New Frame Idea

[Bullnerd]

Originally Posted by bdkw1

No you don't, it's a real time waster LOL.......

But what you drew up is about what I would go with. The only change I would make is the top X brace going to the upper dash bar. Why do you need 2 dash bars? ditch one or the other.................

Yeah i'm sure my kids would miss me if i had it!

I agree on the single dash bar, i had left in what he had in that area.

[Reflex]

Good ideas Bull, looks cleaner plus it frees up a lot of room for pedals, master cyl's etc.

[mxer75]

I got some stuff figured out from what you sketched up there Bullnerd, I knew a paint pro would come on board soon enough. Haha, solidworks takes up a hell of alot of time. And it hurts your brain, mine anyway.
Why do I need to make the bumper detachable? I sort of thought that for replacment reasons from barging for position, but I was thinking of making it 1 piece from the bottom of the longatudal roof braces to the front. Not completly sure.

[K-fab]

You want the bumper to be:
1) detachable, or should I say replaceable
and
b) made out of thinner, weaker tubing than the vehicle.

Bumpers are throw away items. The idea is for them to take all the energy of a crash or thump and absorb it as it deforms, not transferring that energy into the chassis.

A stout bumper WILL bend your frame if used. Trust me on this one - I pushed the front of my old desert car in about 4" because the bumper was pretty much indestructible. The frame took the abuse, not the bumper - Hell, it didn't even scratch it!

I pulled the unharmed bumper off then proceeded to cut the bent front frame tubes out of the car.

When I released the pushed in side of the frame tube (with a sawz-all), the bent tube became unbent very very quickly, hitting me in the thigh and dropping me to the ground. It literally knocked me off my feet it hit me so hard - and the guys at ATV Racing had a wonderful laugh at my misfortune.

I was quite impressed with just how much energy the bent frame had stored and then released onto me and the colors of the bruise a couple of days later. .

A (use the space bar) lot...

[Bullnerd]

You can make it all one piece ,this is just my opinion.I like the idea of a replaceable bumper thats all.Plus you can enclose the front of the car easily and have a place behind the bumper for lights.Also you can have more than one style bumper.

Can you turn off the center line when you post SW pics?

Yeah plus what he said!

[UkraineTrain]

Looks good. I would suggest adding another diagonal brace in the "firewall" from the belt line on the right side (so you're node to node with the diagonal brace on the top half and the cross tube) down across to the left side by your butt. Think triangles so your members are loaded in compression and tension, not bending.

[mxer75]

Thanks Ukraintrain, I actualy had planned to do that but wasn't 100% on the idea.
Thanks for everyones input so far. I went and looked at alot of buggies over the last few weeks and have changed the front end considerably. Its taking me a while to get it nutted out but, I think it will work better for what I want. Stay tuned for some updates, but be patient, haha.

[mxer75]

Have beeen doing a little drawing lately, lucky I have a long time to design this car because Solidworks takes for ever for me.

Heres a few pics of what I've been working on. The things I'm worried about are, the amount the hiems roll when the suspension cycles and the angle change that the lower ball joint goes through as well. I know its hard to tell with no spindal and upper control arm but I haven't had the patience of late. haha. The pictures show full droop and full bump, giving about 20" travel and 4" of ground clearance at the lowest.

[K-fab]

The setup you've drawn looks similar to the Tazcar's front suspension.

Yes, the heims do roll as you cycle the arm. The only way to completely get rid of it is to have the ends of the arms set up so that the heims are perpendicular to the line that you'd draw between the two arm mounting points.

That said, I don't have an issue with either the front or the rear heim binding as it rotates when the suspension cycles. It's okay that it does this.