The "trophy husband" pro mod buggy build

[Asbjorn]

It sucked balls since my driveway is an incline. I backed it up to the garage door and used ratchet straps to pull the back end off the trailer. Then kept doing that until the fronts were almost off. I chocked the rear tires and pulled the trailer out from under it. Then I used a floor jack to move it against the wall a couple feet at a time. Lame but it’s done.

Oh man, I’ve done some of the same sketchy, crappy loads and unloads on a steep driveway. My wife hates me every time, usually because I get myself in a bind doing it on my own, and then drag her out to give me a hand.

 

[N-Smooth]

Oh man, I’ve done some of the same sketchy, crappy loads and unloads on a steep driveway. My wife hates me every time, usually because I get myself in a bind doing it on my own, and then drag her out to give me a hand.

So luckily-ish for me she felt so bad about killing the Jeep that she “helped” and didn’t guilt me for being sketchy. 🤣

Next time I have to do something similar I’m putting an anchor in the garage floor. Period.

 

[N-Smooth]

I welded the C’s on the other day and got the axle panhard mount welded on today. Then I worked on figuring out shock mounts for what felt like an eternity, mixed in with figuring out rear frame rails and skid plate stuff and at the end of the day I’m not really a whole lot closer to having any of that done. That is what kills me on this build 🤣

I did however shorten the rear section of the chassis. I wanted it to be a little on the long side but it was too much. I like it a lot more now. It also forced me to use the notcher on the chassis which was actually pretty neat.
Before

During

After

 

[N-Smooth]

I had like 200 PSI left in my welding tank but wanted to use it rather than just leave it in there and get a new tank so today I welded, for a long time. There were a ton of tubes that were tacked and a ton that I only welded the tops so I just went at it. I actually ran out of wire first which I didn’t see coming but I had another spool. I bet I’ve had that spool and the argon tank for like 3 years lol. Airgas on Monday I guess.

 

[bryson]

You should try to run out of welding gas more often.

 

[UNSTUCK]

Get a smaller tank. It makes you feel like you weld a lot.

 

[N-Smooth]

Get a smaller tank. It makes you feel like you weld a lot.

I have the medium size tank… I think it’s a 125. I actually purchased it from Airgas so I don’t have to make the lease payments.

 

[UNSTUCK]

I have the same size tank. My worst was close to 5 years on one tank. My last two refills were only a month or so apart so I feel like I made up for it.

 

[N-Smooth]

So the other day I welded up the plate panhard mount for the frame side and I’ve been mad at it ever since. The welds were hot enough but just high cause I didn’t move fast enough. I really couldn’t sleep the other night cause I was so mad. So today I ground them down with the intent of getting it flush and then going at it again. Well I ground them down and it actually smoothed well and while I don’t prefer that look I ran with it and put some more welds on the inside.

The third hole is filled because there’s a tube in there going sideways for the support tube that runs to the chassis tube on the other side. It looked weird being partially blocked so I just filled it.

Now that I was able to get that tacked on I made the cross tube and stopped there for the night.

I’m pleased with how it’s coming together and stopped there for the night. I need to get some solid tacks on it and pull it off to put the plate on the bottom side of the panhard mount since I don’t want to do all that welding overhead.

Random above shot.

 

[N-Smooth]

Last night Ryan met me at Carlos’ casa and I watched him machine my shock misalignment spacers down so the shock mounts don’t have to be wider than the chassis tubes. No pics of the work and the end result is nothing exciting but this pic is cute at least:

When I got home I whipped up some shock tabs the old fashioned way. Also not much to look at so no pics.


As of tonight the front end is officially linked!



I’ve gotta say I’m pretty pleased with the way it all went together. Clean notches and tight tolerances always make me happy. Annnnd I think it’ll be plenty strong which is obviously important 🤣

 

[skippy]

I love it!

 

[N-Smooth]

I got a couple hours in last night. While I’m waiting on some misc tabs from Ruffstuff for the front I decided to start working on the rear suspension. I knew the rear-most, lower cross bar was going to have to be cut for the upper link to clear. No biggie, I cut it.

The above pic has the upper link pulled up about 3/4” above full bump and that’s where it hits the tube in front of the one I cut. That works!
What this pic doesn’t show is that the link was also hitting the seat 🤣 so this happened.

I wasn’t even a little bit shook about this. I knew seat clearance was going to be tight, especially when I upped the size of the link. Also, this crap is super common in buggy builds, especially for comp rigs. Part of that reason is that we’re required to run the same size seats (on both sides) and they have to be mounted the same height etc.
With the padding under the seat cover I’ll make this unnoticeable.

After that I spent a bunch of time working on brainstorming the rear portion of the chassis. So much crap to consider when designing from scratch but I think I have a pretty solid idea now. Stay tuned lol

 

[N-Smooth]

Limited time to work on it today but I got a few minutes of work done. I started on the lower portion of the rear chassis. It’s not normal and most probably haven’t seen it done this way but our own @skippy and Jesse Haines both built pro-mod buggies at the same time that utilized this lower piece for placing their fuel cells and as a skid to not get hung up on rocks in the gaping hole that’s created by an offset rear diff. I knew I wanted to do the same with this build from the get-go. Anyways, it’s a 3x1’ section and I’ll put a bunch of crap there. (Dana60 blank shaft is there to represent the driveshaft while I was figuring out clearances)


After much deliberation I decided I wanted to make it level with the lower links which is just slightly tipped up to the back of the rig.

You also may have noticed that this link bolt is not going to be happy. I need to run by the store and get a holesaw to put a hole in that tube and run a slug through it for the bolt to go through. Hopefully I don’t butcher it 🤣

 

[Coco]

That's pretty cool, do you plan to run a rear suck down? With all that tube on that axle, you could mount one right to it, then shorten up the skid a bit more?

 

[N-Smooth]

That's pretty cool, do you plan to run a rear suck down? With all that tube on that axle, you could mount one right to it, then shorten up the skid a bit more?

Yup, already have one. Debating running it right on top of the axle through a loop on the chassis above it and down to the rearmost portion of the skid or vise versa. Either way will work and there are infinite other options too

 

[N-Smooth]

Not very exciting but I put a piece of 1” DOM through the tube for the link bolt. I went with a 1 1/4” hole saw in my notcher just in case I didn’t nail the location or angle. I stared at 1 1/8” for a while and that would’ve been the better choice. Oh well, it’s done!

 

[N-Smooth]

I had about 90 min to work on this today which pisses me off. I got the upper shock tabs tacked on and made sure all the angles looked good and everything clears.


Then I started working on the lowers. The inside one is just a regular tab from RS. The outer is going to be completely custom and look something like this. I just want to make sure I have plenty of weld surface on the knuckle, hence the nonsensical design. What a pain.

 

[N-Smooth]

Passenger side shock mounts are done. I got the lower mounts tacked on and cycled the suspension and the shock was hitting this tube with the passenger side all the way down and the driver side up about 1” past bump.

I knew it would be close. So, I moved the upper tab over 1/2” and burned it in. If it still hits that tube I’ll cut along the edge of the tube and plate it. I’m not going to mess with suspension design anymore for one tube.

Lower mount turned out just like I wanted but I still need to make a little plate to connect the two tabs on the bottom. It won’t be much but it’ll be worth it.

Driver side upper is burned in but I ran out of steam for the lower so it’s just sitting. It’s ready to be welded though 😎

 

[N-Smooth]

Got the driver side shock mounts welded on and pulled the axle to get all the hard angles. It’s so easy to pull it that I really prefer this for the difficult welds.

Then I put it back in and was messing around, cycling the suspension. The passenger shock does not appear to have any clearance issues with that tube now. Had to take a pic of it at full droop for funsies.

Since the front is done-ish for right now I decided it’s time to start adding some shape to the rear. I probably measured stuff and held up tubes in different spots for like an hour before having a plan. I decided that building from rear forward would be ideal to make it all square. So I made the rear most part of the frame.

I initially planned on angling the bottom of it forward but after seeing it really decided I like vertical. After confirming with Ryan that it looks good to him 🤣 I kept moving. It’s nice to be able to just ask him if I’m doing something wrong.
Then I moved on to the next portion. It took some work to determine the length and width to have it clear everything and be able to mount the panhard off it. This is what I landed on and I’m pleased.

Now I just need to attach this to the main part of the chassis and I’ll really be cookin! It’s going to line up great with the lower skid plate section and I think all of the bracing is going to work out really well.

 

[Greg]

Loving the progress, it's looking good!