Central WA Baja

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Remember, you are going to have some torsional loads on those trailing arms caused by the shocks.

The reason I mentioned cycling the arms though the full range of travel is often we see an OH $*%T!!!and we stop there and toss a fit. Meant as a gentle reminder.

I can understand the 'back to the drawing board' bit but don't rule it out either. Keep your options open. Also remember KISS, complicated stuff is also complicated to fix when it breaks. Your design does look cool though.

[CentralWAbaja]

I can understand the 'back to the drawing board' bit but don't rule it out either. Keep your options open. Also remember KISS, complicated stuff is also complicated to fix when it breaks.

I think that KISS went out the window...or the windshield When I decided to do a "one of kind" custom windshield frame and glass.not to mention the hood when I get there.

I do hear ya though...Thanks

[motorbreath53]

ENVY.

OH, how I want to add some width to the body of my car...

Looking good man.

[Leatherneck]

Ok well this is it. After this and several other projects I have decided to drop my baja project cause I can never reach this level of build. Oh well there are always R/C's.










J/K I may not reach it but I will steal some ideas.

[CentralWAbaja]

Well it's been a few weeks without any updates but I have made a little progress over the last couple weekends.

I finally got my seat sliders and mounting frames built and the seats are mounted.

I was so close to just ordering up a set of universal 6-way power seat bases but decided against it..........OK, the wife said I was crazy and they would just clog up with sand and crap and be something I would just cuss at eventually.

I still wanted some adjustability so this is what I came up with.



Not exactly adjustment at the push of a button...but it is adjustable and still very solid. Which is what I was after.

Here is what it took to get there....

Plasma cut these out of 3/16 then cleaned them up on the mill



Squared up a frame that the seat mounts to and the sliders mount to as well.



Here it is again with the sliders atached



Then a couple 1/8 x 1.5x1.5 angle iron to mount the seat and slider to



Here they are mounted.....note the multiple sets of mounting holes...just in case.



This is the pivot link/lift mechanism



All bolted up and tacked in....On a side note...No more big hoops over the tunnel.



The pivot can be adjusted by hand but it is way easier and quicker with cordless drill and because I wanted it to all stay as low as possible I set it up this way



Check out all of that room in between the seats

[david58]

Nice work.

[turbobaja]

That's a pretty slick adjuster design. With those and the slides you should be set up real nice. Looking good over there .

[ntsqd]

Very nice!

I do have one concern, IME with Acme thread vibration has a tendency to move them. Because the thread is designed to transmit power it is impossible to use a jam nut effectively, i.e. even with a jam nut as tight as humanly possible it will move. I don't know if you'll have enough vibes to do this or not, but I'll suggest building or at least designing and making the provision for the use of something that will lock into the square drive (?) that will prevent the shaft from rotating once the adjustment is made.

[CentralWAbaja]

Tighten the bolts on the link at the slot on the base and it aint moving. Not sure if it will have to be that way but that is the provision. It may be necessary just to have a solid set-up anyway. Again not a push of a button... but adjustable.

Why????

Just because

Actually I got to thinking, that if I spending the day crawling around on a Jeep trail where I need to look over the door edge to see rocks, stumps, ect.... I would definitely want to be more upright than if I was flying across the desert/dunes where I may want to be laid back a bit more.

That and I was just never really comfortable in my old baja and with the extra room in this one... I just don't know what to do with myself

Really I just took everybody opinion....And tried to make it all work.

Thanks to all for the input

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Hold it!!! you forgot something; with all that room you have now you need to make the seats so that they rotate for easy entrance and exit. Geez, glad I though of that before it was too late.

Lee

[Leatherneck]

Kudos to the wife for saving you some grief and props to you on the mad fab skills. Seriously some killer fab skills

[560]

Great idea. Hook up an electric motor to it and there ya have it, will not move and at a push of a button up and down.

Mike

[RyanB]

You have some seriously amazing skills there. Very nice work man !!

[73AZ]

Your seat adjusting set up is inspiring!

[CentralWAbaja]

Over 2 months since my last update.... because I haven't had a chance to work on it for 2 months.

Decided to take the Thanksgiving week off from the job to spend some quality time working on the baja. So last Monday (before t-day week) I called and ordered my hanging pedal set up from...Well lets just say one of those big reputable off road race supply houses... not Kartek as last time I ordered my pedals they sent me the wrong stuff. So I tried one of the other guys. I called them again Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday trying to see if they were going to be able to get the order filled and on it's way to me...Finally Friday they called me to say it was all ready to ship. So I paid extra to 2nd day air the order, as to have it before T-day. Got the box on Tuesday night Opened it up Wednesday AM and....you guessed it...1 forward swing pedal and 1 reverse swing pedal How does this stuff happen? So one of the main goals for the week will have to wait. Unfortunately, that also meant that the steering shaft will have to wait also, as they are trying to share some of the same space. Oh well... enough of the rant....here are some pics.

Door bars roughed in




Started lacing up the bottom


Got the tilt mount figured out




Spent almost 2 full days setting up the steering rack for real this time.... according to my notes, mounted/adjusted it 24 times Not really the funnest part of this project so far. But after all was said and done I have about 1/8"-3/16' of toe out (bumpsteer) at full comp and just about the same at full extension.... measured as if I am using a 33" tire and it comes on in the very last bit of travel at both extremes. I think I am going to call it good enough, as it will not go any farther forward and that is what kept making it happier.


Today I finished out my week tacking up the rest of the front.





OK, it's official...I am the slowest fabricator in the world....and I mean no offense to you real "fabricators" out there. I use that term loosely

I realized the other day that I have been at this thing for over a year now I am trying to come to grips with the time it is going to take to complete this thing.

I set what I thought were some achievable goals for the week...didn't quite get there...but the one goal I did reach was...I didn't think about work for over a week.

Well almost... I forgot I had to go thaw out frozen water lines on Wed evening before T-day so my client could cook turkey in her new kitchen.