Door-slammer CYJ7+1 buggy

[Bart]

Glad you didn't part out the buggy. It looks way too far along to do that, although I know from experience there's still a ton left to do. Good luck with it.

 

[xtremexj]

Glad you didn't part out the buggy. It looks way too far along to do that, although I know from experience there's still a ton left to do. Good luck with it.

Thanks Bart. I started thinking the same thing when I was originally starting to pull parts off. Just have to keep the momentum going now.

I've been working on the ram mount the last couple weekends. I was hoping to have it more mocked up but my machinist at work got tied up with other projects for the owner and wasn't able to finish machining my tie rod bars. This is where I'm at as of yesterday. I'll try and get some more done today.

 

[xtremexj]

I managed to get some more done on the steering this weekend. After looking at various thread regarding proper geometry for full hydro rams I determined that my original steering arms were going to be too short to have the tie rods inline with the ram at full lock turn so I started mocking up some new ones that would give me what I was after.

 

[xtremexj]

It's amazing what all the Ackerman, caster and camber do to the tie rods at full lock. The new arms are double shear also so they should be plenty strong once I finish with all the bracing.

 

[xtremexj]

So I've spent the last few weekends on the steering and figured I should check my clearances between the coilovers and chassis at droop and extension and hit a couple of snags. On the droop side, the coils were touching the power steering pump pulley and chassis. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of that but spent a day making some new lower mounts that moved the shocks out about 3.5" from where they were. This helped everything on the droop side but on the other side it put the shock right into another bar. I cut that bar out so I could mock things up better and this is where I'm hoping for some suggestions. Now I could remove this piece of tubing completely except for a stub at the top and bottom where the other tubes tie into it and put in some 1/4" flat bar something like on Bent Fab's Grunt chassis or notch the tube about half way through for clearance. Thoughts?

 

[xtremexj]

I did a quick cut just to see how it might work and mocked it in. It will give me just enough clearance without re-engineering the whole front tube work.

 

[xtremexj]

Spent the whole day removing the tube on the other side, cutting inlay plates, welding, grinding and re-installing. So frustrating sometimes that after nearly eight hours you don't much to show for your efforts.

 

[bryson]

Looks good! The progress may not seem like much to some, but I'd be pretty happy to have gotten that issue taken care of.

My guess is that those newly clearanced tubes are pretty stout as-is, but do you have any plans to brace them on the back side opposite where they were cut? Like a shark fin type gusset, extended corner gusset, or further tying into the existing tubing?

 

[xtremexj]

Looks good! The progress may not seem like much to some, but I'd be pretty happy to have gotten that issue taken care of.

My guess is that those newly clearanced tubes are pretty stout as-is, but do you have any plans to brace them on the back side opposite where they were cut? Like a shark fin type gusset, extended corner gusset, or further tying into the existing tubing?

Was thinking of running a piece of 1/4" flat bar or something up the back for that exact reason. I'll look at that next weekend. I've got a couple ideas but I need to see what material I have laying around the garage. Stay tuned.

 

[mbryson]

Any updates on this beast? Still up there in Canadiastan, eh?

 

[xtremexj]

Any updates on this beast? Still up there in Canadiastan, eh?

LOL. Yup, still here. It's been a hell of year. I'm in automotive and considered essential services and my wife works in health care so we've been extremely busy. It's been hard to find energy to get out in the garage when your so mentally and physically wiped out that all you want to do is sit in a corner and drool on yourself. On top of that, I ended up having to completely redo the rear coilover mounts as well and that has taken more time than I would have liked. It's definitely not as sexy as I would like but at least it will clear now and hopefully get me closer to completion. I will be measuring up all my control arms this weekend to order DOM and rod ends. I will try to get some pics up this weekend. Thanks for checking in on me. 👍

 

[xtremexj]

OK, as promised, some pics of the rear shock mount redo. I needed to outboard everything from where it was so I had frame clearance all around. My garage is so packed with projects I have nowhere to set up my bender so I had to come up with something that didn't require tubing and I went this way. Not as awesome as I would have liked but it will do the job.

 

[Coco]

Looking good! In my experience though, before you burn in that lower mount, beef it up or carry it down into the lower section of the housing. You will thank yourself later. I had some bend on my buggy when I came off a ledge and had to run it out, and the rear hit really hard. Taco'd the mounts when the suspension compressed.

 

[xtremexj]

Looking good! In my experience though, before you burn in that lower mount, beef it up or carry it down into the lower section of the housing. You will thank yourself later. I had some bend on my buggy when I came off a ledge and had to run it out, and the rear hit really hard. Taco'd the mounts when the suspension compressed.

I was already thinking about that - making it longer so it rides down the length of that surface. Thanks for reinforcing that I need to do it.

 

[xtremexj]

Not a bunch of progress lately unfortunately. 😞 Work is still stupid busy so I'm always exhausted and we've finally gotten our cold weather so it's hard to get any heat built in the garage that is conducive to welding. I did manage to design and cut some new rear lower shock mounts though. I also broke down and bought all my control arm tubing and joints. This is what $1600.00 CDN looks like. 🤯

 

[xtremexj]

Yes, I am still alive but not making much progress on any of my projects unfortunately. The typical one step forward two steps back philosophy still seems to apply to this buggy. Sometime in May I pulled the portal ends off the front housing so I could fully weld the ram mount and got a nasty surprise when I got the drivers side axle shaft out. It looks like my CVs are worn out so it was allowing some major movement in the inner knuckle support bearing which destroyed the splines on the shaft. That is going to mean buying complete new CV assemblies for both sides and having another short side axle splined. By the time I buy all parts I need and have the shaft splined, it should only cost me about $1700-2000.🤮

 

[xtremexj]

On a note of forward progress, I finally got a chance to install the JB Conversions super short SYE kit on my NP241C, got the driveshaft built, and install the permanent rear control arms. I have the front driveshaft steady bearing kit from Wide Open Designs, as well as all my parts, but still need to get tubing before mocking that up. Hopefully soon if I can track down some 3"x0.095" tubing for the intermediate shaft. Hopefully more progress to follow sooner than 10 months on the updates.

 

[xtremexj]

Small update. Got the front driveshaft assembly mocked up. It's about as straight a shot to the t/case as I can get so hopefully vibration will be minimal.

 

[Herzog]

Love seeing this thread bumped! Nice work!

 

[xtremexj]

Love seeing this thread bumped! Nice work!

Thanks man! I really want to finish this thing so I'm trying to make some progress, no matter how slow it may be.👍