Dave’s long-term Lil’Bugga Buggy Build

If swopping the front and rear diffs round resulted in a change of drive direction that would be excellent for putting the engine and box in the back instead of one of those hellishly expensive reverse rotation transfer gearboxes that a few companies make, in fact it makes me wonder why they are even manufactured if you can just swop the diffs over ?

hi Dave how goes it, did you decide if you need to turn the diffs upside down or not ?

Hi Andy

Just the rear one... not actually tried turning it upside-down yet... still waiting to get The Boogie back after the head has been done... still amassing parts though

Mine's supposed to be starting at the end of the summer... I want to drive The Boogie as much as I can in the sunshine first, and then retreat into the garage in the cold and wet months...It looks like Sunday will be wet though, so I may well have a tinker in the garage
 

Although saying that, I was finishing up refurbishing the front of the shop on Wednesday, and had a couple of spare hours in the afternoon, so I went from this -

 

to...

 

The keen-eyed (Brett did!) will notice the left hand one has a good ding in the rim So a replacement was ordered from eBay today... when I started I thought I'd be prepping to repaint them, but by the end with a light sanding sponge and a pint or so of Gunk engine degreaser, they'll do fine for a pure offroad buggy...

 Speaking of which…



Look who finally came home yesterday…

So my mind and efforts return to The Boogie whilst the sun is shining…  




 

Yesterday another parcel arrived...

This morning as I left for a days greenlaning in the Boogie, I dropped it off at Jamie's...

When I came back...

 

He'd taken the old tyre off the rim, so that I now have a set of four three spoke alloys for the lil'bugga build...

Bah!... the wife's been helping out in a youth theatre production for the past week, so I've been watching "Texas Metal" on the Discovery Channel. In Series 2 Episode 3 there's a great example of how to narrow an axle - which is what I want to do on this project - so I recorded it, edited on my PC and uploaded it to YouTube, and immediately got slapped with a notification of copyright infringement! LOL :lol:

So it's on my PC for inspiration but I can't share it via YouTube

Ah well, if you want to see it, you now know where it is... on the Discovery Channel I mean, don't be coming round to my house to watch it on my PC :lol:

what did the wheels come off ? Was it a small tractor?

They look like standard jimny wheels don't they ?
I have a few kicking around if you break any Dave

Yes, standard Jimny 15" 3-spoke alloys... soon to be shod in 215/80 Extreme Trekkers...

 

 Another little parcel…



26 spline side gears came back into stock at JimnyBits… These will be going in the rear front axle :lol: with a pair of short side TG shafts…


 

The good people of St Asaph are going to be becoming increasingly hungry as you stock up on bits of Jimny until there's no room in your shop! :laugh: