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JHF Goatbuilt Trail Buggy

crazybluerider

Squirrel!
Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Member Number
1720
Messages
502
Loc
Portland
I've been meaning to start a thread for this for sometime. Due to several things including an unexpected move of the business I manage, requiring a thrash to finish my home shop since I had been using a corner of the shop at work, this build has taken significantly longer than I had originally hoped, but it is now finally approaching completion.

I've always really liked the idea of the goatbuilt products but I always felt the original chassis was a little too big for what I liked in a buggy. My original buggy / wheeler was a samurai so I've always liked smaller rigs. When I saw that Drew had gotten together with Jesse to produce this rig I knew I had to have one.

The fixture kit they designed makes this chassis impressively easy to assemble. I had it mocked up and tacked up in no time.
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Interior pieces fit together nicely. I did relocate the rear seat mount forward slightly because I am fairly short and the reclined seating position made it hard for me to see over the dash bar and reach the floor with my feet.

I selected a 2002 4.3l for the engine and backed it with a th350 and 4:1 dana 300. This powertrain fits this chassis like it was made for it. It left lots of room in the front for a front rad while keeping the hood nice and low.

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Having a crane in the building made welding the chassis out nice.

Axles are dana 60's, front is a early chev kingpin and the rear is a early 2000's ford van axle. I decided to set them at 110", my sami buggy thing was 104" and I felt that it was a little to short sometimes for the steeper stuff.

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I really like the way the lower link mounts integrate into the skid plate and chassis. It is a very well protected and stout design. Rear shock placement was super easy. Front, not so much. It took me three designs to get a front mount that I was happy with. The tube across the top of the axle ended up being the final design. In one picture you can see one of the previous mounts too. The bucket mount was causing binding at flex and required removing the shock to replace the lower link hiem which I see as a huge issue.
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Then the real fun begins. Getting all the other parts to fit around the powertrain and suspension. I chose to run hard break lines as much as possible and mounted a set of cutting breaks between the seats in a push forward position.
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I used an in tank pump to keep the pump noise down and chevrolet factory pumps have a good "surge tank" design in them where the return line dumps into the pickup bucket. They'll provide fule for a pretty good amount of time with the vehicle out of shape. I used factory fuel lines back to the rear of the seats and build hard lines the rest of the way back to the tank.

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Using sanderson headers and a pile of u-bends I built a cross over pipe and layed out a muffler in the belly pan.
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Around this time I had to move from the corner of my work that I was using and take it to my as yet incomplete home shop. This resulted in about a year of lost time as I thrashed to finish my home shop and purchase tools that I had been previously borrowing from work.
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Thanks for sharing! I enjoy seeing how these buggy kits come together :smokin:
 
Everything looks pretty great so far. The only thing I saw I'd be concerned about are where you welded the link and coil over tabs so the cast D60 front housing. I can tell you from experience, unless you prep the cast (like clean the hell out of it) and heat it up prior to welding, burn them in hot, then the weld probably won't last.
 
love it

how long do you think it would take to build.

it looks like soild easy to assemble lego kit. i love the jigs so you dont have to think and worry about silly stuff.

cheers
 
Everything looks pretty great so far. The only thing I saw I'd be concerned about are where you welded the link and coil over tabs so the cast D60 front housing. I can tell you from experience, unless you prep the cast (like clean the hell out of it) and heat it up prior to welding, burn them in hot, then the weld probably won't last.

Currently tacked, but will be preheated and wrapped for slow cool down. I will also be building gussets into that bracket to tie both pieces together and out to the tube. I've done this before with success. The Miller 252 helps with getting them burned in deep.

Good looking out though. 👍
 
love it

how long do you think it would take to build.

it looks like soild easy to assemble lego kit. i love the jigs so you dont have to think and worry about silly stuff.

cheers

I'm about 2 years in now. I lost a year in the middle though. The chassis itself came together in about 2 weeks. If you were doing it full time or had a week off of work you could easily get it together in under a week I would think.
 
Awesome little rig, Really cool to see more of the goatbuilt buggies go together.
 
Currently tacked, but will be preheated and wrapped for slow cool down. I will also be building gussets into that bracket to tie both pieces together and out to the tube. I've done this before with success. The Miller 252 helps with getting them burned in deep.

Good looking out though. 👍

Do you use nickel wire (NI-55) or just standard ER70/ER80 wire? I am curious since I haven't really done much cast welding and it sounds like you really need to use nickel wire, but damn that stuff is expensive :eek:
 
Do you use nickel wire (NI-55) or just standard ER70/ER80 wire? I am curious since I haven't really done much cast welding and it sounds like you really need to use nickel wire, but damn that stuff is expensive :eek:

I did use ER70. I've welded to cast a number of times on dana centers. In my experience the key is not relying solely on the cast for support. Build the bracket so that it is tied into the tubing as well. I also pre heat and typically wrap with my leathers or a blanket to let it cool slow. Obviously all situations are different but this has worked for me in the past.

When I finish that bracket up I'll try to remember to post some pictures to clarify what I'm talking about.
 
Cool build! I’m just starting my ibex chassis. I wanted something wider. Drew for sure is a guru for do it yourself chassis’s! Amazing how the jig and layout marks help! So far I’m thrilled with how it has gone together! Props to goatbuilt :smokin:
 
Nice to see more GB/JHF buggy builds on i4x4.
 
I built 1350 driveshafts using wide open's kits. Their carrier bearing kit and drive shaft kits are machine perfectly and go together very easily. Clearance around the trans and engine is very tight but I managed to get everything to clear at full bump.
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One of the reasons the ford rear axle is cool because it come stock with a good sized rotor and dual piston caliper. The problem with this is finding a front brake setup that will match the modern size and fluid capacity for good bias when playing around on forest roads at speed. I decided on a kit that allows the use of newer dodge 1 ton brakes on the front chev axle. This is also a huge rotor and dual piston caliper. I am using a kia 4 wheel disc brake master with a 7/8" bore to control these brakes with a long CNC pedal. I have blead these out and the pedal feels really good. I have not driven it yet of course, so I'm not 100% sure this combo is going to work well.

The factory caliper on the rear does mount somewhat low on the axle so I found a set of brackets that removes the internal e-brake and rotates the calipers up 90 degrees or so. I think I bought them from Stinky Fab but I can't find them on his site anymore.
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Got the rear storage figured out. Action packer in a SWAG mount and an igloo cooler. Tucked the ECU up under the hood over the passengers feet. Bought a TIG welder and welded aluminum for the first time building an intake tube. Welding to the old dirty MAF flange may not have been the best first welding project but I got it done.

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I decided on using HDPE plastic as body panels. The stuff I bought was from speedway motors. I tend to be somewhat hard on body panels and I'm hoping that using zip tied on plastic will help make them last a little longer. I'm hoping that if I get into something hard enough the panel will pop off rather than getting all tore up like my previous tin panels. That and the stuff is really cheap so replacement doesn't hurt as much if I have to do it every other year or something to keep it looking presentable.

With the panels on I couldn't help myself and had to hook the lighting circuit up to a battery and get a shot of all that working.

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That brings this pretty well up to date. I'm digging through my picture file to see if there is anything else of note to post but sometimes I'm not real good at taking pictures, especially when I get in the groove.

2" fox air bumps showed up today so I'll probably be mounting them this weekend along with finding a place to mount the air compressor for the rear locker.

The list is getting shorter and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Tear down for final welding and paint is coming soon.

Here's a picture of my old samurai buggy just for grins.

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Do you use nickel wire (NI-55) or just standard ER70/ER80 wire? I am curious since I haven't really done much cast welding and it sounds like you really need to use nickel wire, but damn that stuff is expensive :eek:

I did use ER70. I've welded to cast a number of times on dana centers. In my experience the key is not relying solely on the cast for support. Build the bracket so that it is tied into the tubing as well. I also pre heat and typically wrap with my leathers or a blanket to let it cool slow. Obviously all situations are different but this has worked for me in the past.

When I finish that bracket up I'll try to remember to post some pictures to clarify what I'm talking about.

Yeah on the above. Local guys have welded alot of housing and never had a issue, they use normal mig wire. But lots of preheateating, lots of time with Torch getting it to temp and then slow cooling. Also like CBR said maximize the amount of weld area for more contact. Spread it out.
 
You should fasten your panels...
 
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