The Mosquito lives!

[CSR]

I dropped off the radar again for awhile. This build thread used to be called "first attempt at buggy build". I drove the mosquito up and down the street for the first time today. I've been waiting for four months on OTT Industries for my t-case adapter and I finally got fed up and bought a used Kicker 2 adapter from a guy in Wyoming. It was a good move. It came with a 1.8:1 sidekick crawl box attached to a 4:1 toyota t-case, putting my crawl ratio at about 125:1 and giving me 12 gears to choose from. I LOVE it. The buggy is by no means finished. I still need a rear drive shaft, panels, guages, floor, winch wiring, skid plate, steering stops, shifter (I was shifting with a pair of vise grips on the shift cable during the test run), etc.

I ran into a major problem that I can't believe I missed. The front axle housing was bent pretty bad and I just figured that out. It was causing the longfield bell to rub the inside of the knuckle ball. i had to cut and re-weld the knuckle ball onto the housing to get everything to line up. I guess that's the price of buying used stuff:-\.

The thing I'm really excited about is that with the heavy stuff all installed in the buggy, I can still lift a rear tire off the ground by myself--and I'm not a big guy. Based on that, I'm estimating that the rear end as a whole can't weigh more than 500 pounds. And the front can't be over 1200 pounds. I haven't weighed the whole rig yet, but it might just come in at WELL under 2000 pounds which was my target weight.

Here are some pics of me driving it. It felt really good--low to the ground and stable. The power is ok too considering having 39's and a 1.6L mill.

 

[Kiel]

Looks good!

 

[jswainthug]

Looks good!

Very good!!!!!!!!!

 

[CSR]

Thanks. I'll try to do a little better job of posting updates this time around.

 

[Gravy]

nice pics

 

[Thursty]

nice

 

[NOTATOY]

your buggy is sick, keep the pics coming

 

[CSR]

Here's some more pics. I made an aluminum mold for the hood and I have access to material to make a carbon fiber hood and side panels using the mold. We'll see how it goes. I've got the dash in with the idiot lights, temperature gauge, and winch switch. You can also see the Kicker 2 crawl box and t-case in one of the photos. I was able to keep the underside completely flat which should really simplify fabbing a skid plate. I have a shopping cart style setup in the back near the gas tank for carrying stuff. I also was able to build a rear drive shaft using an '85 toyota pickup cv and slip spline and some tubing I bought at six states. More later.

 

[jsudar]

Really nice work. The world needs more mosquitoes.

 

[CSR]

I got the hood finished. It turned out ok but I would make a few changes if I did it again to get a little better finish.

I took the mosquito to Little Moab last Friday for its maiden off road voyage. It crawled just about everything I pointed it at. The only issues were a rubbing drive shaft because I didn't leave enough lateral clearance where it passes through the skid plate, and I let too much nitrogen out of the rear air shocks so they bottomed out when I hit bumps at speed. Otherwise it was a blast and I was tickled pink with the whole thing. I could really feel the light weight of the machine making a difference as there was no feeling of the sprung weight trying to bob around or drag me back down the hill. Can't wait to take it out again!

Here are a couple pics of the hood.

 

[spaggyroe]

Very cool!