newbie buggy tips: truths about used buggys

[lastmanx]

all dunebuggies are hand made. they are not vw factory built,not manufacturer built,no matter what seller tells you. they can be built by experienced builders or first timers. if built in 1965-1975 most likely it was used offroad or never street registered. most all were built from wrecked beetles. rollovers were preferred. it may be now titled incorrectly. like 1970 buggy with link pin front end straight axle swing. impossible 1965 last year for linkpin,1968 last year for swing axle. you need to know what your looking at.many buggies are built with different year parts. not allways bad just you need know what you have so when need to service or replace you get correct part. old buggys are old cars. restoring a buggy is restoring a old car. restoring old cars can be expensive,if you have to replace every old worn out part.if you don't want to work on rusty old parts no body does. pro mechanics, pro restorers get paid highly because they can. don't fool yourself that they are easy to work on if you don't check or change oil in your daily driver.if it ran when it was parked 6 years ago and you buy it today not running,you bought a non running car. if you cant get it to run you can't sue previous owner because he sold you and you bought a non running motor. same with transaxle same as no title same as no brakes. there is no shortage of unfinished broken non running buggys. the shortage is in good running titled buggys. look under every buggy it will show a lot about it,look it all over a buggy is wide open if you know what to look for. if you don't know learn before you buy. you research a new car purchase do the same for dunebuggys. information is available nowadays. price: prices vary on condition,and emotion with buggys. newbies selling buggys think they have the last one on earth because they never went to a vw show or saw one in their town. if buggys were inexpensive easy to work as indestructible as legend has it you would see perfect running ones everywhere. good news is you can learn you can buy .or build if you want . this is the manx club site look it all over for answers and help that's what it is here for.

[LEFTY]

I cannot agree more with this statement. Most you see for sale are 45 year old buggies that need everything, and most built by people with limited mechanical and fabrication ability. A lot of first time buyers think that all buggies are the same, you just pick the color you want, and the price should be 4K to 10K. They keep it for less than a year and it's up for sale again, waiting for the next first time buyer. They never mention all the problems they had with it or the driving and handling problems. It is almost impossible to find a professionally built streetable Manx Dune Buggy. Plus, because of the junk out there, they seem too expensive. If you want to buy a buggy, drive them, look at them and compare, the differences are amazing! I own a good one and I love it.

[Timinator]

So true. Having owned one for 35 years I have to agree. Single best thing ever did to my buggy was taking the existing roll hoop/bar and tying it into the front of the pan down by your feet making a roll-cage. It went from a flexi-flyer ride to go-cart handling. Shift and brake linkage can be horror too if not done correctly. Big motors aren't really needed. Buggy's are light and don't need a lot of motor to move them along. I almost miss the easy, gentle driving 1500 single port motor that was in the buggy when I bought it. I changed it out for a fresh 2275 motor that's just not as fun and easy to drive anymore. Yea, it's fast as hell, but, as most of you know, they're not racecars so blinding acceleration isn't really needed.

Oh, the new Willwood brakes on all 4 corners from AirKewld were a pretty amazing upgrade from the 1954 drum brakes I've been using for 35 years.

[LEFTY]

Single best thing ever did to my buggy was taking the existing roll hoop/bar and tying it into the front of the pan down by your feet making a roll-cage. It went from a flexi-flyer ride to go-cart handling. Shift and brake linkage can be horror too if not done correctly. Big motors aren't really needed. Buggy's are light and don't need a lot of motor to move them along. I almost miss the easy, gentle driving 1500 single port motor that was in the buggy when I bought it. I changed it out for a fresh 2275 motor that's just not as fun and easy to drive anymore. Yea, it's fast as hell, but, as most of you know, they're not race cars so blinding acceleration isn't really needed.

A Beetle floorpan can be shortened and reinforced to work, but, what a job it is to do it correctly! Check out how a pan should be shortened, click on the link to Carolina Dune Buggies and scroll down: http://carolinadunebuggies.com/products ... -sandrail/ In recent years, you cannot find a Beetle floor pan that is cheap or rust free. I prefer the Berrien/Acme frame, they are only $1600, and they save a lot of time and aggravation.
A dune buggy only weighs 1350 lbs and your right, they don't need a lot of motor to move them along. I know from my drag racing and engine building experience that high performance/high horsepower equals high maintenance! If you want reliability, build a stock motor for your buggy.

[Lee-Hoffer]

One of the best things I did to my buggy was put a mild 1776 in it. The engine was built for reliability, with stock carb (re-jetted to match), stock cam, and CD ignition. It has stock rockers on solid shafts. Stock weight flywheel with counter-weighted crank. It's way smoother than the stock engine it replaced, and I now can climb grades on the freeway in fourth gear instead of having to downshift to third all the time. Since everything was balanced, I expect it to last longer than a typical stock engine. The full flow oil filtration should help with that as well.

Same as Timinator, the single best thing I did was go to a full cage. My buggy had a horrible shimmy at 60 MPH, and the stiffness the cage provided eliminated that issue 100%.

Lee