Tube buggy buildup

SeaRover said:

no really Sam . . . you suck :flipoff2: nice work!



cranked or not, i don't see how you're going to get that much travel out of the radius arms - unless you're leaving one of the bushes completely out?!


[edit: ] also, with the sexy pinion angle on there, how will you mount the panhard? (not critiquing . . .i'm just a dumbass trying to understand)

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If the arms were cranked all the way untill they touched in the middle then they wouldnt bind at all cause they would just pivot about the centre mount. In the stock straight position we have gotten 10in of shock travel in articulation (which is the difference in the amount of extension on each of the front two shocks) on a number of rigs (slotted or drilled radius arm bushes). So i figger I should get a proportional increase in bind free travel by mounting the ends of the radius arms proportionally closer together. Which is why I come up with 14in.

Panhard could be mounted as normal because the front end geometry is the same as stock + 3inches of lift. Maybe it looks worse because of the toy high pinion in there. For the steering Im actually going to reverse the taper on the pitmen arm and put the steering link on top of the pitman arm and also mount the panhard rod above the pitman as well (to keep everything parallel although at a steeper angle) to get all the front links up heigher. Ive done it this way on my mog rover and ran it this way when I have the d44s and it seems to work well.

Sam

wilsby said:

Sam, this makes me like the front end of the P38A even more. Did you bend the radius arms, or have you scavenged them from a Rangie II? BTW, do you do slotted bushes that fit the P38A?

How much are they move inward? I reckon 5" would be required for the extra travel?

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On the P38 the arms are kinked to get around the chassis although the actual chassis mounts are still in line with the diff mounts so they work the same way as an old school rangie.

I just bent my stock arms and in actual fact mounting the arms the way I have isnt strictly correct because as the arms are loaded backwards the arms will want to move outwards on the diff end because everything isnt in line. Im dont think the missalingement will cause any problems for this rig or possible a street driven rig either. The totally correct way to do this would be to not kink the arms and to actually mount the arms onto the diff on an angle. But I will see how this works.

Never looked into the P38s. Although I just bought a 96 HSE so maybe I should. Very nice rig BTW, very nice - carnt believe how well they drive.

I have moved then in 6in each side.

Sam

DanB - dont have a gallery but this was its buildup here
land rover buildup


Doug - 86in outside to outside with the 42s on 15x9.5in rims with 4in backspace over stock drums (machined a bit on the outside) on the mog 404s.

My plan is to just build this thing light and be able to put it onto its roof without worrying too much about panels. I think Im just going to throw this one together with the rover suspension components and then build another one with the rear salisbury and front d60 that I got and go with triangulated heim joint links and full hydro steering, coilovers blah blah blah.

This ones using stock rover axle housings and stock steering box and stock rover coil springs so Im making compromises all over the place but learning heaps. I will also learn how well the LT230 copes with doing front wheel drive digs (with the centre diff open and read handbrake on)

Ive borrowed some tyres off a mate of mine and you could say they are a little bit bigger than Im wanting to run - 42in TSLs. But at least test a few things out until I chase up some 37in crawlers. Given that Im not running any lockers :flipoff2: I dont think i will have a strength issue although if this rig carnt drive everywhere that my mogrover can then I may have to throw an ARB in the rear. But I would love to not have to run any lockers on this thing and just use our traction control. When I build the next one with the d60s it will have ARBs as well as the traction control and with open diffs front, centre and rear should be able to do some awesome skid steering/digs all on a joy stick but that will come later.

Heres a cool pic. Its got all the major components on the rig here and basically just missing drive shafts, springs, shocks, radiator, steering box, panhard rod and its also got no oil in the auto. The four of us have actually lifted this thing entirely off the ground (the axles are connected to the frame with some scrap steep and therefore dont droop down). Dont know how heavy this thing is so far but it couldnt weigh much.

Sam

Doug - the engine compartment is about 18in tall but you can see in that last pic that it could be alot smaller cause the top of the engine is alot lower than the top of the tube although I still have to get an aircleaner in there. The motor sits very low in there. As it sits ATM the height of the motor compared to the front axle is the same as a stock Landrover Disco with 3 inches of lift - so everything is very low.

Im not going to worry about lowering the tube above the engine (which would allow me to angle the bonnet more) but will do it a bit differently on the next one (as well as lots of other things). This has been a very steep learning curve. I havent done anything too wrong on this one but I can see lots of areas that it can be improved (this ones just a copy of a zero G).

Sam

Yea - its getting fairly close now. Got most things in there about the only thing left to do is running all the brake lines and then doing all the sheet work (firewall, floor and external skins). Really hoping to have it largly finished this weekend cause the competition is on the weekend following that.

As far as the radius arms - Im not quite sure. They do want to rotate (as in rotate when looking from the front) as the load goes from driving to braking. I think this is caused by the pushing and pulling loads on the arms wanting to move the axle mount sidways and then because the arms attach to the axle from below then they produce this rotation. I dont think it will be a problem for my application although it could produce some funny on road handling. The solution to this would be to not kink the arms but to mount the arms onto the axle at an angle but this would be a lot of work (although still possible).

The rig came back from the exhaust shop on tuesday and I had a bit of a play and I think this thing is going to be a lot of fun. It just feels so light and so easy to lay into the throttle. I think Im going to break this thing all over the place but time will tell. Carnt wait to get it onto some of my favourate trails to see how it works compared to my mogrover. The two rigs are just so different that they really arnt related.

BTW doing front wheel digs with the centre diff open works awesome. The doubling in wheelspeed really helps the front end crank around (in my mogrover i always used second to do front wheel drive stuff). Dont know how long the centre diff will last though but its bloody good fun.

Sam