Twitter Updates

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Bug/Rail up to this point

OK, I think I may try to detail out what I do on the bug project in more detail here. Though honestly I'm not sure if I'll ever come back to read it again, but I still feel like chronicling it...

So far... I have some pics I haven't put up here...
I got rid of my motorcycle some years ago because in the last year or two of ownership I think i drove it like once during the whole year.

I still get a bug for a motorcycle, but realistically, I would pretty much have to make special trips just to ride it. I generally always have the dog and/or Sara with me. Neither of which are wanting to ride on a bike.

So I went looking for what would be the next step up. Basically the most minimal vehicle with 2 side by side seats.(in retrospect I suppose it was more 2 sit down seats I was looking for(i.e. no motorcycle seats), however, I didn't really come up with any dual-longitudinal seat setups).

Initially when I was really getting ready to potentially do something I was thinking a trike with a Goldwing at the back. Though the more I looked, the more expensive that was starting to look.(Even 20+ year old Wings are generally a couple thousand $...)

In looking around, I asked my neighbor his thoughts and he mentioned having a VW tube kit-car thing out in the field. This had been a thought to me as well at some point, but I didn't really come up with much availability I guess.

So I went and looked. Sure enough, that's pretty minimal. Unfortunately this one needed quite a bit of work, but then the price was right and I was kinda looking for a project...

From my perspective it started as a rusty frame(well almost entirely a frame), but minus the paneling, the tubing seemed solid.
It had steering(once I got some PB Blaster on a joint) and two wheels on the front.(one of which kinda held air and turned)
A master cylinder connected to one front brake and misc other pipes just cut off and sticking out in various places in the car. No actual working brakes though.
A tranny mounted to the frame but the rear had no wheels and the drums were sitting in the much.
In general there were a decent amount of weeds and muck, etc. on it. I didn't even realize until it was lifted up that there was framework that went out beyond the rear wheels.
And an engine face down in the dirt.


So, about a week later, we proceeded and got the buggy over to neighbor's shop looking for wheels and by the end, I had a set of Fiero wheels with some half-decent tires mounted on them and he got the brakes freed up so the wheels would roll. He also helped me get the engine out, adn then he found a bus transmission in his barn and a Haynes manual.

Once up to the garage, I realized contrary to what I though, I didn't actually have a rolling buggy yet. The wheels turned. Just not both rear wheels in the same direction at the same time. Oops, tranny problem. Luckily it doesn't weigh much so I brute-forced it into the garage with the 4-wheeler.


When I next went to look at it, I realized that I needed a 17mm hex socket for the tranny drail/fill plugs and a 12pt(also apparently known as "triple square") 8mm socket for the cv joint to tranny bolts.

No comments: