So i drew up a bunch of plans last season for a bug, and thats about as far as i got lol! so now im getting back to it after a brief hiatus

am i way off on this shape before i get too far to fix it?
main "body" of the bug, one of the side rails
i was thinkin it may be a bit too tall.... i could shorten the "back half" hmm... lemme know!

#38 is what im kinda goin for



in all honesty i'm not reeeely lazy... just have had so much going on, with the holidays, wedding, work.... yadayadayada... anyway had to lay a little self defense out there!

Well those look like whellbarrel tires so most likely 16" inall. So it looks like the top of the side rail is about 18" including the ground clearence. I would think you would want about a 9" rise from the rear axle and a 12" rise from the gooseneck connector. But that is a guess from looking at the picture.
Does anyone else have a good idea?

I would say your layout is about right, and the buggy you are copying look dimensionally pretty good.

I'm not so sure Drew, thro that away and start over.

LOL
JK

6' heavy axle good? (+ tires)
too long, too shot?

my seat is like 20" wide... gives me like 26" out on either side of me...

(i'm shootin for a cruisin machine btw... i dont want to do tricks with it, lol)

here goes:






(oh yeah... my proto seat is ductape!!)

i may open the angle up on the side rails... they look steep in the pic... not so much in real life tho...





















And of course... you can tell a welders skill by how much time he spent cleaning his welds... this is me after about 30mins of welding and 90 mins of "cleaning" them...

ok i'm going home now... 12 hours at work is enough... even tho i didnt really DO 12 hours of work

Sorry Drew....you are way to clean, and you should only get dirty when you are polishing lol, a good weld doesn't need grinding as you well know....lol, having said that, if you saw me sometimes, it looks like I have swept the floor with my face

I see you are having the top angle behind you....there is nothing at all wrong with that, I term that style the Sand Yeti style, as all his buggies are built with the bend way behind the pilot, and I can vouch after having had the pleasure to ride one of his buggies in Dubai, they work well.

I prefer the bend just forward of your arm pits, just for the simple reason....if you think about the kite in flight, it is roughly 45 degrees from the angle you are sitting...having that bend just in front of you gives your body so much more support when you need it most, its something to really brace against, but thats just a personal thing for me.

I am looking forward to watching your buggy develope

lol this was actually a clean day for me... had some stuff to do last nite so i had to stay somewhat clean... and that was after my "bath" in the sink, lol

hopefully i'll get some more done on it tonite.... thanks again PTW!

for the down tube this is what I have in mind… im going to take a 36" piece of the tubing I'm using for my axle, and leave 20" for adjustment (prolly overkill, but id hate to start ironing out personal prefs and find out I cut it too short) at 20" in, make a 55 degree cut... and 8" from that a 65 degree cut... should give me a good "tilda" looking down tube... ill then run it through a piece of galv. fence post at the seat... near perfect fit! Add a pin or two... weld on the piece that fits in the forks that holds a couple of bearings... add a couple of said bearings and a 5/8 bolt, and i should be cookin!!!

thats the plan for tonite anyway.. i'll post some more bad cellphone pics, lol

This is my cardboard mock-up


I might shorten the very top (its at 8" right now) but once again... gives me some room to work with

i think i'm naming this bug "Junkyard"
should leave it all rusty too, lmao!

here's what i got done tonite:


this pic is my pride and joy or the night... i toook a 40" piece of metal and got here in 30 minutes... i must be getting better at this welding thing... lol











This cross bar was a pain in the a$$!!!!

wahoo! my ghetto-as-hell bug is commin along... soon i'll be cruizin in a complete lack of style, lmao!!

Style is way over rated IMHO if it goes and your happy you win!
No offence Popeye, being that your buggies have more style than most people I know!

PTW bugs are the goal..... absolute top notch.... if my bug is 1/100 of a ptw i'll be all smiles


seriously tho, if this thing works i'll be happy.... so far i have $10 in welding rod in it... that's it When its all said and done, i may have 100 bucks in this.... but i doubt it'll even go that high

i can get some nice-ish wheels through work... and i know a guy that repairs electric motors, he can get me the nice sealed bearings for the wheels and the fork pretty cheap...

my only concern thus far is my wheel mount... the axle i'm using is 1" ID HD pipe... but im not sure how to put the wheels on it... my wheels are maybe 1.5" ID shaft/ or hub??... so a 1" bearing is cutting it close... but a 5/8 wheel axle leaves me a lot of gap in the actual axle (1" ID) but fits the wheel and hub nicely... i can track down other wheels... but i kinda need a game plan there tho before i move forward (does that make any sense... lol... i'm a few beers into my friday night )

other than the back wheels... i think i can move forward with the rest of "Project Junkyard" tomorrow... mount front wheel, mount down tube adaptor to side rails, put mounting bracket on side rails (rear axle connection), drill axle for side rail brackets, and put in the two braces on the side rails, and the foot pegs on the fork... then i just need to get rolling on a seat, and other than only having one wheel... ... i should be good!!

When you are saying you are using 1" ID HD pipe, is that Sched 40 tube OD 1.3"


Nominal ID
Sched. 40 OD inches

1" 1.315


You will certainly need the thicker walled sched 40 tube for an axle that size, for the bigger buggies with bigfoot wheels we tend to use 1.1/2"-2" for the rear axle http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ansi-steel-pipes-d_305.htm...

rocfighter is right in what he says...bling does not make a good buggy, it's getting the angles and dimensions, along with the rake and trail....thats what matters period...

A simple solution for attaching rear wheels.

Get the axle size of your choice....cut some round discs, the same size as the ends of the diameter of your tube....(in this case we will use a 20mm wheel axle) drill a hole in the discs 18mm....weld a stainless/or whatever nut on one side of the discs, now hold in a vice and use a 20mm tap, to tap through the nut, it will also then tap the disc, which needs to be at least 6mm or 1/4", prep the inside of the disc and the outside edge of the tube screw the disc/nut onto a piece of 20mm stud bar, and marry up the end of the tube to the disc (keeping the stud bar parallel with the axle) ....with the nut on the inside...align everything tack and weld up....now you have an axle with a good thread in at the size you want.....then just cut some stud bar off, screw into the axle end, lock the bar with a 20mm nut, place your wheel on and secure it with a lock nut or nylock nut...

Awesome lowtech tip popeye. I had been pondering how i would make a rear axle on the cheap. I am currently considering making my own buggy just need to find a place im allowed to use it first. There are allot of great things about northern California, unfortunately we have banned anything to do with tires and or fun on our beaches.

Drew I am proud of you doing this with all stuff you have on hand. I think I spent about $35.00 on my buggy to build it. And that was rod and a seat. Everything else was stuff I had. And the seat is a back support thing when you go to sit on bleachers or a bench I got at Good Will.
Popeyes buggies are awsome and I would love to have even an older experiment he made. But I'm low budget but happy.
And Thanks Popeye. We all do what we need.

all i know about the pipe is the ID is like a 1/16", maybe less than 1" and it is HEAVY stuff, approx 1/4" thick wall, 1 5/16 OD... i had a 10' chunk laying around, and no matter what i did to it, it wouldnt flex, jump on it, vise it and hammer on it... its solid (sorry i'm pretty dang newbie at all of this)

i have no accurate calipers around here, lol... just goin off tape

(sorry for the bad pic)



pipe may be the wrong word for this, i'm not sure... i'm a concrete guy lol

Well the wall thickness looks plenty thick enough Drew