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

Jimny flash mob..... that would be funny

sniper

will it have number plates with all those mods

safari wrote: will it have number plates with all those mods

I hope so!



I've fallen foul of the DVLA and VOSA when I built "Stumpy" the Grand Vitara years ago -



So I vowed to never alter a chassis again, so the buggy should qualify the same as a kit=car as only the body has changed a little...?

sniper wrote: Jimny flash mob..... that would be funny

sniper

Now that would be great

Back to it today... not got much done in the last week as our youngest daughter flew to Malta (for seven months ) last Wednesday (my day off in the week usually) and the wife went to wave her off with her sister, and then the wife was away in EuroDisney from Thursday to Monday with a youth choir she chaperones for... but, as said, back to it today...



I began by making a gusset plate for the top of the roof hoop on the passenger (Alan's) side



And having drawn around all the fixing points I ground them back to shiny metal, and then re-assembled for the last time, ready for welding...

Notice the flat bar welded to the 'main' crossbar?...



You can just about see it there... that's to line up the other crossbar after I've cut in in half...



I marked the centre line, and then the start and end of the 'fishmouth' cut...



There on the bench you can see it better, just a flat triangle cut to start it off...



Like that...



So that roughly fits around the 'main' crossbar, and then attack it with a grinding disk...



So that we get a nice join like this



And then bring in the other half again, and mark that up...



Repeat the fishmouth cutting and grind, et-voila!



And we have our X crossbrace in place!



And during assembly the gusset plates are squeezed into position...



All ready for welding, probably on Sunday...



The other side (Alan's) with the gusset plate in place...

So the thicker tube of the 'X' butts up to the gusset place, and the smaller seamless tube is then hammered through the hole in the roof / hoop of the body into the bigger tube as it just passes through the hole in the gusset plate, I've also drilled four holes in the tops of the crossbars to puddle weld through to the smaller tube inside... once it's all welded up it should be super strong, and brace the weakened body due to back half being removed...



From the top you get the idea?... the bits protruding through are to hold / join to the tree scraper bars that will go around the roofline of the buggy, and also protect the front section of the soft-top, just like my previous blue Jimny previously known as S200KYS...

I had sketched up the roofline bars like this -



To get a quote for them bent up for me, but it proved to be too expensive (for a budget 'laning fun buggy) so I'm going to have to rethink it... Which I did after finishing today, I stood back with a cuppa and planned it all in my mind, and will come back to that one...

I also mocked up the back of the buggy when the X-brace was in place, but I've run out of time now, I need to have a shower and get back to the shop, so I'll post all the other photos later tonight...

Brilliant!

Thank you!

So, after prepping the crossbrace, I decided to mock-up the back of the buggy...



The rear hoop had just turned up from a seller on eBay, you can probably guess who , so I hole-sawed into the right-hand (driver;s) side of the rear of the cab infill, and inserted the end of the hoop, and propped up the other end on a Royal Mail box!

I then cut the waffle boards to size - they're now 33" x 10.5" - to fit in the back, they'll be some racks for these soon, and the offcuts were used to make two 10.5" squares for the left side to fill it in matching, these can be used for hi-lift jack spreader plates, but are mostly there to make the two sides match, as the clutch of the winch is in the way of having a full length waffle board there...

The box section behind the spare wheel will actually fit inside the back of the cab when it's finished and be sheeted over, so that the buggy ends up with a little wall at the back of the cab, so that it can wade to around 33", rare we go deeper than the diameter of the tyres? Which are 30" on the buggy...



I also added the eleptical tube hoop 'stays' to the sides, these are meant to emulate the Ford EX concept car shown a few times in this build thread, and to also look like the original soft-top shape a little as well... They need fis-mouthing on to the top of the rear loop eventually too...



The rear wings will eventually sit under the rear loop and upto the waffle boards, with SJ / Samurai lights in the end of them (the wings / mudguards)



Inside the rear bed...

Note the position of the winch to the donut fairlead infront of it, and how the spare wheel sits inline with it, the idea of it - coming back to the drawing of the roofline hoops - was that there would be another small fairlead on the roof line behind the cab, in the pointy back bit of the loop, I could hen pull a loop off the front of the winch and up through this small fairlead to self-right the buggy, or support it if it got tippy, etc, but the cost of the custom bends was prohibitive...





Up here above the winch...

So, my thoughts now are to buy THREE basic hoops, made to my dimensions again -



So that two would make the roofline hoops, and I'll cut the third one up to get one big angle shape to add the triangulation to the back of the roofline for the top fairlead, and the other small angle will be used to...



... frame the fuel filler...

That;s the thinking at the moment anyways, as buying three hoops works out cheaper than the price for the custom tube work quoted earlier from my sketch...

More soon!

Fascinating - great read.

Thank you for all the posts and photos

SURPASSING - and a great read

A good question...

I'd guess it would weigh slightly more than a standard Jimny?

I'll weigh it when it's finished and compare...

Dave