Van, I've been following this build and man that thing is gonna look SWEET!!!

If its not to late, (no powder coat yet) you should mount the old dart style motorcycle tail lights on the rear axle and figure out some kind of actuator or accelerometer to mount to your kite handles so that when you put it in zenith the "brake lights" come on.... that'd be cool. ...

While Popeye makes good points, with all the respect in the world to PTW, it seems to me that the intention is just to look really cool, IMHO. It seems here that here function will follow form.

Have you picked a color for powdercoat yet?... WE NEED PICS MAN!!!! (vids too)

in all seriousness though, it looks awesome. Thanks for sharing.

PS. how's baby girl?

The camber is on the bolt, not on the axle. Adjust your height , then tighten the bolt in position so there is no toe. The idea with the camber was to fight against the side pull of the kite. Since it's just a bolt, the camber is not a permanent part of the buggy. I just need to replace the bolt to remove camber. I've never had camber on my buggy so figure this would be fun to test out.

if you look closely , you will see a long bolt ( goes through the wheel) is welded to a shorter bolt ( goes through the axle). The heads of the bolt are welded together. I notice the folks in Europe do this to get camber and it's a great idea. By doing this kind of bolt welding, you can actually weld different size bolts together so you can use different wheel size bearing!! great side benefit.

No color picked out yet for the powdercoating. What do you guys suggest?? Yellow would really scream out!!

i really like blue, think that might look cool, but yellow would definitely be a scream!

I like the bit about the bolt/ camber action, thats pretty cool, and very clever.

no go on the break lights eh? hahaha

well your calling it a "stinger race" so maye a two tone = Yellow in front faded into a black in the back? sounds like fun! :frog:

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Originally posted by van The camber is on the bolt, not on the axle.

Got that, I can see that now you have pointed it out to me, nice job Van and usual, with every buggy you make I can see improvements...class act

And you are right, they are common in Europe, and I must have made about 50 sets myself for other people, although the UK racers on the whole prefer a separate cambered axle instead

Quote:

Originally posted by soliver it seems to me that the intention is just to look really cool, IMHO. It seems here that here function will follow form.

Not entirely sure what you mean here tbh...

Quote:

Originally posted by popeyethewelder Quote: Originally posted by soliver it seems to me that the intention is just to look really cool, IMHO. It seems here that here function will follow form. Not entirely sure what you mean here tbh...

Oh, I just meant that it (at first) seemed like function follows form, in that this buggy seemed more about looking really cool over true functionality, but on second glance it seems like I may have been wrong. It looks like both how it looks and how it performs are of equal importance here. My mistake.

Not to say that Van was intending ONLY to make a beautiful thing rather than a functional thing,... just my first impression was that the look of the thing was more what it was about.

these are the kind of BS arguments we used to have in art school.

I see now that I was wrong in that impression.

Still though, it's gonna look friggin sweet

In discussing with many who have been down the cambered wheel route, all have said not to bother with camber if the wheels and bearings are up to the task of the side load. Seems like I've read somewhere that if camber is in place, a certain amount of toe-in is required to lessen drag. Can't quote or explain about it further though. I'll be running the disc wheels straight up.

I'm disappointed you and Alex won't be there this weekend. I was looking to riding with you guys and seeing this new buggy.

One bad thing Van..... Those rims will look like crap if you get em in seawater. Keep it away from the beach,and in the desert only!

and put some side plates on those spokes. Makes me uneasy just lookin at em on a buggy! (amputation hazard)

Just to clarify , this buggy is my way of letting the frustration of the daily grind out. My original intention was to build a speed buggy with disc wheels from Seismic. There was some problems with the production run of those wheels so I figure .. why not use some Harley Davidson Sporters wheels and get some bling on my buggy. I don't know how functional the wheels are since they are heavy. You never know, it might be what helps the buggy to attain the speed. Most of you know I am an engineer and love to build but you also know I am not the most experience with race buggies. It will be a learning experience for me to build this one and see how she runs.

Soliver .. you are correct .. the intention was both form and function. I like to build functional buggies but I also try to make them pleasing anyway I can. The form part we can agree on , the function part .. haha .. we don't know yet!! :singing:

WG .. yes, I was planning on side plates and wheel covers but in the meantime , those spokes are wicked!!! haha .. yes, salt is gonna kill them. I was planning to only use it on the desert but since I am not going to El Mirage, I might do a quick test on the beach and rinse them really well.

All I can tell you Van, is that I'm super excited to see the finished product,... can't wait to see powdercoated final pics

S

Ok .. I know what I'm not good at .. and that is mounting a freaking motorcycle tire on a skinny motorcycle rim!!

Looks like I will have to take it to the shop. Got little scratches on my rims already and one bent screw driver.

I got the first side of the tire on but can't get the rest on there .. this is the furthest I can get the tire on.

eesh those low profile tires are not easy...I use to mount dirt bike tires using lots of HOT soapy water

only experience I have is mounting bicycle tires so this is a bit of a challenge so I dont' have any tools except for a couple screw drivers. Yeah the tire design for street so sits pretty flat. Also super stiff so doesn't stretch at all. Gonna check out the local shop to see if any of them can mount motorcycle tires. There's a Harley place near me but they probably charge an arm and maybe 2 legs to mount one.

I spent Saturday night on You Tube because I was having difficulty with a farm tire. I did find my solution (turned out to be a five minute job), but you cannot care about scratches.

Here is another video I found that "might" help?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6sH8WRl6yI

This one seems more appropriate. He uses three small spoon type tire irons. They should be pretty cheap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0B2gIwbBg&feature=relat...

When I was still tinkering on my long speed buggy I came across some bicycle racing wheel covers , some of which may work for you if you decide thats the way to go , pricey but oh so nice. You saw my stick on shrink to fit covers at WBB a while back , very functional but proof of concept quality is not what your building there.

Van you need to get the seal edge of the tire to the center of the rim. Then it will give you room to get it over. If done right it should go on just by hand or with a nylon tire bar. And lots of soap!!

My attempt was a fail and also ended up pinching the inner tube so it was leaking air. Had to buy a new tube. Finally took it to the motorcycle shop and had them put it on. A little pricey just to put 3 tires on but atleast I didn't end up destroying the rims.

I can't stop smiling... those are beeuutifull.

Is there going to be more on this machine? We can't hold out much longer!

Hopefully today .. :wee: powdercoater said the parts should be done today. I'm waiting for the phone call so i can pick it up. The buggy is gonna be canary yellow, black covers and seat with yellow stripes.

You didn't say black and yellow, did you?? snowspider, are you O.K.? I'm afraid your head might just explode, now! :bird:

edit: just like mine almost did when he posted the pics of the black with limegreen siderail covers/seat!

I just upped the # of posts I can view ,saw "black and yellow", felt like my head got zapped ,WOW, came out of my mouth , and visions of Black and Yellow motorcycles, cars ,buggies, bumblebees, flashed thru my brain! The cover of which magazine is that going to be on? SWEEEEEET!

Ok... I didn't get a chance to put it together and also we don't have the seat for it yet. It was a last minute decision on the yellow so didn't make a matching seat yet.

Just so you get a little kite buggy porn before you go to bed ... haha.. here are the parts:

OH YEAH she's beautiful... bomp bomp... OH YEAH...bomp bomp:o
Who knows that song. Who sang it? YELLOW!! Fitting I believe. This is going to be sweet. I think my ugly A$$ will look good in this. How much for the tickets???

Is this your first powder coat buggy Van? Looks very sharp indeed. I've often considered yellow when I have toyed with powdercoating in the past.

bob,

This is my first yellow powdercoat. There's a production powdercoater outfit in town that does alot of cabinets and industrial parts. Normally he does a texture flat black. I usually do texture black for my buggy because he runs that color about 3 times a week. I can have something powdercoated within one day. He happen to have one of his customer request canary yellow on some special order parts. I got lucky with the timing and threw my buggy into this batch. Came out sweet!! it looks much better in person. So far, I've powdercoated about 6 buggies and painted about 6. The paint holds up well if you don't scratch it. The texture powder coat is nice because scratches don't show up as easily as the shiny stuff.

The powdercoater told me that if it gets scratched he can actually touch it up and re-fire it up to 2 times. After that, he would just sand blast it and redo the part. He does high volume so can offer to do an entire buggy for around $150 for most colors. The part first gets media blasted in a giant spinning enclosure. It then goes through a 100 feet assembly line where it gets acid washed and etched. It then goes through a dryer and then sprayed then baked.

Van luck had nothing to do with the color choice. It was fate. Black and Yellow with a large dose of Bling is pure Americana. HD will be proud , you'll have to send them some pics.

WoW that came out nice! not as bright as i first thought. i like it....:bouncing:

Looks like my old Ducati