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Saturn powered kids buggy

11K views 45 replies 28 participants last post by  Wilson 
#1 ·
This is the first build thread i have ever posted on here so please go easy on me.

Im building this buggy for my 2 daughters (6 and 9) so they can follow us around on the trails. They both love to wheel and have both drove my jeep on tons and 42's so this should be easy for them to master.

The tube work is all 1.5 .120 wall dom. This is what i got so far.

 
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#4 ·
My plans are to use a 1.9 saturn engine and automatic transmission with the transaxle diff welded to feed a set of dana 44's out of a 79 wagoneer. The engine will sit in the chassis so the trans axles dump out on the pass side to match up with the wagoneer axles.

It will be 4 linked front and rear with fox 2.0 14" travel fox air shoks and hydraulic steering.

Pic of the kids trying it on for size

and a shot from the front. Just remember chassis isnt complete yet.
 
#16 ·
NICE!

I just keep hoping my six year old will hurry up and grow bigger so I can hand her the key to lo-budget pimpin buggy as it sits!

I think for building a kid buggy power brakes are a must,not sure if they are in your plans but a really good idea I think.

Im sure a saturn 1.9L will have plenty of power for 37s in 90% of trail type situations.

As a suggestion you may want to get the donor motor and trans out of the car and get it in that chassis, there are more than a few things that will make its position to be set before you can do much.(mainly driveline placement)
 
#18 ·
Yea my photo skills suck lol:mr-t:

To answer some questions...
The kids do help out as much as they can and are very excited to sre their progress.
I do plan on swapping in the power brake booster from the donor to the buggy.
Im gonna try and get away with running the stock gears in the axles at first to see how it performs. I will run a lock-rite up front and weld the rear though.
i should have room up front for the booster, battery, and a small fuel cell.
 
#19 ·
Keep the entire transaxle and engine/trans management if you can, it'll vastly simplify your life. Otherwise Saturn engine management gets kinda pissed off if you chop it apart and leave out certain things (VSS being one that it wants to see). I'm assuming yours is an automatic.

Water flows the "wrong" way through the water pump IIRC. Makes it a little weird to hook up a radiator and get the air purged out, but not a huge deal.

For 37's and kids, it'll have gobs of power. You might want to figure out a way to limit it to only P/R/N/1 at least at first... 30-40mph is potentially pretty fast for a 9yo to be driving. I don't know how the automatic shifter functions as I never played with that.

E2000 fuel pump (or any of the various replacements, PBB search is your friend) will be plenty of pressure and flow.
 
#21 ·
Here is the donor


Picked it up from a buddy of mine for $500 and have been driving it to work for the past 4 months just to see if anything was wrong with it. Its an automati and i plan on taking the whole engine/trans managment system and putting it into the buggy as well. I have a video of the kids and dog driving it around the house if i can get it uploaded. Right now im in this for a little over a $1000.
 
#26 ·
Sweet!

I would seriously reconsider running stock diff gears (4.10s?) The motor and trans may have the power to push it, but it will put a lot more stress on the transaxle. Same idea as when toyota guys go to 4.10s because theyre breaking 5.29s then they start breaking Tcase parts.
 
#31 ·
Im gonna run it with the stock gears and see how it performs. If i dont like the crawl ratio ill drop the gears in the axles accordingly.

Im 6'2" and i struggle to get in and out of it as it sits. But it will get a thrashing or 2 from me before I turn it over to the girls lol.
 
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