Yet another new guy...

[slayer61]

Good morning everybody,
My name's Paul & I'm in the NORCAL area, just south of Sacramento. Please don't hold that against me.
So, my first car in high school was a 69 bug. It got wrecked, as many kid's cars will do. Before graduation from school I also had a '73 super & a thing. Fast forward many years & my Mrs. drove a type III squareback for a couple of years & I had a Westie, but both of those have long since left our little piece of the world.

I've gone through many hobbies & interests (motorcycle racing starting when I was 40!, firearms etc.) over the years, but I have ALWAYS wanted a dune buggy. Mrs. slayer & I went to Bug-O-Rama in Sac over the Memorial day weekend & I found a suitable dune buggy project! A price was agreed upon (to include the tow bar ) and we dragged it home.

I will have a good look around & perhaps create a topic to cover the build of my buggy. Thanks for letting me in fellas.

[slayer61]

ETA obligatory pics





It's kinda rough and very incomplete. Just a 68 pan, wiggly loose BJ front end and swingaxle, but it has potential and just the start I wanted!

[Ol'fogasaurus]

What 'cha going to do with it. Advice here is cheap and usually good but it helps to know the direction you are going in.

Lee

[doc]

Nice start. Welcome to STF

[slayer61]

Thanks fellas. The goal is a slalom car or adult go-kart. I have already mounted drop spindles, sway-a-way adjusters and disc brakes on the front along with badly needed ball joints, tie rod ends etc.

Yesterday I got the trans dropped of at the transmission shop, where he has been informed that big tires & a bigish motor are in it's future. When it comes back, wheels & tires to make it a roller again. The Mrs. has proclaimed that

it will have Centerline wheels on it

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Thanks fellas. The goal is a slalom car or adult go-kart. I have already mounted drop spindles, sway-a-way adjusters and disc brakes on the front along with badly needed ball joints, tie rod ends etc.

Yesterday I got the trans dropped of at the transmission shop, where he has been informed that big tires & a bigish motor are in it's future. When it comes back, wheels & tires to make it a roller again. The Mrs. has proclaimed that

it will have Centerline wheels on it

I would advise the use of a truss/kaffer bar (two names for the same thing) to support the trans mount. If you can, before you put the body back on, I would advise you to weld the spot welded seams of the trans mount also. The tunnel, if you can do it, is also a good place to weld the spot welded seams also.

A good properly built cage helps keep the pan from flexing and helps spread the loads around.

Also, there are upper and lower front beam supports available to help reduce some of the loading on the from beam mount. The lower ones should be easy to install as there should be the two slots per side on the stock pan, it is the upper units that is a pain in the butt on a glass bodied body toy.

There are other good idea things that can be done... this is just some things to look at for a good start.

Lee

[slayer61]

Thanks for that Lee,
a Kafer bar and roll cage is in the plan. I was unaware of welding the trans mount & tunnel. I have been looking at front beam supports as well. Much appreciated advice. Be safe.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Thanks for that Lee,
a Kafer bar and roll cage is in the plan. I was unaware of welding the trans mount & tunnel. I have been looking at front beam supports as well. Much appreciated advice. Be safe.

The VW bug is a "tunnel style" of unibody with the tunnel being so much of the strength. The body is bolted, not welded to the pan and while there is load transfer it isn't as good as other unibody styles.

Fiberglass can transmit loads but yours, like my two buggies, doesn't have a roof to help spread the loads around (the cage does help). The spot welds are OK for driving on the Autobahn but when you are doing things like Autocrossing, different types of racing, off-roading (like I do) then the flaws can start to show up.

What you have looks and sounds like a very good start compared to other starts that have, with a lot of work, turned out great. You will have a time limit due to the Mrs. like most of us have.

My black buggy has surpassed even the most generous of the marriage time limits but... I still hear about it. Keep the "Honey-dos" done quickly and that will help give you some extra time... usually .

Lee

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Paul, there is something I did, but did it wrong, on my black buggy that might be worth thinking about (the word "thinking" is the key word).

black buggy rebuild 3-20-08 007 (2).jpg

Since I am putting a V6 in my glass bodied buggy I added a doubler in the body mount track to add some additional support to the 3" body lift on the upper side of the pan's mounting track. The mistake I made was to use a 1" square tube instead of a 1 X 2 or 1 X 3 that is stronger with the load being applied on the long side of the tube.

When getting into the seat with the bolts not clamping the body lift, the pan and the 1 X 1 tube together the 1 X 1 (welded to the pan's track) wanted to bend. The longer side would give some additional support but, since I ride in the sand, I was afraid the hang down might get in the way of potentially going over things. Some off-roader often do add a bar like this to act as a "slider" to save the pan from damage.

Last week I ran into a guy with a glass buggy who built his body lift (1 X 2) using a "C" shaped cross section (I don't know the wall thickness) instead of a tube like I did. His body still looked low with the 2" lift but I am not sure of the "C" shaped material in a potential torqueing situation. He does have a heck of a cage and side bars though which I am sure helps a lot. Side bars are something I am going to have to add also as people on the sand don't look where they are going .

Anyway, something to think about or, hopefully, some additional commentary will come out of this post.

Lee

[slayer61]

Thanks for that Lee.
As I was removing the 4 bolts ( ) that held the body onto the pan, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the valley had already been filled with, what I think is, 3/4" pipe for stiffness. Pretty creative, I thought!

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Thanks for that Lee.
As I was removing the 4 bolts ( ) that held the body onto the pan, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the valley had already been filled with, what I think is, 3/4" pipe for stiffness. Pretty creative, I thought!

Opinion: Tubing, pipe, square and rectangular tubing all have different advantages, disadvantages and different uses. Tubing and maybe pipe are more torsional as I remember while square tube does have some advantages but it is the rectangular tube where loading is stronger in the direction of the long sides.

Tubing does have to have support in long distances (see how a rail's sides are supported by diagonals) but then so does the square and rectangular tube (nothing is simple is there ).

As far as pipe goes I would suspect that the material thickness is going to make a big difference.

0010.JPG

This is my black body's pan with new floors, notice that the stock body bolts are 9 per side. You said yours had 4 bolts per side which now has me wondering. How much, if any, shortening of the pan has been done? 14 1/2" is probably the most common shortening but I have seen dimensions in-between and a couple of bodies that are even shorter.

I hope this helps and your buggy is a good start so stick with it then have the fun you deserve in saving it.

Lee