the plate a bit to make it look nicer too of course )

I'm then hoping to pass the snorkel assembly to my mate who runs FloFlex Polyurethane to throw in his plating pile, so it comes back zinc'ed and shiny... a contrast to all the yellow-ness everywhere else on the buggy?