TheSamba.com :: View topic - Given (probably) a Chenowth 2lw, a few vintage buggy questions

Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:17 pm

Well poop, I cornered myself on those beam outriggers. My beam gusset plate is welded right in the way. :oops: Well, hopefully when I crash and bend the edge of the beam I can tell myself that crumple zone preserved the horns on my beautiful Chenowth frame.

Speaking of crashing and crumpling, I've been offered a set of Beard Super Seats by the guy who used to own Butler Built buggy shop in St. Louis. Theyre out of this weird Ford Ranger-skinned 302 powered prerunner thing he decided not to finish. Do I go for it or just let it slip? I've heard both ways on suspension style seats. Either "they're the best and they saved my life" or "that is 40 year old technology, get SPARCO evos or you're good as dead."

I dig the buggy history! I love talking to the buggy shop guy at Archway here in town, I love knowing the butler built guy. He even had me out to his ranch out west and I got to take his German Shepard and my girlfriend into town for breakfast in his old fiberglass buggy. Thanks for the Warrior Beam history.

Tue Nov 01, 2016 4:17 am

I only have 4 miles on my new seats, I love em.

Tue Nov 01, 2016 8:18 pm

The guys who started all this "suspension seats are dangerous" deal are the Trophy Truck boys with 2-3' of travel at both ends. Us guys working with VW suspension don't have that sort of cushion between the seat and the ground. We NEED the cushion. They don't.

The whole issue is one of having the shoulder belts too tight anyway. Compressive fracture of the spine comes from the shoulders pushing up against the shoulder belts. The LAP belt should be doing ALL the work of holding the body DOWN in the seat. The shoulder belts should ONLY hold the body back against the seat back.

An alternative cause of compressive fracture of the spine is to hit hard at the tailbone. That is a situation that results from using hard bottom seats like Sparco Evos. A couple of inches of padding in those seats is just like 50 years ago with fiberglass seats. But fiberglass seat bottoms flex more than the Sparcos.

Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:39 pm

One of the neighbors is a road mechanic for bigfoot. He said one guy is experimenting with some kind of system that allows him to stand in his truck, and another one is working with a dirt bike like system that allows him to ride it. Haven't seen them myself.

Tue Nov 22, 2016 7:26 am

Got somewhere! Decided to do the horrible frame cleanup and modification work first because once that's over then it's all cool stuff and fun.

It's going well, but it is not particularly fast-paced.

I think for seats, considering my research and all your advice(s) I may do MasterCraft Originals. The Bears Super Seats only allow for a V or Y-type shoulder harness which seems scary to me.

Stripping 'er down

Cutting out the well-fabricated but fairly useless shock tower setup for my purposes

Cleaning up the inside corners and making it look right without taking any meat out of the tubing was a 2+ hour project

Going back to front, cleaning up all the old tabbing that wasn't necessary or was so poorly welded it was better to start over.

12 tabs were cut off the rear cage, roughed down with the angle grinder, brought flush with a flap wheel on the grinder, then blended with a right angle die grinder.

Also someone definitely got a spinal injury in this car. See top right. Torsion tube is straight as compared to a piece of 2" flat stock. I guess it survived.

Until next time, buggy.

Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:26 pm

jimmyhoffa wrote: Well poop, I cornered myself on those beam outriggers. My beam gusset plate is welded right in the way. :oops: Well, hopefully when I crash and bend the edge of the beam I can tell myself that crumple zone preserved the horns on my beautiful Chenowth frame.

Speaking of crashing and crumpling, I've been offered a set of Beard Super Seats by the guy who used to own Butler Built buggy shop in St. Louis. Theyre out of this weird Ford Ranger-skinned 302 powered prerunner thing he decided not to finish. Do I go for it or just let it slip? I've heard both ways on suspension style seats. Either "they're the best and they saved my life" or "that is 40 year old technology, get SPARCO evos or you're good as dead."

I dig the buggy history! I love talking to the buggy shop guy at Archway here in town, I love knowing the butler built guy. He even had me out to his ranch out west and I got to take his German Shepard and my girlfriend into town for breakfast in his old fiberglass buggy. Thanks for the Warrior Beam history.

If you don't want them I am in need of new seats, up near Bridgeton/Maryland Heights area.

Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:49 pm

cbeck wrote: One of the neighbors is a road mechanic for bigfoot. He said one guy is experimenting with some kind of system that allows him to stand in his truck, and another one is working with a dirt bike like system that allows him to ride it. Haven't seen them myself.

They have been experimenting with it for over 20 years. One of the Max D trucks as well as one other that escapes my memory right now have used them in the past. They were basically suspended using an areal harness attached several hydrolic dampeners that helped absorb most of the impact. Then they drove with a snowmobile style handlebar and throttle/brake levers.

Mon Nov 28, 2016 8:16 pm

Many years ago, there was a guy running a monster truck that was a Chevy pickup body on a WW2 tank chassis with a blown 427 Chevy engine. HE lived close to here and was a friend of a friend. He was climbing it over cars at a show and came down on the front drive sprockets and crushed his spine. Last time I visited, his son was building his next truck with a long travel chassis.

Back in the mid 70s, there was a race Baja Bug (the nick-name "Tar Baby"was painted in large letters on the side of the black body) that the partners tried suspended poly seats in. They built frames the seats mounted to, with a heim at the front of the frame a foot forward of the seat. Then there were a pair of coilover shocks mounted to the frames near the shoulders and angling outward and back. They still had the belt harnesses mounted to the car, rather than the seats. They quickly discarded the idea by the end of the 1st race with the setup. Said that not only were the belts a big problem, so was the steering wheel and pedals not moving with the seat.

Wed Dec 28, 2016 9:01 am

So I got a 220V garage heater for the Festivus season. It is the best. The outside was 2F and the garage was 70F. Really easy to work happily.

First, I made myself do the SAW King Kong adjuster, and do it right. I'm just a weekender, I know this car will stay a torsion car, so cry once and do it right.

Little tweakin' never hurt nobody.

Next it was time to enjoy my new big Lincoln MIG on the trailing arm seam welding and shock mounts. I'm not usually this guy but it was too easy. I bought those weld-on triple shock mounts and cut them off for a single eye.

Next I did my maths and conducted my geometries and got the 10 degrees each way thing going for my Porsche 944 CV joints and axles with my bus box, which slipped in with the greatest of ease.

Until next time, little car.

Tue Jan 03, 2017 12:58 pm

Nice looking welds.

A couple of notes about installing those trailing arm box kits:
- Set the shock mount bosses so the shock bolts are parallel to the trailing arm pivot bolts. Set the top mounts to match.
- The upper and lower box plates get in the way of larger CV joints. T2/4/Thing/924/944 are a maybe. 930s are almost CERTAINLY a NO. The box kit CAN be modified to allow them. Tough to do that now that they're fully welded tho... Good reason to not fully weld things until you have cycled the suspension with CVs and shocks in place.

Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:04 am

Thanks! What really upped my welding game was a decent welder. There's only so much one of those 110V jobbers can do. It taught me a lot as a kid, but it runs out of steam on anything worth doing.

Trailing arms: wished I would have asked you sooner! Everything Richard said is definitely true, don't see much fun in trying to fit 930 joints with the stock arms and commercially available box-in kit. I am and forever will be running 944 joints and axles and stubs, because they're cheap and decently strong, and I don't expect to ever clear 150hp, even with my next engine plan.

I am still working on the frame, trying to do all the heavy stuff and get the important geometries worked out so the rest of the work is just "tabbing" for things.

Sway-A-Way King Kong/torsion brace tubes, obviously not in final position

Got a chinese IDF airbox which are apparently total crap, and they feel it. Quite thin, and I don't spook too easily. I will go with a UMP when I finalize things.

I started Mouthing the Fishes to get this stuff taken care of. Tis' going well.

Also.... I got one of these. I'm trying to figure how to mount it. I know it will fit easily, I just have to do some Bracketeering to make it safe and solid.

As for my air filter (and the rest of the real estate behind the seats, this thing is YUUUUGE) I scored one of these Donaldson things. G082527. Rated for ~250CFM but at a pretty high vacuum. Me engine should pull 170CFM or so, hopefully less restriction at that flow rate. It is essentially the largest/highest CFM one they offer in that style, which I think is the way to go on these.

Last but not least I would be dead without my big space heater. It was 65F in the garage and 7F outside

Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:10 pm

Add a crossmember for the shoulder straps. about even with the tops of the shoulders of the seats.

The fuel cell should be mounted with strap stock. 3/16 X 1.25" bent corners. Weld lower strap ends to 1.5" x .095 frame crossmembers. Place straps outboard of the flange on the top fitting, inboard of the top flange bolts as shown.

Bolt the top straps to the frame using 3/8 grade 5 bolts minimum. Set the cell as low as you can and still clear the clutch arm and cable/cylinder and the starter.

The 16 gallon Jaz in my Hi Jumper sits about 1/2 below the top of the frame rails. Straps on mine were made by Hi Jumper when the car was built in the 70s. They used 1/4" x 1.25" strap. The upper straps have pieces of 3/8 ID tubes welded to the face of the strap with matching sleeves welded to the frame for the bolts.

Mon Jan 09, 2017 6:15 am

dustymojave wrote:

The fuel cell should be mounted with strap stock. 3/16 X 1.25" bent corners. Weld lower strap ends to 1.5" x .095 frame crossmembers. Place straps outboard of the flange on the top fitting, inboard of the top flange bolts as shown.

Bolt the top straps to the frame using 3/8 grade 5 bolts minimum. Set the cell as low as you can and still clear the clutch arm and cable/cylinder and the starter.

The 16 gallon Jaz in my Hi Jumper sits about 1/2 below the top of the frame rails. Straps on mine were made by Hi Jumper when the car was built in the 70s. They used 1/4" x 1.25" strap. The upper straps have pieces of 3/8 ID tubes welded to the face of the strap with matching sleeves welded to the frame for the bolts.

There is a guy with a ratrod where I work with a v12 jag mounted up front. In the back where the rumble seat used to be he has one of these tanks mounted to the car with a pair of ratchet straps.

Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:18 pm

Bashr52 wrote:
There is a guy with a ratrod where I work with a v12 jag mounted up front. In the back where the rumble seat used to be he has one of these tanks mounted to the car with a pair of ratchet straps.

That got me home from town one time when my tank straps broke on my old plow truck, but I'm not so sure if I'd keep it that way long term... :shock:

Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:07 pm

There are definitely many in the RatRod world who take the word "Rat" a little too literally. Woven straps would definitely be a good short term fix, but NOT a good long term.

Wed Jan 11, 2017 6:48 am

So while we're talking about how to not mount fuel cells, I figured I'd do up a little art piece here to make sure I got the side profile right.

To me this seems like you couldn't crank down much to keep the fuel cell from shifting/chattering over bumps without bending the edges of the metal can down from the clamping force. So, say I put a gusset or some other way of keeping the ends of the top strap/can lip from drooping?

My 2nd idea kind of goes against general mechanical design techniques. Namely, there are two sets of parallel surfaces that are expected to have functional contact at the same time, which isn't technically possible. However, the idea seems stout in MS Paint. 8) Basically, you just put posts under each clamp so the edge of the can is pinched while simultaneously being pinned into the bottom straps. (It's the simultaneously part that isn't possible)

I've also seen those 3-piece mounts that have "feet" with holes in them that use the metal can edge bolts as clamp bolts, but the idea of a tensioned strap seems more reliable to me.

Fri Jan 13, 2017 9:01 pm

As a Tech Inspector since the 1960s, I've seen a number of fuel cells with the tank held by the lid bolts to hold the cell in place that have been crashed. The lid of the can itself is far from strong enough to deal with the force of the inertia of the fuel in the tank. The top distorts and rips open, resulting in the fuel cell leaking. This is NOT acceptable. A spun aluminum or poly tank is safer than that. That is why I said above that the tank should have straps above and below, spaced at about the thirds of the fuel cell length.

Many racers with the setup shown

trim notches for the straps back to flush with the side of the cell so the flange edge doesn't fold. But it's not that the flanges fold from tightening the straps, but that they fold from trying to hold the cell from lateral shift.

The flanges will NOT support the weight of a full cell without straps or tubes underneath. Just setting the cell flanges on tubes and using lid bolts into or through the tube is NOT acceptable.

By the way, that image above is very close to how the cell in my Hi Jumper is mounted. But the top of the frame rail is about the middle of the side wall of the cell as I mentioned in my post above. Mine is not in a steel can with flanges around the top. I have a poly box cell. The cell does NOT move or chatter. With a steel can, rubber is needed between steel and steel to prevent chafing. It needs to be quality neoprene or silicon rubber that won't crumble right away like inner tube rubber will.

I've seen a lot of racers and play buggy and offroad truck guys using straight strap and all-thread instead of quality bolts and formed to shape strap. Unless specified otherwise, all-thread is JUNK. It IS available in good quality. But then how do you prove that what you got is quality and somebody didn't ship you the junk for the good quality price?

The blocks would work, but need to be held from falling out sideways.

The cell straps are not to be tightened down to crush the cell. They must be strong enough to hold the cell in place in a crash.

Thu Jan 19, 2017 6:08 am

Points on cell mounting taken, and definitely agreed with. I have some 10.9 M10 bolts and Nylock nuts with washers that I plan to use on the cell straps, which I have also acquired the material for. I have access to a press brake that I will form the straps with.

As a temporary situation before I get suspension seats, I had to mount the polys somehow so I made some 1/4" thick strap mounts that will later serve as a "floor brace" when I get some Beards or Mastercrafts.

Mounts fabbed up:

Mounts in place:

Seat convinced to be a different shape:

Then I finalized the rear shock mount situation, articulated and messed with to get the least amount of spherical joint motion through the travel.

Then it was harness bar time:

Final travel check for shock longevity:

Getting better with the welder!

Intake mock-up

Fri Jan 20, 2017 7:35 pm

Cycling the suspension is very good. It's generally easiest to do by removing the torsion bars. But if you're not removing the bars otherwise, then it's a lot of work and can be a PITA to do. So it often makes sense to use other methods as it appears you've done.

Yes, the welds look pretty good. Better wetting out and thus apparent penetration than your previous weld shots.

I like to set the shock mounts so that the shock bolts are parallel to the rear suspension pivots. Not easy to fit into that frame though.

I like the shoulder harness bar. It might be a little high, but we're not seeing the riders in the seats. The 1/4" bars to retain the belts from sliding out is good. They don't really need to stand that far out from the main bar. But OK.

Thu Jan 26, 2017 6:52 am

Out of respect for Wise Richard I legitimately cut off the harness retainer loops and welded them back on shorter. 8)

You've helped me so much the least I can do is make the harness loops the height I think you would have made them. :P

I did me sum horse tradin' and gave up a single relief engine case in real good shape for this stuff. Not too shabby. All this is pretty much on-brand buggy stuff that is of real quality. This exhaust is "american racing" per the seller's words, but I have my doubts. I think it's an un-badged Al's header. 1-5/8" Real thick flanges and real thick tubes. gusseted rear flange joints.

Also got some Hercules HDT 7.00 x 15s with good tread.

I got some old "Race Trim" valve covers in the deal, good shape and really thick. Way different design than the new EMPI stuff.

And so it continues