My ongoing Turbobaja build

[Chris V]

Between the rear table and the wiper fluid mount I think you've successfully made this overdesigned to the point of humor The rear table looks about 10x sturdier than any go-kart frame I've ever seen

I'm just spit-ballin' here...but later down the road it would be cool if you made a roof/utility rack that incorporated the table when the backseat was in...

[turbobaja]

Turbobaja I am impressed by the above pic. But why didn't you put the hinges on the back side? Thanks for the compliment on my build you are responsible for getting me motivated.

The hinges, or pins, whatever you want to call them.....it hinges on the pins which are part of the rear mounts, the top pic in my last post has the frame bolted in (mocked up) @ all 4 mounting locations. In the 2nd pic you can see the pins welded to the rear mounts of the platform. They both point to the passenger side and are ~5/8" long. The platform is installed by sliding the 2 rear pins into the seat mount tabs on the body, and then hinging it down so the 2 front tabs slide down in between the 2 front seat mounts on the body and bolt into place. In the last pic it's hard to see, but it's bolted on the 2 front mounts. I can't actually hinge it up very far before it hits the cage. But I should be able to get at the battery without having to move the seat/platform, and it'd be just as easy to remove the platform once it's unbolted to hinge up.


What did I do? I think it's great that you're making tons of forward progress on that monster baja of yours. Now that I can see how big it's gonna be I understand why you're going with that 4.3. It'l be a unique baja for sure!

Between the rear table and the wiper fluid mount I think you've successfully made this overdesigned to the point of humor The rear table looks about 10x sturdier than any go-kart frame I've ever seen

I'm just spit-ballin' here...but later down the road it would be cool if you made a roof/utility rack that incorporated the table when the backseat was in...

Haven't you been paying attention? The name of the game here is "overdesign to the point of humor" . However unfortunate that may seem, it's the story of this build (my life). It's just the nature of the beast.

Of course, now that you mention it, the last few go-kart frames I've seen looked pretty cheesy in comparison. I was thinking about using .095" wall stuff, but there's a ~33" span between the seat mount tabs, and I know there's gonna be some 300lb pal in the middle of that thing bouncing up/dwn and it'll tweak my seat mounts so bad I won't be able to remount the bench w/out a hammer. I knew I was gonna skin it w/.100" alumi and it would need supports every so often, and I didn't want to bother with triangulating inside the frame (notching & welding takes longer). Extra beef was the only quick option. Do you see how the logic is flowing here? Plus, I can always use it for a go-kart frame some time in the future . And the wiper fluid mount isn't that fancy is it? That thing got done in like one day, that's freakin' record time for me for making anything .

Doing what I can to avoid a roof rack. If I have any chance of having a functional spoiler/cooler in the rear I'm afraid a roof rack would mess it up. The plan is to pull a trailer on trips. And I think I've got an idea for a front mounted spare tire rack that mounts to the front bumper and lays the tire back over the hood handle area, just an idea at this point.

Thanks for the ribbing Chris , you should come over and have a look at this contraption some time, you'd laugh.

[seabeebuggy]

Looks great.

[turbobaja]

Looks great.

Thanks Seabee!


Well the last couple of weeks were less than fun for me. I went to mount up the doors and found out they don't fit anymore ! I bought them 4-5 years ago and they test fit good back then, so I knew it wasn't the door's fault. Plus I had my 2 old doors which used to fit fine to compare with. Nope, the body was definately tweaked. Bad enough to where I couldn't even stuff the door into the opening of the body, let alone bolt up the hinges. I never pulled the body off the pan on this build, and I'd already replaced the left rear quarterpanel and heater channel parts before I test fit the new doors. I figured out it was the cage that had tweaked the body so bad. The way it's welded throught the body on either end made it possible for the cage to pull upward on the front of the body, raising the A-pillar so much that the top rear corners of the doors were sticking up and behind the top/rear corner of the door opening on the body. And you could see light, a lot of light, between the body and the doors along the gap just above the A-pillar, on either side of the windshield posts. It was hard to look at, and I chose not to take any pics. Instead I focused on how I could possibly repair this body good enough to use after all these years of work.

I decided to start by cutting the top hoop that connects the A and B-pillar hoops together along the top of each door opening. The instant that cut was finished the cage popped, giving my a 1/4" gap where I'd just cut (w/sawzall metal blade). I could already fit the doors into the body, although they still contacted @ top rear and bottom front of the door jams, but I was making progress, and I knew what direction I had to go. So I borrowed an oxy-ace torch and a 48" highlift jack and got real familiar with both for the first time. I started jacking diagonally inside the cage to push the nose of the car back down and by leaving the doors mounted up I could watch my progress each step of the way. I could work the handle of the jack and watch the body and cage flex to see where I needed to heat up the cage and get it to relax. After a few days of slowly working at it, I was pretty happy with the way things were fitting, even the sunroof hole seemed to straighten itself out a little in the process . I'm back in actioin!

Couple shots of the jacking in action. The pucker factor was off the charts for a couple days around here .





And the results.







So I started test fitting door hardware and making the wire loom pass-thru.





Between the 1-piece door glass and the power window regulators, the inner door skin is not going to work out for me. I'm going to be relocating the regulators forward to the center gravity of the 1-peice glasses. I decided it would be easier to just cut out the stamped steel inner door skin and make a new one from alumi that had a blank slate for mounting options, and way more room inside the door.

[panel]

Is this a nice piece or what

[turbobaja]

Ya, those are a set of stainless braided wire looms from Watson's StreetWorks that I shortened a bit to make work for the tight radius of the door jams. I also bent and heated them to get the nylon liners to keep their shape better instead of grinding on the collars they pass-thru as much. I got these a few years ago, and of course now Watson's has a whole variety of similar wire looms that would have worked even better for these tight door jams.

Watsons-streetworks.com in the 'door solenoids and looms' section if you're interested.

[64bug]

good work getting the door to fit man! i went through the same thing doing the heater channels and floor pans.. nothing ever fits the same once you start cutting, buts theres ways to fix everything

[Hotrodvw]

I commend you for taking on this very large 'project'! You've done an awesome job for sure. I just don't have the patience to do something like that

[turbobaja]

Thanks for the encouraging words guys!

Been making progress on the doors lately. The plan is to install these power window uints ~3" forward of the factory regulator tracks to get the weight of the 1-piece door glasses centered over them better. I also had to remove a couple brackets from the old doors to make instalation a little more flexable with the new doors.



Once I made a couple new inner door skins from alumi, I reassembled the mighty press to put a couple mild bends in them to stiffen them up a little.



Once the new skins were mounted up with a few rivets, I got the mounts for the rear guide channel welded inside the door. Then I taped the mounts onto the door glass @ their center of gravity and installed them in the door to get an idea where the regulator would end up @ full top stroke. Then I dropped the glass down inside the door to see where full down-stroke would end up and marked that on the inside of the door. Then I was able to locate and weld on the lower regulator mount inside the door and start cycling the regulator up/dwn to get a feel for where to mount the regulator to the door skin.





Once the reg was mounted up I made a front guide track, similar to the rear factory one to help keep the front of the door glass from moving around inside the doors too much. Now, even w/out scrapers on, the door glass goes up/dwn smoothly .





Also had a chance to test fit my mirrors for the first time. These Bus mirrors by Hagus are pretty sharp units, and mount right up in stock location . Not settled yet on wether they should be vertical or horizontal, so I tried both.







One last pic just for inspiration

[david58]

I am always impressed when I look at your threads. Nice work on the electric windows.

[shag55]

Yes vary nice!

[Turbo_Manx_Maniac]

I vote for horizontal Karl!

Still think your gonna be too scared to actually drive it...

[Coyote]

details, details, details...all is about details here !

"superbe boulot" in french ! "boulot" means "job" !

I vote for horizontal .

[Coyote]

Still think your gonna be too scared to actually drive it...

I would be scared to drive it, especially in the mud !

on a rotating show base, with a lot of mirrors, may be !

[Chris V]

Looks good...Are you planning on using the glue-in scrapers? Do those windows have the one-touch down feature? They look snazzy.