Bandit Build

[Short Circuit]

For my birthday this year my wife bought me Bandit buggy plans.
I started this build in July.
So after reviewing the plans and getting the materials I started the build.The main frame is made out of 1" x .125 wall tubing.
I got the beltline done and the hoop for the roolcage in these pictures. I bought a 12 ton bender from Princess Auto and was disappointed with the bends it made. I could not get a bend over 30* without it collapsing the tubing. So the only bends I made with that bender are the front bumper and the rest of the bends are made with an Ideal hand bender.All fishmothing of the tubing was done with a bench grinder and all cuts were made with a hacksaw.
Hopefully my pictures show up as I was having trouble trying to post them before.

Mark

[Short Circuit]

Here's a few more pictures of the frame. The plans are very well laid out and have some written instructions also.






This is the bender I used to do the majority of the bends on this buggy

[kawonda]

Wow! How did you get an electrical emt bender to hold up to the strength of the heavy tubing? And how did you get it to not kink the tubing? I am an electrician, and an surprized you are able to bend anything other than emt and galvanized rigid conduit with it. What size bender and tubing did you use? Anyways it looks good so far.

[Short Circuit]

Thanks
The bender is an Ideal bender meant for 3/4" rigid conduit and 1" emt conduit. It has the factory handle which is a fairly stout piece.
Since conduit measurements are for I.D. and tubing measurements are O.D., 3/4 inch rigid conduit has an o.d. of 1.05" and 1' tubing has an O.D of 1.002 " there is only a difference in O.D of .048".
So the bender works good to bend this tube. It does not flatten it out at all.
It takes a bit of grunt to bend this tubing. It is pretty thick. The hardest part of the bending is keeping enough foot pressure on the heel of the bender so the tubing stays seated in the saddle of the bender throughout the 90 degrees of the bend.
Any bend less than 45 degrees was no problem

Mark

[MC@ Performance Fab]

The bender you bought was likley a pipe bender not a tubing bender. Your doing well for not having the correct bender.

[Short Circuit]

Thanks MC,
Yes that is a pipe bender, not a tubing bender. I am an electrician by trade and I have had that bender for years when I was in electrical construction.
When I started this I took those measurements and figured it should work so I tried it and it did !!!!
Someday I hope to get a correct tubing bender, a chopsaw and a tubing knotcher but for now I have to work with what I got.

Mark

[daaboots]

Build looks good so far! I've heard of people filling the tube with sand when using that style of bender in order to stop the kinks. Do you have pics of what the finished buggy will look like? I've never heard of the Bandid before.

[Short Circuit]

Thanks,
I have heard that filling with sand works but it is a long and drawn out process. I also found out that instead of using the 1" shoe use the 1/2 " shoe and it is not supposed to kink or flatten it. However I cannot confirm this myself because I sold the bender during the build because I wasn't using it.
I saw the buggy on another site and found the plans on Ebay. He has plans for single and double arm buggy.
I think my plans were around $20 Canadian shipping included.
There is a pic of my bandit here in the welcome thread.

New Member from Ontario

Daaboots I like the bender you made. Where did you get the shoe? It looks like it does tighter bends than my hand bender.

Mark

A couple more pics of the build

[pmcdaniel]

Short circut is doing a great job on his buggy. This is what it will look like when finished. These buggys are fun to build and economically friendly.

[Short Circuit]

Thanks Pmc !
I have been rethinking my engine choice lately. I have a Honda 200 cc Big Red engine that I was planning on using but that snowmobile engine looks to be a simple and clean installation.
I just gotta get myself past the 2 stroke and no reverse part of the deal.


Mark

Front A arms


Rear A Arms being fabbed


IRS