72BajaBen 2 Seat Buggy Build

[72bajaben]

So my buddy Dave came over again to give me a hand. 3 weeks and 2 weekends left to get the buggy ready.

Plus my wife's Jeep YJ needs some work to be ready for Labor Day weekend.

We planned on getting the motor fired today....and we would have if the starter wasn't dead. But we got a bunch of other stuff knocked out.

Got the steering all welded up and mounted.



Fuel pump, lines and filter are installed.



I stole the UMP Canister filter from my Baja. I've made mounts for it...but I need a 90* elbow to get it installed. So that's for later this week.



I also dropped the hood and body panels on to take a peek at how she looks.




Its a good motivator. Because it looks SOOOO good!!

Blue or tan? What color do you think I should go with?

[72bajaben]

I would put the dash on top of the crosspiece.

Unfortunately It wont work on top of the bar. Its way too big for that and as you can see the hood wraps around the top of the cross bar.

It is a little too wide for under the bar, but I don't know if I have time to re-make it right now. So I'm running with it. Rebuilding it is on the bottom of the "To Do" list. Its going to work...just not ideal.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

After seeing the pix with hood on your toy I understand the reason why you have mounted the new dash now but... you still could mount it up higher if your mounts for the dash were not on the top or bottom of the cross tube but more in the center of the tube.

My glass buggy has a somewhat similar problem, but it deals more with the access to the master cylinder to check and fill it. The combination of the gauges, ignition gauges and idiot light are all on the glass hood plus tires are all in the way of reaching the MC as the hood really needs to come off in order to get good access to it. Again, looking down takes my eyes off what is going on hence the reason for changing my buggy also.

Easy isn't always right but good access is currently wrong.

Lee

[72bajaben]

Yea thats not a huge problem. My hood is only held on with a dozen or so screws and it lifts right off. Easy Peezy. My baja is going to get hanging pedals, so that shouldnt be a problem there either.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

For what it is worth, this is one way of doing hanging pedals but this is installed in a standard dune buggy.

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Since you probably not going to have a firewall (snicker) then turning the mounting bracket on floor a pretty much standard floor mounted PEDAL ASSY might work for you also.

Many ways of doing something isn't there.

Lee

[72bajaben]

The baja has the firewall intact and I plan on keeping it that way. Hence the reason for going with hanging pedals. I originally had a set of floor pedals...but they wouldn't have worked even if I took the firewall out. The A-Arms would hit the masters....so thats obviously not going to work. I sold those pedals...before I picked up this buggy project. They would have been perfect. The buggy will eventually get floor mounted "buggy" pedals. Right now I have a set of stock pedals for it.

[dustymojave]

Yes, it's better to have gauges closer to line of sight than down below. But I'm more concerned about that nasty knee knocker.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

If you are talking about the pedal assy I posted I wasn't good with the crosspiece seemingly that low but the owner has raced it in the race to Mexico (like me I think he is old now and my not drive it that hard now. I haven't talked to him for many years now.

My main computer died and I am trying to work with the backup unit (POS) which is more expensive but harder to use and doesn't have the pix of the buggy I posted in the air during the race.

He had the whole buggy converted to racing by someone who knows what they are doing. I think the crosspiece is is high enough up that sitting almost on the floor with one's legs stretched out that it isn't as much of a problem as it might look. That buggy body is the same as my blue one and it has more room that it looks.

On a rail, depending on how it is built, if the seats are sitting high then I would be concerned but if they are sitting low then I would still be concerned depending on how close it is to the seat.

For what it is worth.

Lee

[72bajaben]

I hit a milestone last night. The motor is RUNNING! Its been sitting for 11 years, and got a top end rebuild about 3 years ago....It fired right up. I was really surprised honestly. We had a little trouble with the distributor. The gear was seated all the way...but once we fixed that...Boom...she roared to life. Didnt even have to adjust the carb. Im sure it can be tuned some...but right now....Im just super happy that its running.

I also plumbed up the brakes. Im still waiting on 2 rubber hoses to get here.

1 week and counting until she hit the woods.

[dustymojave]

The knee knocker I was referring to is the vertical console dash panel and electrical box.



In our Chenowth, the gauge/switch panel is below the dash bar, but not nearly as big as the one in your buggy. But I bang my knee on the corner sometimes when driving offroad. My son is a few inches taller than me, so I KNOW he bangs his knee. I intend to change the way it is, but we also intend to cut the top off the cage and rebuild it for more headroom and add a lateral diagonal and shoulder harness bar. I already moved the pedal assembly forward 3 inches (and converted from single master/clutch/throttle to dual master with separate clutch and throttle) for more leg room for my son, while not so far forward that I, at 2" shorter than I used to was (what do you mean I must be getting old?!!), can still reach comfortably.

[dustymojave]

PS...I would rather have the same model Chenowth frame as you have than the one we have. Ours is the older style roll cage which has no where NEAR as much headroom as yours. But we got the buggy for a screaming deal (shhhh...was that the Sheriff's deputies out front!???!!!!)

[72bajaben]

The knee knocker I was referring to is the vertical console dash panel and electrical box.

Yea I was a little worried about it as well. But to be honest, I didn't have a single issue with it. Never got in the way and I never banged my knee on it. I was really surprised. But 20 y/o son is about the same height at me and he was banging all sort of things on the car. haha He said the car is too small for him.

Over all...I couldn't be happier with the way the buggy ran.

The Type 4 ran really good. The progressive carb was still tuned to that motor after 10 years on the shelf. It ran really good. I have an exhaust leak to track down. The first couple of back fires scared the poop out of my kids.

The buggy was kinda squirrelly on the road. Doing a poor mans alignment in the woods helped with that....a lot. It was about 2" toed in. So a more proper...poor mans alignment will get done.

Its also going to get 3x3's in the rear.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pics. I have some go pro footage of riding. But I was too busy having fun to take pics. I will see if other folks I was riding with got some shots.

[72bajaben]

Actually... I did take some pics of it loaded ready to go. SO where is what she looked like "done" and up on the trailer.

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Not bad looking! Good job Ben!

Lee

[72bajaben]

Not bad looking! Good job Ben!

Lee

Thanks! It ran great.