“Cheater” 3 seat buggy build/assembly

Hickey

Burn-barrel enthusiast
Supporting Member

This link takes you to a pretty smart post about making your own one man brake bleeder.
I went and grabbed a vacuum bleeder tool from HF, but I couldn’t get it to hold a vacuum at the bleeders. It’s just pulling air around the threads of the bleeders, and I’m sure in the other places where the hard lines are leaking. I’m going to start over fresh with all AN lines and fittings for the brakes and re-bleed from there.
 

Asbjorn

Active Member
Location
Montrose, CO
As I first mentioned, I suck at these threads. I’ve been slowly working my way through things and it’s nearly done. And yes, we are paranoid, so pictures of our son online are rare, and edited.

Biggest change - it’s no longer a 4 seater. After fighting with getting a car seat to fit securely in the rear bench, I decided that the best option would be to ditch the seat and reconfigure. I feel like it’s much safer for our 3 year old. After pulling the bench, I built a rack that utilizes the bench mounting tabs to mount the Empi kids seat to. These seats are tiny, and fit my son very well. I also had a custom mini-harness made for my sons measurements. I made a rear firewall and an additional floor panel to keep more separation from heat, exhaust fumes, spilled gas, etc.
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Another big change - color. I wrapped the panels with vinyl wrap. They turned out okay, but I probably wouldn’t try to do it again. But I do like the color. I found a close-ish match and rattle-canned the hood and grill.
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I also ditched the old beat-up beadlocks and 39” reds for some new KMC wheels with 40” Nitto K-specs. I had my helper with me, making the task of mounting beadlocks not so bad.
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I also re-plumbed the brake lines with all braided AN hoses which fixed my prior leaks I had when trying to use hard lines mixed in. I relocated the fan temp switch and hopefully that will cure my inoperative cooling fan.

Otherwise, I have a few loose ends to secure, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get it out for a shakedown this weekend.
 

Asbjorn

Active Member
Location
Montrose, CO
Took the buggy out on Billings Canyon in Grand Junction. Everything worked well, with the exception of a couple of minor modifications needed.
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The front driveshaft is (was) contacting the front corner of the engine skid at full extension. A quick cut with the plasma and that is no longer going to be an issue. Just need to cut a new side piece and get it welded back up and bolted back on.
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The transmission also hesitated to go into reverse when I was nearly on my side. Luckily I was leaned up against a rock and wasn’t needing a quick reverse to save from a roll. Added some more trans fluid and I think I’m ready for another outing. Headed to Moab this weekend!
 

Asbjorn

Active Member
Location
Montrose, CO
As @Pile of parts posted earlier, I got the buggy out in Moab last weekend. Friday night I offloaded the buggy without my ramps and the front end bottomed out pretty hard, cracking the fitting that screws into the PSC ram.
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Luckily I was able to find a fitting to get fixed up. Unfortunately, the collateral damage to my fan shroud wasn’t apparent until I jumped on Coyote Canyon on Saturday morning. The fan shroud ripped the nutserts out of their holes and got bent up pretty badly. I was able to straighten it a little and add some zip ties to get through the trail, but had to listen to my fan rattling the whole time. I was able to get it into a friends garage and pull the shroud, straighten it out, fix the mounting points and put it back together.

I also ran some of the fun parts of Hells Revenge and the fixed up fan shroud was better than new. However, I had been noticing some driveshaft binding up front when fully articulated. Otherwise, everything was great until it got dark on us and without headlights, I had to make it out blindly following the taillights in front of me.

So, I’ll be working on limit straps and dialing in some bumps to keep things from bottoming and binding. I also need to re-plumb the ram fittings, as they are currently hodge-podged together right now.

The brakes we marginal are best in 4 low, so I may look into hydroboost before too long.
 
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