Ultralite Buggy Project from the UK

[ChaosMS]

Hi everyone, just thought I would post a few pics of my buggy project here in the UK, still got a long way to go but the project is going well so far, without too many major issues (those will come when I try to get it registered for road use). The buggy has been designed by myself (and a good bit of CAD software) and is powered by a suzuki swift engine and box, I am almost at the rolling chassis stage - just finishing off the rear suspension now, and hope to have it on its wheels by mid to late October.

Anyway I have a LOT of build pics over on my build site but here are a few to get you started :-

Day 1 200 feet of 1.25" (32mm if your in the UK) 2mm wall ERW tube - it dosent look much once its chopped up!


Majority of chassis parts bent to correct angle with the homemade tube bender:-


Start of the lower chassis section:-


Chassis main roll over bar and rear cage:-


Chassis midsection and upper roll cage:-


Chassis Upper section in place - starting to look right :-


chassis with diagonals and engine mounts in place (and a bit of undercoat):-


Chassis is a little further on currently as I'm fabricating and mounting up the rear A arms, I will post more shots soon if anyone is interested

ChaosMS

[daaboots]

Looks good. Your bender seems to work very well. I'll be interested to see how the swift engine works out for you. Good luck with the build and keep posting!

[Gene]

Welcome to MBN! Keep the posts coming!

[sunsetfirebird]

very nice!!

[LEE1969GB]

Hi ChaosMS, Good to see another buggy enthusiast from the uk, The buggy is looking good, what kind of suspension are you going to use and what shocks? I assume you have used ERW to keep the weight down?
Where in the uk are you?
Lee.

[rgvkid]

Nice Build! How do you read the lines on the tubing for the bends. Are you using a program for the bend dimensions or Plans? On the bends you have 2 lines and sometimes 3. I know one is for the start but some are in the middle of the bend.

[ChaosMS]

Thanks everyone! to answer a few questions :-

daaboots - yes I was surprised myself how accurate the bender is, took a while to get it just right but I can repeat the bends quite easily now, not bad for a bit of box section a bottle jack eh - actually the quality of the bends are down to the top notch former I got from the guys over at Pro-Tools in the US (I found a guy in the UK who imports them) which took a bit of getting and cost a bit but its worth every penny!!!!

LEE1969GB - Yes its good to find a fellow buggy nut here in the UK! watcha Mate , the suspension is my own design of double wishbone or A arm all round I will post a picture of the rear arms for you in a mo then you can see - the arms are mounted via race quality Kevlar re-inforced rose joints to the chassis and hubs so each arm has 4 rose joints (for the rear arms) the shock are custom built over at AVO shocks UK they are 30 inches long with 12 inches of travel and are fully adjustable .
I did indeed use ERW to keep the weight down and ensure a quality tube with a set external diameter rather than going for mild steel pipe where the set diameter is the centre bore and would therefore cause me grief in the pipe bender!!

Oh and I'm a Lancashire lad!!!
Rgvkid – the lines on the bends work like this, I mark the centre line of the bend (which I have got from the 3D model I made of the chassis) once I have the centre line I then work out the distance from the centre line to the end of the bend this is quite easy as I know what the angle is for the bend and the full circumference of the forming head (so the forming head is only a max of 120 degree bend but its simple maths to find the full circumference length then divide this by the bend degrees this will give you the centre line distance of the complete bend so you then just divide that by 2 to get the distance offset I need for the bender
So for a 90 degree bend it would be (822.68 (full circumference of former) / (360/90))/2 which would give me an offset or end of bend from centre of 102.8mm this is the line which lines up with the very end of the tube forming head on the bender – this way I can repeat the bends easily and I always know where it will start and finish!
Most of the time I only mark the centre line and one of the end of bend lines depending on which way im putting it into the pipe bender – if there are three lines its because I could not decide from which end to bend or I had a second bend in the pipe and I wanted to set
I must admit I set up a small excel spreadsheet with all the pipe lengths and angles in it and then as I type the angle in the spreadsheet works out the distance and populates the spreadsheet for me - then its printed out and stuck to the wall in the garage!!

Hope that answers the questions

[ChaosMS]

As promised here are a few pics of the suspension arms ive built - and the jig!

At it with the pipe bender again these 8 bits are the sides of the arms :-


The jig to ensure all the arms are the same and repeatable :-


finished arm with a single rose joint in:-


Both rear arms for one side mounted to the hub:-


arms and hub hung in place at the back of the chassis:-


First arm mounted correctly :-


Mounts are just tacked in place at the moment until im sure they are correct then ill seam weld them correctly!

I'll post more pics soon both here and on the build site.

[K-fab]

Very nice indeed!

[ChaosMS]

K-fab, thanks! - its a slow process but im getting there!!