Manxter 126 - Brad's Before Big Bear Buggy Build &ac

[Manx-Australia]

hmm pretty

[Manx-Australia]

Well the pixy buggy dust did some good and I managed to get the body in place and the A-Arm front end fitted up. I must say Pete does an awesome job and putting it together is by far the easiest part of the build to date.



The images doesn't really show much but in short after I had the body bolted down and the front assembly fitted and tested I pulled it down and just left the frame. Then with it and the body in place I sealed it with Sikaflex and then gave it another good coating of Raptor Lining so nothing is going to rust / leak ever. With that in place and dried I reassembled it again for what I hope is the final time.

[thesandbug77]

Looking good man. Ready for Big Bear no problem! md

[Manx-Australia]

thesandbug77 wrote:Looking good man. Ready for Big Bear no problem! md

Yeah dunno about the no problem bit .... there never seems to be enough hours in the day.

[Manx-Australia]

With the body on and the front end in I was able to setup my pedals. I am unsing under slung Jamar X series with 3/4 bores on brakes and clutch. They are a big pedal set and I had to do some mods to the under dash section to let them fit, oh well cutting fibreglass is fun.



With the pedals in you can see where the steering column will go. I am using a modified Subaru Legacy unit so I can retain the steering controls for turn, lights and wipers etc.



Haven't figured out how I am going to get to the gold rack yet but I am sure something will work out when the time comes.

So while I think about the steering I headed off on a little side project .... yeah I know like I don't have enough real stuff to do without making up other things.

Anyway ... no point laying out all me great ideas / failures so I will just post a pictures and see what people think of it



I have PRP in there cause they are legends and doing the customs seats for me without hassles and they are PRP Seats so I thought it was a night touch ( and made it weigh less )

All up they still weigh less than the front PRP Seat

As for the seat design, it actually allows them to tilt forward and backwards to access the storage underneath. By doing it this way it means when I am packing I can tilt it back and get full access and then when the behind the seat is full I can tilt it forward to get access. Another nice feature is that I can pull them in and out with no tools meaning it is a very quick thing to do if needed.

I thought long and hard about using Mini Boosters instead of seats but there ain't enough room back there fora real adult anyway and it means I don't need booster seats in there for a the next few years.






Not a real good picture but you can see how it tills backwards, although the other half of the hinge and catch mech aren't in the picture.



Ok so the rear seats are done and on their way back to PRP to be covered.







You can see how much smaller they are than the fibreglass buckets



The rear hinge and harness point are also done and in place. When I made them I also added some tie down points as keeping loads in place is always a PITA on fibreglass.



The front seat mount bar bolts down with the body bolts.



The steering column is in place and steering is all hooked up.



It looks a bit weird as you have to put it in on a very funny angle to get the u-joints lined up to go on the splines.



Pedal Cluster drops in place and has about 30mm of adjustment back and forward.

[Manx-Australia]

Ok so everythig moving along it was time for some rear arm action. I hate to admit it but I am just not going to have enough time to design and build my own rear arms for the Big Bear trip so I had to settle for some chinese junk. To avoid the real bad stuff i spoke to Dan at DansParts and he got me a set he said were the best of a bad bunch.

As I am going micro stubs and carriers using Jamar Pro X Series stuff I figure they will do until I get back and find some time to make a set myself so I can get the camber I want.

Anyway they come bare so I whacked on some lower shock mounts and hydraulic Bump Stops strickers.



While I was there I made some calliper mounts for my rear e-brake callipers and hit them with the hot stick



Then I got distracted and forgot to take pictures but just work with jacket on, helmet on, welding go on, paint go on etc etc.

End result we have e-brakes.



Funnily enough more Jamar, man those dudes should give me a better deal with all their bling on my buggy.



Meaning Walla , 6 pot real callipers



So with the rear arms sorted I could finalose everything and move onto what I hope is the last of the fibreglass cutting.

As I am running a Subaru 5 Speed from Todd at SubaruGears.com.au in the Manxter there are a few small clearance issues. Luckily for me Bruce Meyers is just down the road and he has a solution for the issues.

So ... take one rear buggy area.



Clean with a wet cloth



Have a look at the nicely paint bum.



And get into it ...








Mark it and and test fit the boob Mk2 just to make sure you haven't screwed up the templates




Looks good start cutting ....


I then like to tape it out as lines are hard to see and cut it rom behind so you can follow what you are trying to cut.





Tidy her up


Cover her up..

[Manx-Australia]

With all that mess sorted I could bolt some buggy bling on ...

In back ...



Up Front ....



Inside



And of course .... all that was so I could get it outside ....



To move it around



And get it into the next part of the build ... the stuff that makes it go forward ,..,....

[BuggyBob]

Wow Brad, looking real nice. Hope to see it in Big Bear.

[Manx-Australia]

Ok so with it on wheels it is time to look at all that stuff you need to do but isn't really seen.

A quick trip to Crown Performance had all my Hydraulic lines sorted (http://www.crownperformance.com/brake-lines/) great guys and awesome products if you need braided stuff sorted, John is the man. Hopefully I will pick up my kit of 12 lines this week ... then I can bleed the brakes an clutch and tick that pupy off my list.

Meanwhile back at the barn I have been working on making my super cool dash layout bacwards so I can fit it in, lucklit CAD has a Mirror function, job done ...



Sure beats the heck out of doing it by hand

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzrK8lsXPfM[/youtube]

Then slip in the Speedhut Guages, adda few switches and walls, one Manxter 2+2 dash made from 2.5mm alloy and no more bending or flexing.

Of course I went through a few versions as with the Subaru Column in place I needed to do some mods.



Sweet Custom faces with Manx Cats of course



Won't look like this for long as thing time Ben will stay the hell out of my loom room



With everything in place I will now make up some cover plates and mount my fuse and relay blocks above the pedals. They will go here to keep as much space as possible for storage and also as it will give easy access for the side of the buggy. Once done it will look a bit neater



I am using 3 units from Hella with a 16 Blade fuse box nested to a 7 position Mini Relay and a 5 spot Micro Relay setup. The flasher unit will go in here and the nice thing is that they are all nested well and have sealed tops with o-rings. They are the only fuses / relay setup I will use. The loom will only be using vinyl automotive with weatherpacks and heat shrink, no solder and no joins. I will do two looms, first on setup and second one on the board. I would expect with the ECU wiring etc it should only take 3 days.





After doing the fit up and trim I will now make a new dash face and remove the hazrd switch and one toggle as they look like crap

[Manx-Australia]

So after sorting out the layout I ditch the hazard switch as it was ugly and added some more toggles.


Then I had this great idea about doing a funky fill panel to make around the guages a different colour and tie them in so I made that.











Once I had it in it really didn't grow on me so I went back to simple and put some cheap black paint on it for now and I will do it properly later on with some more bed liner.








I will use different bolts for final assembly and black the heads to match.

[1856]

Sweet... Thanks for sharing.
MnC

[Manx-Australia]

Iguana wrote:Ok so here is Today's Question ....

How many inches / meters of Braided lines are there in a Manxter 2+2 Brad Spec ?

A - Who cares get on with the build ?
B- 324" / 8.23m
C - 598" / 15.12m
D - 686" / 17.4m

Answer is D: 686" / 17.4m

Front Left 37.5"
Front Right 37.5"
Front Feeder 40"
Front Switch 10"
Rear LHS - 32"
Rear RHS - 54"
Rear Main Feeder - 113"
e-Brake LHS - 61"
e-Brake RHS - 63"
e-Brake Feeder - 100"
Clutch - 138"

I think that is 686

Added to that : 10 90's, 3 x straights, 2 x 3 ways and a banjo bolt ... all sorted.. drop a few $$$ on teh counter and away you go all sorted for a big weekend with teh MityVac

[Manx-Australia]

1856 wrote:Sweet... Thanks for sharing.
MnC

No probs happy to, who know my dribble may help someone else with their build.  

[Scott-Drolet]

Brad! I need your gas tank. Rumor has it you're making them for public consumption . . The question is how much? How soon? and, where do I send the check!

[Manx-Australia]

Righto it seems that I am at that make or break point now where no matter how many hours you work on something it just doesn't seem to go as fast as you wold like.

I started to try and button things up moving from the front to the back. I decided a good thing to do up ront was run the brake lines and get that sorted. Once I had them in place I decided I need to add some support tabs to keep them out the way.



Mk 1 mounting tabs where made and fitted. After I did the cable tie up I noticed that the change in direction was going to create a wear point on the line which would no doubt cause some damage. So into the bin with Mk1 and onto Mk2 .



Mk2 was longer and got a 45deg bend after he 90 so it gave a nice slow change for the brake line to follow. I will keep an eye on it but under full travel I saw no issues.

From the tab it just runs through the two tube clamps and then up to the 3 way. I added another tab to the upper bolt as I didn't like the idea of cable ties around tube, looked crap.







Then into the three way and into my Tunnel



Once I had them sorted I needed to do some alignments so I could tighetn up the front end bolts and call it done.





Just doing castor and camber at the moment as I will do steering when I have all 4 wheels on so I can do front and back.

I then did the rear lines but got distracted by mounting the engine and transmission because I had a new idea on how I wanted to set it up, more on that later.