if he has 20s stacked that much id be considering other options.
this is my first concern in the front. i want to know where the piston is in relation to this tube transition. he also needs shims on the coilover.
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Rock Lizard/Weekend Ultra4(?); blown LS, 40s, tons, bypasses, etc.
- Thread starter snivilous
- Start date
if he has 20s stacked that much id be considering other options.
this is my first concern in the front. i want to know where the piston is in relation to this tube transition. he also needs shims on the coilover.
snivilous
Well-known member
I guess I didn't write down the shaft length last time I have them apart, but I think the piston is ~2" below that transition point.if he has 20s stacked that much id be considering other options.
this is my first concern in the front. i want to know where the piston is in relation to this tube transition. he also needs shims on the coilover.
What's the concern with the stacking of the 20s?
I also don't follow your "valving is too firm and your tubes are too open", do you mean I should be looking at closing the bottom tube instead of valving it stiffer?
And if it wasn't obvious, they're all 2.5" shocks
Bebop
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- May 26, 2020
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Fair.
Removing the shims in the coilovers is when I lost all low speed and it started feeling like shit.
snivilous
Well-known member
Haven't done much with the buggy this month. I pulled the body panels and sprayed it off and looked it over and fixed the front brake line, that was about it. Poor thing got wickedly rusty from being towed through endless rain and snow going to Vernal. It's almost tempted me to finally paint it.
I had some friends from up north go to Sand Hollow a couple weeks ago. They just had some Toyotas, but I hadn't taken the buggy out since the race so decided to bring it out for a chill day and get some miles on it.
No one wanted to wheel until the night, so I ended up taking a couple people for a sprint around Sand Hollow. Nothing exciting but I think I got 50 miles or so on it. The only thing that was weird was one or two points the engine got a slight hiccup like it lost fuel pressure. But I had a full tank, and it was so fast I didn't have time to see fuel pressure drop. One person thought maybe it was a vapor lock issue, which is possible but seems unlikely since it wasn't that hot and last year I had it out in a lot hotter weather (albeit not with the big engine).
I need to swap the filler neck, so I'll pull the hydramat and pickup and see if something has disintegrated or is leaking. But otherwise it was fine!
Otherwise we just ended up doing Double Sammy and playing around on some of the offshoots while the Toyota guys slowly made it through.
And that wraps up anything I've done with the buggy!
Today I registered for the next Bonneville Offroad race which is in Grand Junction in a couple weeks. I have a list of higher priority things to do, and then some things to do if I'm not overly lazy. I wouldn't have any issue using it as is right now, the buggy seems happy and working great.
I did just order a 2-turn orbital from Howe to replace my 3-turn. They also recommended increasing my caster to like 7deg which I'm at 4deg right now I think. Otherwise they said there's not much I can do to improve the steering feel. I also bought another Superduty Master cylinder after messing with my other one and figuring out how it worked until it was destroyed, now I know how to get it to plug and play with the iBooster so want to get that installed too. If I can make the braking more firm and the steering faster I think that will help a lot. I have some other minor things I need to do, the spare tire carrier needs to get reinforced since it's starting to crack, I need to unbend the hilift since apparently it ran into a rock and got bent, maybe fix the boost bypass valve, etc.
The Grand Junction race is another ~160 mile desert race. From what I've seen there's no whoops, it's mainly just two track and dirt trails, actually closer to a rally stage probably. Should be a fun and chill race, see if I can make a few tweaks so I'm not the absolute slowest vehicle out there hahaha
I had some friends from up north go to Sand Hollow a couple weeks ago. They just had some Toyotas, but I hadn't taken the buggy out since the race so decided to bring it out for a chill day and get some miles on it.
No one wanted to wheel until the night, so I ended up taking a couple people for a sprint around Sand Hollow. Nothing exciting but I think I got 50 miles or so on it. The only thing that was weird was one or two points the engine got a slight hiccup like it lost fuel pressure. But I had a full tank, and it was so fast I didn't have time to see fuel pressure drop. One person thought maybe it was a vapor lock issue, which is possible but seems unlikely since it wasn't that hot and last year I had it out in a lot hotter weather (albeit not with the big engine).
I need to swap the filler neck, so I'll pull the hydramat and pickup and see if something has disintegrated or is leaking. But otherwise it was fine!
Otherwise we just ended up doing Double Sammy and playing around on some of the offshoots while the Toyota guys slowly made it through.
And that wraps up anything I've done with the buggy!
Today I registered for the next Bonneville Offroad race which is in Grand Junction in a couple weeks. I have a list of higher priority things to do, and then some things to do if I'm not overly lazy. I wouldn't have any issue using it as is right now, the buggy seems happy and working great.
I did just order a 2-turn orbital from Howe to replace my 3-turn. They also recommended increasing my caster to like 7deg which I'm at 4deg right now I think. Otherwise they said there's not much I can do to improve the steering feel. I also bought another Superduty Master cylinder after messing with my other one and figuring out how it worked until it was destroyed, now I know how to get it to plug and play with the iBooster so want to get that installed too. If I can make the braking more firm and the steering faster I think that will help a lot. I have some other minor things I need to do, the spare tire carrier needs to get reinforced since it's starting to crack, I need to unbend the hilift since apparently it ran into a rock and got bent, maybe fix the boost bypass valve, etc.
The Grand Junction race is another ~160 mile desert race. From what I've seen there's no whoops, it's mainly just two track and dirt trails, actually closer to a rally stage probably. Should be a fun and chill race, see if I can make a few tweaks so I'm not the absolute slowest vehicle out there hahaha
Gumbybronco
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- Member Number
- 4666
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- 235
Haven't done much with the buggy this month. I pulled the body panels and sprayed it off and looked it over and fixed the front brake line, that was about it. Poor thing got wickedly rusty from being towed through endless rain and snow going to Vernal. It's almost tempted me to finally paint it.
I had some friends from up north go to Sand Hollow a couple weeks ago. They just had some Toyotas, but I hadn't taken the buggy out since the race so decided to bring it out for a chill day and get some miles on it.
No one wanted to wheel until the night, so I ended up taking a couple people for a sprint around Sand Hollow. Nothing exciting but I think I got 50 miles or so on it. The only thing that was weird was one or two points the engine got a slight hiccup like it lost fuel pressure. But I had a full tank, and it was so fast I didn't have time to see fuel pressure drop. One person thought maybe it was a vapor lock issue, which is possible but seems unlikely since it wasn't that hot and last year I had it out in a lot hotter weather (albeit not with the big engine).
I need to swap the filler neck, so I'll pull the hydramat and pickup and see if something has disintegrated or is leaking. But otherwise it was fine!
Otherwise we just ended up doing Double Sammy and playing around on some of the offshoots while the Toyota guys slowly made it through.
And that wraps up anything I've done with the buggy!
Today I registered for the next Bonneville Offroad race which is in Grand Junction in a couple weeks. I have a list of higher priority things to do, and then some things to do if I'm not overly lazy. I wouldn't have any issue using it as is right now, the buggy seems happy and working great.
I did just order a 2-turn orbital from Howe to replace my 3-turn. They also recommended increasing my caster to like 7deg which I'm at 4deg right now I think. Otherwise they said there's not much I can do to improve the steering feel. I also bought another Superduty Master cylinder after messing with my other one and figuring out how it worked until it was destroyed, now I know how to get it to plug and play with the iBooster so want to get that installed too. If I can make the braking more firm and the steering faster I think that will help a lot. I have some other minor things I need to do, the spare tire carrier needs to get reinforced since it's starting to crack, I need to unbend the hilift since apparently it ran into a rock and got bent, maybe fix the boost bypass valve, etc.
The Grand Junction race is another ~160 mile desert race. From what I've seen there's no whoops, it's mainly just two track and dirt trails, actually closer to a rally stage probably. Should be a fun and chill race, see if I can make a few tweaks so I'm not the absolute slowest vehicle out there hahaha
Show/explain how to fit the SuperDuty master cylinder with the iBosster when you have a chance.
Thanks
ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
Bebop
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- 1458
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- 4,842
it's in the ibooster thread already
snivilous
Well-known member
Probably because it's a race so tiny he's never heard of it nor would it justify all the effort since he has big races to attend to
Probably because it's a race so tiny he's never heard of it nor would it justify all the effort since he has big races to attend to
Do you need any pit support? I can bring everything to pit for a 4400 car.
I didn’t know they were coming to GJ. I have to work that weekend so I can drive 18 to Sacramento for the stampede 2 weeks later
snivilous
Well-known member
I don't think so, it's about the most low budget operation known to mankind. If there's anything seriously screwed up then we'll just call it. With that said, if you feel like driving the 4 hours from Longmont you are more than welcome to come hang out and I'll accept any help and tools
but don't have the mindset this is some big operation, it's purely for fun and the only reason it's a 4400 is because I like big tires and cool shocks. I'd hate for anyone to come out and the thing breaks a mile in, since I've been on that side of lots of effort and going across the country and it sucks absolute ass.When I was at sand hollow a couple weeks ago, while I was loading up this other guy pulled onto his trailer too and is like "I thought I heard a 4400 out there", I thought it was hilarious since the only thing that would make someone think that was the DUCT TAPED "4401" on the sides
I just like to see how I can stack up and push the buggy, but let's be real, it barely qualifies as a racecar and any racing is purely for fun. There's a race in Wendover in July, and hell I might not even go to that because it sounds hot as fuck hahaha. I'm the guy the big names shit on because I show up to participate 
ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
So you are saying you are a “hobby racer”I don't think so, it's about the most low budget operation known to mankind. If there's anything seriously screwed up then we'll just call it. With that said, if you feel like driving the 4 hours from Longmont you are more than welcome to come hang out and I'll accept any help and tools
When I was at sand hollow a couple weeks ago, while I was loading up this other guy pulled onto his trailer too and is like "I thought I heard a 4400 out there", I thought it was hilarious since the only thing that would make someone think that was the DUCT TAPED "4401" on the sides
85blue4runner
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- Jun 1, 2024
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I have read most of this thread over the last few hours and it certainly reminds me of the early days of PBB. I joined there 20 years ago and joined here today. Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly document the various projects you have going. It's nice to see quality, well-organised images and good English instead of U R gunna Luv 'dis, type of shit, or reposts of facey-gram crap.
snivilous
Well-known member
Part 1:
Buggy has been under the knife the past week or two, the goal to improve the brake and steering feel/handling.
Steering, easy. I got a 2-turn orbital from Howe. And holy fuck this thing costs its weight in gold. $1200 for this fucker!
I was expecting like $800 since that's what my 3-turn orbital (also from Howe) cost, but I guess that was a couple years ago and inflation made the price go up 50%? Or quicker turn somehow inherently costs more, which seems doubtful. The upside is I didn't have to change anything in my steering system which is great, I figured they were going to say the pump needed to be upgraded to flow more.
With that out of the way, onto the brakes which is the real meat and potatoes of the work I did. First some pictures of my "current" (well now previous) setup:
The plan was to modify this setup so I could try a Superduty master cylinder. I outlined that process specifics in the iBooster thread. To recap though, I wanted more pedal feel. The car master worked great, but since it was so small (7/8" I think?) it was just really squishy the whole time. It was so squishy you would think the brakes didn't work and needed to be badly bled, but it would lock up the tires easily---too easily. It was disconcerting how the feel was, and when someone pointed out the Superduty master was a "plug and play" option I figured it was worth a shot to try it.
I ended up buying two masters, the first one I dissected to figure out what I could and couldn't do to adapt it, and the second one I bought since I fucked up the first one while learning about it. The Superduty master requires a 3/8" spacer, which in my first attempt looked something like this:
This setup though is 3+ inches longer than the car master, and I was already tight on leg room so there was no way to make my previous brake mounting setup work. Out came the plasma and grinder and I cut the brake mount off (again). The plan was to flip the whole brake setup 180 so it extended towards the nose of the buggy. This got me two things, a lot more room for my left knee, and enough space that I could try a whole variety of brake setups in the future without having to cut anything off. I started off making a plate to weld to the chassis.
You'll notice I have two mounting patterns. My goal was to make this fairly modular, so again I wouldn't have to cut stuff off. The car master is parallel to everything else, the Superduty master at first blush is ~13deg clocked off for its bolt pattern---so I put two bolt patterns in the mounting plate so I can flip back and forth between masters easily. And spoilers, I didn't use either of these mounting patterns and drilled a third into it!
Chassis cleaned up and new mounting plate on.
And initial test fitting of the new setup.
The Superduty master is absolutely huge, and if you use the stock mounting points on the booster you end up with only one orientation that works since the rearward banjo fitting would run into the big plug on the motor, which is why in the above you can see the motor hanging down. With the master and booster mounted, next was to figure out the pedals since now the booster pushrod needed to go the opposite direction. I had an idea what I wanted to do, but this seemed like a good time to get out the computer and scan it so I could get everything dialed in CAD first.
And that resulted in this contraption:
Buggy has been under the knife the past week or two, the goal to improve the brake and steering feel/handling.
Steering, easy. I got a 2-turn orbital from Howe. And holy fuck this thing costs its weight in gold. $1200 for this fucker!
I was expecting like $800 since that's what my 3-turn orbital (also from Howe) cost, but I guess that was a couple years ago and inflation made the price go up 50%? Or quicker turn somehow inherently costs more, which seems doubtful. The upside is I didn't have to change anything in my steering system which is great, I figured they were going to say the pump needed to be upgraded to flow more.
With that out of the way, onto the brakes which is the real meat and potatoes of the work I did. First some pictures of my "current" (well now previous) setup:
The plan was to modify this setup so I could try a Superduty master cylinder. I outlined that process specifics in the iBooster thread. To recap though, I wanted more pedal feel. The car master worked great, but since it was so small (7/8" I think?) it was just really squishy the whole time. It was so squishy you would think the brakes didn't work and needed to be badly bled, but it would lock up the tires easily---too easily. It was disconcerting how the feel was, and when someone pointed out the Superduty master was a "plug and play" option I figured it was worth a shot to try it.
I ended up buying two masters, the first one I dissected to figure out what I could and couldn't do to adapt it, and the second one I bought since I fucked up the first one while learning about it. The Superduty master requires a 3/8" spacer, which in my first attempt looked something like this:
This setup though is 3+ inches longer than the car master, and I was already tight on leg room so there was no way to make my previous brake mounting setup work. Out came the plasma and grinder and I cut the brake mount off (again). The plan was to flip the whole brake setup 180 so it extended towards the nose of the buggy. This got me two things, a lot more room for my left knee, and enough space that I could try a whole variety of brake setups in the future without having to cut anything off. I started off making a plate to weld to the chassis.
You'll notice I have two mounting patterns. My goal was to make this fairly modular, so again I wouldn't have to cut stuff off. The car master is parallel to everything else, the Superduty master at first blush is ~13deg clocked off for its bolt pattern---so I put two bolt patterns in the mounting plate so I can flip back and forth between masters easily. And spoilers, I didn't use either of these mounting patterns and drilled a third into it!
Chassis cleaned up and new mounting plate on.
And initial test fitting of the new setup.
The Superduty master is absolutely huge, and if you use the stock mounting points on the booster you end up with only one orientation that works since the rearward banjo fitting would run into the big plug on the motor, which is why in the above you can see the motor hanging down. With the master and booster mounted, next was to figure out the pedals since now the booster pushrod needed to go the opposite direction. I had an idea what I wanted to do, but this seemed like a good time to get out the computer and scan it so I could get everything dialed in CAD first.
And that resulted in this contraption:
snivilous
Well-known member
Part 2:
Which is this in a more clear view:
I have two brackets coming off the chassis with three holes, a weird pedal looking thing, and then the booster pushrod interface which also has holes spaced vertically the same as the chassis brackets, plus front to back holes. All the vertical hole spacing would let me change the motion ratio of the pedals, and then I threw on the front-back mounting holes that interface the pushrod so I can adjust the pedal position. In reality that ends up looking like this:
And since I had the right size combination of tubing laying around, I added another feature by having a piece of 1.5" stub coming off the pivot assembly, and that just has a hole in it. A 1.25" piece of tube (which I have a lot of, and have a die to bend) slides into that, and then a single bolt holds the pedal on. This makes it so you can further easily adjust the height/rotation of the pedal without making a new one, and you can make an entirely new pedal without redoing anything else. In this case, I have a simple bent bar going down which hugs the left side body work, and then a stub for a foot pedal that comes over. This way my foot never runs into part of the pedal that's "above" my foot.
Oh and you can also see at this point I've now rotated the booster 180deg because the motor hung down so far my foot barely fit under it to reach the pedal.
Additionally, the pivot assembly spins on a 1/2" bolt, so a lot more stiff than my previous pedal setup. I have a 1.25" tube that is the pivot tube, and I machined some delrin bushings that slide into the end. That coupled with the little "Push to Brake" plate and it's really stiff and spins easily.
As mentioned above, the master is forced to one position if you use the factory mounting holes, and as just shown I had flipped the booster 180deg to get the motor up, so that wasn't gonna work. What I settled on was rotating the booster so the motor was about horizontal with the booster body, this way the master would clear the motor plug and the motor would be away from my left foot.
This required changing how I was mounting the booster since the bolt holes for the master and booster studs were no longer concentric. I made another 3/8" spacer and welded some nuts into it, I then took my first master body (the one that had the guts get fucked up) which still had the factory mounting holes (because the second master had the mounting holes drilled out) and used the first ones body with the guts from the second one to make this contraption!
Following? Good. Point being, it worked out having two masters since I could try concepts and then flip back around. But at the end of the day, this setup uses a 100% unmolested master. That 3/8" plate clocks the master to the right spot, and the master then clears everything.
And from a side view to get your bearings, it looks like this:
Which works out great! The booster is about the same spot it was originally, the master has room which means any smaller master if I want to try other ones will fit for sure, and the brake pedal gives my foot tons of room since it's like a one sided swing arm.
I might make a new reservoir, but the stock one is fucking huge and actually tucks in pretty nice so I think it'll be fine. I could also tie the fluid level into my Holley dash which would be cool.
There was a lot more shit as always, but that's the highlights there.
In regards to the steering, something Howe said was to run a lot of caster and that might help the feel and should backdrive the steering wheel a bit so it wants to center itself. Howe said to do like 8deg of caster. I checked my CAD model and another benefit of the knuckles I learned was the steering arm is exactly 90deg from the kingpin axis! So all I have to do to check caster is put a level on the steering arm!
I overshot the 8deg a bit, but I was at 3deg to start with. We'll see how that does.
And after bleeding the brakes, bleeding the steering, fucking with some stuff, it was time to run the loop again!
And my god, it is so much better in every way!
Starting with the brakes, they have a lot more feel to them. This is running at 4:1 pedal ratio roughly. There is a wall at ~70% of motion, which seems a bit odd, the force really climbs up at that point but that's also around the point the tires want to lockup so it's actually kind of nice since you don't just slam through the pedal and lock the tires up like the smaller master did. With that said, it's quite a force jump up and I'm worried that crawling it will be tiring if I need to use that level of brake pressure. But as for going fast, the pedal feel was really nice and felt like I had more fidelity and confidence in the brakes because of that. I also know at the wall there's still quite a bit of stroke left, so I can apply a ton of brake pressure if I really need to. The swing arm brake pedal works really well too. I was going to make more of a pad to press on, but after playing with it in the shop I left it as the straight bar and it's actually pretty comfortable. I can push my foot to the outside and rest it against the swing arm so it's kind of locked in too. I was thinking I might make a tab on the other end of the tube so my foot doesn't slide off it to the right. The brakes are awesome, and the confidence in the feel and not being able to easily blow through the pressure and lock the tires up is really nice.
The steering is absolutely amazing! It made a bigger difference than the brakes for sure. I only have to move the wheel maybe a quarter turn for most stuff, which is just what I wanted. The steering isn't even twitchy really, it seems like there's a relatively low motion zone (that quarter turn) and after that you get a ton of motion, it's like the amount of steering ramps up. It probably did this before and it's just how steering is, but it's very noticeable now. But it works out great, because you aren't getting this insane steering motion right away, like the brakes it seems like there's a wall where you're working inside the friendly zone and if you go beyond that a lot of shit happens, and you don't want to be there normally so it works out great. I feel like I didn't notice the steering wheel drifting as much either, my theory is that since the steering is so much faster that the drift of the wheel gets ignored since the wheel is moving so much. You're doing a lot of small inputs constantly, versus the three turn just was slow and lazy so it was noticeable when you had to spin the wheel a full revolution and it didn't line up, where as now you're spinning it only a half revolution so that difference from center is a lot smaller amount now. It was just great, I could flick it around easily, drift through corners in confidence, let the back end rotate, it was awesome! Though I feel like the low rpm force required has gone up too. I think I'm gonna mess with the engine tune and get it to downshift earlier to keep the rpm up so the pump doesn't run out of oomphf, since smashing the brakes and cranking the wheel is still an utter bitch as the pump loses rpm.
But overall, two massive improvements. The whole thing feels so much more nimble and I have so much more confidence in it. I took it up to 90mph on the highway which I haven't done in a long time since it used to feel so sketchy going fast. It still moves around from the steering at speed, but since you're constantly doing these little corrections it just feels more in control. And the brakes are huge, I have a ton of adjustment, they feel great, I can try other setups, it was a lot of work but I'm really happy with it. I was absolutely hauling faster than I have before, and the buggy felt totally happy and in control like never before!
Which is this in a more clear view:
I have two brackets coming off the chassis with three holes, a weird pedal looking thing, and then the booster pushrod interface which also has holes spaced vertically the same as the chassis brackets, plus front to back holes. All the vertical hole spacing would let me change the motion ratio of the pedals, and then I threw on the front-back mounting holes that interface the pushrod so I can adjust the pedal position. In reality that ends up looking like this:
And since I had the right size combination of tubing laying around, I added another feature by having a piece of 1.5" stub coming off the pivot assembly, and that just has a hole in it. A 1.25" piece of tube (which I have a lot of, and have a die to bend) slides into that, and then a single bolt holds the pedal on. This makes it so you can further easily adjust the height/rotation of the pedal without making a new one, and you can make an entirely new pedal without redoing anything else. In this case, I have a simple bent bar going down which hugs the left side body work, and then a stub for a foot pedal that comes over. This way my foot never runs into part of the pedal that's "above" my foot.
Oh and you can also see at this point I've now rotated the booster 180deg because the motor hung down so far my foot barely fit under it to reach the pedal.
Additionally, the pivot assembly spins on a 1/2" bolt, so a lot more stiff than my previous pedal setup. I have a 1.25" tube that is the pivot tube, and I machined some delrin bushings that slide into the end. That coupled with the little "Push to Brake" plate and it's really stiff and spins easily.
As mentioned above, the master is forced to one position if you use the factory mounting holes, and as just shown I had flipped the booster 180deg to get the motor up, so that wasn't gonna work. What I settled on was rotating the booster so the motor was about horizontal with the booster body, this way the master would clear the motor plug and the motor would be away from my left foot.
This required changing how I was mounting the booster since the bolt holes for the master and booster studs were no longer concentric. I made another 3/8" spacer and welded some nuts into it, I then took my first master body (the one that had the guts get fucked up) which still had the factory mounting holes (because the second master had the mounting holes drilled out) and used the first ones body with the guts from the second one to make this contraption!
Following? Good. Point being, it worked out having two masters since I could try concepts and then flip back around. But at the end of the day, this setup uses a 100% unmolested master. That 3/8" plate clocks the master to the right spot, and the master then clears everything.
And from a side view to get your bearings, it looks like this:
Which works out great! The booster is about the same spot it was originally, the master has room which means any smaller master if I want to try other ones will fit for sure, and the brake pedal gives my foot tons of room since it's like a one sided swing arm.
I might make a new reservoir, but the stock one is fucking huge and actually tucks in pretty nice so I think it'll be fine. I could also tie the fluid level into my Holley dash which would be cool.
There was a lot more shit as always, but that's the highlights there.
In regards to the steering, something Howe said was to run a lot of caster and that might help the feel and should backdrive the steering wheel a bit so it wants to center itself. Howe said to do like 8deg of caster. I checked my CAD model and another benefit of the knuckles I learned was the steering arm is exactly 90deg from the kingpin axis! So all I have to do to check caster is put a level on the steering arm!
I overshot the 8deg a bit, but I was at 3deg to start with. We'll see how that does.
And after bleeding the brakes, bleeding the steering, fucking with some stuff, it was time to run the loop again!
And my god, it is so much better in every way!
Starting with the brakes, they have a lot more feel to them. This is running at 4:1 pedal ratio roughly. There is a wall at ~70% of motion, which seems a bit odd, the force really climbs up at that point but that's also around the point the tires want to lockup so it's actually kind of nice since you don't just slam through the pedal and lock the tires up like the smaller master did. With that said, it's quite a force jump up and I'm worried that crawling it will be tiring if I need to use that level of brake pressure. But as for going fast, the pedal feel was really nice and felt like I had more fidelity and confidence in the brakes because of that. I also know at the wall there's still quite a bit of stroke left, so I can apply a ton of brake pressure if I really need to. The swing arm brake pedal works really well too. I was going to make more of a pad to press on, but after playing with it in the shop I left it as the straight bar and it's actually pretty comfortable. I can push my foot to the outside and rest it against the swing arm so it's kind of locked in too. I was thinking I might make a tab on the other end of the tube so my foot doesn't slide off it to the right. The brakes are awesome, and the confidence in the feel and not being able to easily blow through the pressure and lock the tires up is really nice.
The steering is absolutely amazing! It made a bigger difference than the brakes for sure. I only have to move the wheel maybe a quarter turn for most stuff, which is just what I wanted. The steering isn't even twitchy really, it seems like there's a relatively low motion zone (that quarter turn) and after that you get a ton of motion, it's like the amount of steering ramps up. It probably did this before and it's just how steering is, but it's very noticeable now. But it works out great, because you aren't getting this insane steering motion right away, like the brakes it seems like there's a wall where you're working inside the friendly zone and if you go beyond that a lot of shit happens, and you don't want to be there normally so it works out great. I feel like I didn't notice the steering wheel drifting as much either, my theory is that since the steering is so much faster that the drift of the wheel gets ignored since the wheel is moving so much. You're doing a lot of small inputs constantly, versus the three turn just was slow and lazy so it was noticeable when you had to spin the wheel a full revolution and it didn't line up, where as now you're spinning it only a half revolution so that difference from center is a lot smaller amount now. It was just great, I could flick it around easily, drift through corners in confidence, let the back end rotate, it was awesome! Though I feel like the low rpm force required has gone up too. I think I'm gonna mess with the engine tune and get it to downshift earlier to keep the rpm up so the pump doesn't run out of oomphf, since smashing the brakes and cranking the wheel is still an utter bitch as the pump loses rpm.
But overall, two massive improvements. The whole thing feels so much more nimble and I have so much more confidence in it. I took it up to 90mph on the highway which I haven't done in a long time since it used to feel so sketchy going fast. It still moves around from the steering at speed, but since you're constantly doing these little corrections it just feels more in control. And the brakes are huge, I have a ton of adjustment, they feel great, I can try other setups, it was a lot of work but I'm really happy with it. I was absolutely hauling faster than I have before, and the buggy felt totally happy and in control like never before!
snivilous
Well-known member
Part 1:
Back from another race, and the buggy took a massive beat down multiple times. Last race had a minor brake issue and finished, this time made it a collective 10 miles, maybe 12 tops.
Thursday we loaded the buggy and semi following some additional upgrades to the buggy and changing the fluids.
We rolled out Friday morning and got to Grand Junction around 1pm. There ended up being a ton of people by Bonneville Offroad standards, I think the final count was 34 cars racing. There was at least three other Ultra4s, two 4400s and one 4800. Plus a bunch of class 7 pickup truck type vehicles, and a couple 6100 spec trophy trucks. Only a couple UTVs, so a lot of variety and a lot of "heavy" vehicles that had a comparable setup to us which was really cool. We set up camp and unloaded and shortly after the prerun lap started.
The course was 23 miles, and I thought was gonna be a lot of fun. It was mostly dirt trails in typical desert racing fashion, but not a lot of big bumps. There was a ton of tight turns driving up on ridges and back into little valleys and snaking through the hillside. It felt like something where we might not be the slowest vehicle for once and where a lot of suspension wasn't going to dictate how fast you could go, which having a low amount of travel was great for us! It was insanely dusty though, even going 20-30mph. Lots of silty sections, including one hill that some people couldn't make it up during the prerun since it was so steep and so silty. I even started to worry going up the hill as I was waiting for the transmission to kick down and give us the horsepower to power through. There was going to be 8 laps again, so just shy of 200 miles total. After the prerun we grabbed our gear and went through tech.
Quick check of the fluids and I reconfigured the digital dash so it only had a handful of gauges in huge font that could easily be spotted if something was going wrong, but otherwise the buggy was ready to rock!
We ended up starting first because we were the only full size vehicle that also raced at the previous race in Vernal, so we were the "attending points leader" which is hilarious considering we came in last at Vernal and only three people were in our class. But I was fine being up front with how dusty it was going to be. The starting sequence was in 30s intervals one at a time, with the deemed faster vehicles being up front, then UTVs, followed by the sportsman and VW bugs (which a lot showed up, I think there were five bugs racing). Immediately behind us was another 4400, the 4412 who I've never talked to, but it was cool to actually stack up against a fancy Ultra4 for the first time.
We took off, and for the first 5 miles everything was going great! I was driving the buggy faster than I ever have, the new steering upgrades and the brake changes made a huge difference, especially on this course where it was almost continuous tight turns and really slippery. The buggy felt absolutely great, and my codriver was doing awesome calling out the turns and stuff we had marked. And then shortly after race mile 5, went through a corner followed by a G out and something started banging and feeling weird, and my codriver said he felt something hitting him? We jump out, and the welds on the bung for the wishbone in the back had ripped out, and the wishbone had been shoved into the floor/back plate which got shoved into the passenger seat.
It was obvious there was nothing we were going to do, so we got back into the buggy to limp it forward a bit (a bad idea in retrospect). And to add insult to injury, the Ultra4 that had started 30 seconds behind us was just now cresting the hill we had just gone down, so in 5 miles we had gained maybe 30 seconds on him. Of course that doesn't matter since we broke right away, but the silver lining I guess is we were a lot faster than the 4412--which isn't surprising, it's about as tall as a skyscraper.
But I digress... we drove forward a bit to get on top of the ridge in front of us and called in that we would be returning to pits off course. A guy on the radio said if we turned around, he was a few hundred yards behind us and we could get on the road he was parked at and take that back. Up to this point, the wishbone had just been jammed into the seat, so seemed like it wasn't going anywhere. This is obviously a stupid assumption, but at the time we had been racing, it broke, we kept driving, pulled over, drove up a hill, and it hadn't move. So turning around to get to the course worker didn't seem like that big of a deal. We went back down the hill, crossed the course, and started going up the hill to the worker and then the rear end decided it didn't want to get shoved forward and now the wishbone had gotten yanked backwards as the axle tried to rotate back. The rear driveshaft separated, which then broke the retaining plates off the U-joint caps on the axle. Soon after this, a recovery buggy came over to give us a pull up the hill which that combined with front dig we were able to make it up. But in that process, the rear axle shifted over, and the passenger rear tire got sliced open by the bump stop can. We had now quickly gone from a heim that ripped out and sucked but everything else was fine, to now the rear driveshaft is fucked up, and we've blown a tire.
Back from another race, and the buggy took a massive beat down multiple times. Last race had a minor brake issue and finished, this time made it a collective 10 miles, maybe 12 tops.
Thursday we loaded the buggy and semi following some additional upgrades to the buggy and changing the fluids.
We rolled out Friday morning and got to Grand Junction around 1pm. There ended up being a ton of people by Bonneville Offroad standards, I think the final count was 34 cars racing. There was at least three other Ultra4s, two 4400s and one 4800. Plus a bunch of class 7 pickup truck type vehicles, and a couple 6100 spec trophy trucks. Only a couple UTVs, so a lot of variety and a lot of "heavy" vehicles that had a comparable setup to us which was really cool. We set up camp and unloaded and shortly after the prerun lap started.
The course was 23 miles, and I thought was gonna be a lot of fun. It was mostly dirt trails in typical desert racing fashion, but not a lot of big bumps. There was a ton of tight turns driving up on ridges and back into little valleys and snaking through the hillside. It felt like something where we might not be the slowest vehicle for once and where a lot of suspension wasn't going to dictate how fast you could go, which having a low amount of travel was great for us! It was insanely dusty though, even going 20-30mph. Lots of silty sections, including one hill that some people couldn't make it up during the prerun since it was so steep and so silty. I even started to worry going up the hill as I was waiting for the transmission to kick down and give us the horsepower to power through. There was going to be 8 laps again, so just shy of 200 miles total. After the prerun we grabbed our gear and went through tech.
Quick check of the fluids and I reconfigured the digital dash so it only had a handful of gauges in huge font that could easily be spotted if something was going wrong, but otherwise the buggy was ready to rock!
We ended up starting first because we were the only full size vehicle that also raced at the previous race in Vernal, so we were the "attending points leader" which is hilarious considering we came in last at Vernal and only three people were in our class. But I was fine being up front with how dusty it was going to be. The starting sequence was in 30s intervals one at a time, with the deemed faster vehicles being up front, then UTVs, followed by the sportsman and VW bugs (which a lot showed up, I think there were five bugs racing). Immediately behind us was another 4400, the 4412 who I've never talked to, but it was cool to actually stack up against a fancy Ultra4 for the first time.
We took off, and for the first 5 miles everything was going great! I was driving the buggy faster than I ever have, the new steering upgrades and the brake changes made a huge difference, especially on this course where it was almost continuous tight turns and really slippery. The buggy felt absolutely great, and my codriver was doing awesome calling out the turns and stuff we had marked. And then shortly after race mile 5, went through a corner followed by a G out and something started banging and feeling weird, and my codriver said he felt something hitting him? We jump out, and the welds on the bung for the wishbone in the back had ripped out, and the wishbone had been shoved into the floor/back plate which got shoved into the passenger seat.
It was obvious there was nothing we were going to do, so we got back into the buggy to limp it forward a bit (a bad idea in retrospect). And to add insult to injury, the Ultra4 that had started 30 seconds behind us was just now cresting the hill we had just gone down, so in 5 miles we had gained maybe 30 seconds on him. Of course that doesn't matter since we broke right away, but the silver lining I guess is we were a lot faster than the 4412--which isn't surprising, it's about as tall as a skyscraper.
But I digress... we drove forward a bit to get on top of the ridge in front of us and called in that we would be returning to pits off course. A guy on the radio said if we turned around, he was a few hundred yards behind us and we could get on the road he was parked at and take that back. Up to this point, the wishbone had just been jammed into the seat, so seemed like it wasn't going anywhere. This is obviously a stupid assumption, but at the time we had been racing, it broke, we kept driving, pulled over, drove up a hill, and it hadn't move. So turning around to get to the course worker didn't seem like that big of a deal. We went back down the hill, crossed the course, and started going up the hill to the worker and then the rear end decided it didn't want to get shoved forward and now the wishbone had gotten yanked backwards as the axle tried to rotate back. The rear driveshaft separated, which then broke the retaining plates off the U-joint caps on the axle. Soon after this, a recovery buggy came over to give us a pull up the hill which that combined with front dig we were able to make it up. But in that process, the rear axle shifted over, and the passenger rear tire got sliced open by the bump stop can. We had now quickly gone from a heim that ripped out and sucked but everything else was fine, to now the rear driveshaft is fucked up, and we've blown a tire.
snivilous
Well-known member
Part 2:
Once the recovery buggy got us onto level ground, we wrapped the winch down and under the chassis to pull the wishbone forward to at least keep it shoved forward the whole time (should've started with this right when we pulled off the course initially, but hindsight is 20/20). Though being retarded, we did this with the buggy turned off since it's so loud with it on that it makes it a bitch to talk to people. Well this killed the battery (a repeated theme with the buggy), to a horrible spot where we could get fuel pressure or crank the engine, not both. At this point the course worker we were trying to make it to was able to come over with jumper cables and rescue us, and he had a floor jack that we were able to use to change the tire. Luckily the spare tire we had, which doesn't hold 25psi of air, but seems to leak down to like 5psi, was able to be used and actually had 5psi so wasn't totally useless! On the plus side, I had prepared for the buggy having a flat--hoping that'd stop that from ever happening since we only have the one spare tire--so we had everything to change it, though granted I learned a lot from attempting to do that in "short order" about how the whole jack/spare tire setup can be vastly improved, and positioning of tools, mounting of the spare, etc.
Finally moving on from this cluster fuck, we're on the road again. We have front dig, so we leave the rear driveshaft flopping around and drive back to the pit in front dig. Our pit crew (one friend, our wives, and my parents) knew what was up, and had found some guys with a welding truck --- from some place called RMB4x4.com that's out of La Sal or Moab? Awesome dudes --- and when we pulled into the pits these two dudes went to fucking down putting in work. The first order of business was to pull the heim and bung out and shove it back into the wishbone, and weld that together. That was a cluster fuck of using their winch and ratchet straps to move the wishbone around. The wishbone in concept works fine, but fuck, from an ease of working on things it is a bitch since you have two frame side mounts that have to be perfectly spaced to slide into the chassis, it's not like a normal suspension link where it can be any length and slide in and then adjust it afterwards. And since the dimensions had gotten all fucked up, we had to pull both sides, slide the broken side in, weld it, adjust the other side like four times until it lined up---and every time you adjust it you have to pull the heim out of the bracket, adjust it slightly, slide the whole thing back in, etc. and since it's still hooked up to the rear axle it's not like you're doing this by hand, we're using the winch and a ratchet strap and people shoving the chassis around to massage the heim front to back to slide it into the bracket---point being, it's a pain in the ass if it breaks!
I didn't get much chance to look at the bung, I had not plug welded it, not sure how much difference that would've made but I certainly will now. The welds all looked "fine", it's not like they were rusty or anything. Our theory is it broke due to how hard we went into the corner, as opposed to just reacting the torque/braking loads but who knows.
Moving on, once that was fixed now the issue was the U-joint straps. One of the bolts had gotten ripped in half and was stuck deep in the yoke, so the only solution was to weld straps over the U-joint. The driveshaft itself was fine, so these two dudes went to town on it welding it together. Absolutely bad asses.
Oh and of course we use the winch to move the wishbone around, so after all of this we go to start the buggy and it's fucking dead again. Needless to say dual batteries and a larger alternator are high on the list of upgrades.
But at this point now, we've jump boxed the buggy (and thrown one in it), the driveshaft is welded on, the floor/rear seat panels are pounded back (the seat frame got completely bent when the panel ran into, which is why my codriver felt it, so we had to hammer the seat back into a seat shape), and the wishbone is welded back together, and the tire we swapped on that leaks I aired up to a random pressure---we're ready to go again baby!
Just take it nice and slow, let's just get a couple laps in.
We take off, and within two miles we've caught up a UTV we didn't even know had been in front of us and pass him. That's the first pass in actual racing (not just someone broken or pulled over) that the buggy has ever done! The steering can't be over stated how much faster and more confident it is to drive the buggy, and this course is perfect, there are spots that are so silty now it literally feels like being on ice just sliding through the corner, and before that would be scary not being able to react with how slow the steering was, but now we can drift through everything and it's doing great. Reach mile three, caught up to another UTV and pass him also. And I don't even think we're pushing it that much, my biggest worry is the rear driveshaft coming apart so I'm being gentle on the throttle and brakes to try and avoid ripping the U-joint straps that are vaguely stick welded on the yoke. Those two people we passed, maybe they're just the slowest ever, but once again I'm fucking stoked at how seemingly fast the buggy is against actual real racecars.
And holy shit we've made it past where we broke last time! Here we go baby!
100 yards later.... and we're fucking breaking again.
Something is making a thumping noise, I'm wondering if the front carrier bearing has gotten loose maybe? And my codriver says something up front is spraying fluid, well fuck. Pull over. And first order is the spraying is coming from the power steering pump feed hose that goes to the reservoir, well that's definitely bad since we have full hydraulic steering so no fluid means no steering at all. Oh and the steering pump pulley is eating itself on the chassis? Well that's really weird, they sit really close but why is it hitting? Engine mount broke maybe? If only!
The chassis had completely sheared the tubes between the shock/bump stops and the engine mount. In the photos there's a tube going "up", that runs up to the shock tower and is the primary load path for the shocks. Additionally, if you go forward the next node is the bump stops, and a couple inches behind that break is where the engine mounts are.
Well fuck, I don't plan on welding that back together in the field. Plus we still have the power steering issues, which are all a byproduct of the steering reservoir being mounted to the chassis and the pump being on the engine so they're now on separate islands effectively, and the hose connecting them is super short so seems to have gotten kinked and split essentially. The power steering pulley is obviously eating the chassis since the chassis just shifted up and ran into it.
Once again, the winch is here to save the day! We run the winch around a bump stop to clear the engine and then down to the lower link mounts on the chassis and suck it in (this time with the engine running, I'm learning!) which pulls the entire front end down to a "normal" spot so we can limp back home again. Call in, tell them what happened, tell race ops we're retiring and fucked but ironically can still drive just fine! Drive back to the pits and straight onto the trailer. I'm sure everyone in the pits thought we were retarded, always entering from behind everyone and not from the course direction. But that whole drive back, still a slow rhythmic thump, not the kind of banging you'd expect from two chassis tubes railing each other...
Load up, talk to some people, thank the RMB 4x4 guys (hopefully they find the money I hid in their truck and thank you note). And we rolled out, stopping to get Chinese food as is tradition now after a race. All in all, we were in Grand Junction for less than 24 hours!
My initial plan right now is to fully tear the buggy down, reinforce everything, sand blast and finally paint it, fix some things like my four speed trans that only has three speeds, improve the accessory brackets on the engine, build a good spare tire carrier that's integrated to the chassis, etc. So first order of business for that is to clean it up since there's power steering fluid all over the place. Quick strip on the trailer to take it to the car wash.
And then let's check the front diff, lets see just how fucked it is.
Oh she's very fucked. Pinion is pretty roughed up too to add a cherry on top. I was really hoping the extra ring gear I had laying around from that time I seized the pinion on the first attempt to gear an axle could be used here, but nope both gears are fucked.
Once the recovery buggy got us onto level ground, we wrapped the winch down and under the chassis to pull the wishbone forward to at least keep it shoved forward the whole time (should've started with this right when we pulled off the course initially, but hindsight is 20/20). Though being retarded, we did this with the buggy turned off since it's so loud with it on that it makes it a bitch to talk to people. Well this killed the battery (a repeated theme with the buggy), to a horrible spot where we could get fuel pressure or crank the engine, not both. At this point the course worker we were trying to make it to was able to come over with jumper cables and rescue us, and he had a floor jack that we were able to use to change the tire. Luckily the spare tire we had, which doesn't hold 25psi of air, but seems to leak down to like 5psi, was able to be used and actually had 5psi so wasn't totally useless! On the plus side, I had prepared for the buggy having a flat--hoping that'd stop that from ever happening since we only have the one spare tire--so we had everything to change it, though granted I learned a lot from attempting to do that in "short order" about how the whole jack/spare tire setup can be vastly improved, and positioning of tools, mounting of the spare, etc.
Finally moving on from this cluster fuck, we're on the road again. We have front dig, so we leave the rear driveshaft flopping around and drive back to the pit in front dig. Our pit crew (one friend, our wives, and my parents) knew what was up, and had found some guys with a welding truck --- from some place called RMB4x4.com that's out of La Sal or Moab? Awesome dudes --- and when we pulled into the pits these two dudes went to fucking down putting in work. The first order of business was to pull the heim and bung out and shove it back into the wishbone, and weld that together. That was a cluster fuck of using their winch and ratchet straps to move the wishbone around. The wishbone in concept works fine, but fuck, from an ease of working on things it is a bitch since you have two frame side mounts that have to be perfectly spaced to slide into the chassis, it's not like a normal suspension link where it can be any length and slide in and then adjust it afterwards. And since the dimensions had gotten all fucked up, we had to pull both sides, slide the broken side in, weld it, adjust the other side like four times until it lined up---and every time you adjust it you have to pull the heim out of the bracket, adjust it slightly, slide the whole thing back in, etc. and since it's still hooked up to the rear axle it's not like you're doing this by hand, we're using the winch and a ratchet strap and people shoving the chassis around to massage the heim front to back to slide it into the bracket---point being, it's a pain in the ass if it breaks!
I didn't get much chance to look at the bung, I had not plug welded it, not sure how much difference that would've made but I certainly will now. The welds all looked "fine", it's not like they were rusty or anything. Our theory is it broke due to how hard we went into the corner, as opposed to just reacting the torque/braking loads but who knows.
Moving on, once that was fixed now the issue was the U-joint straps. One of the bolts had gotten ripped in half and was stuck deep in the yoke, so the only solution was to weld straps over the U-joint. The driveshaft itself was fine, so these two dudes went to town on it welding it together. Absolutely bad asses.
Oh and of course we use the winch to move the wishbone around, so after all of this we go to start the buggy and it's fucking dead again. Needless to say dual batteries and a larger alternator are high on the list of upgrades.
But at this point now, we've jump boxed the buggy (and thrown one in it), the driveshaft is welded on, the floor/rear seat panels are pounded back (the seat frame got completely bent when the panel ran into, which is why my codriver felt it, so we had to hammer the seat back into a seat shape), and the wishbone is welded back together, and the tire we swapped on that leaks I aired up to a random pressure---we're ready to go again baby!
Just take it nice and slow, let's just get a couple laps in.
We take off, and within two miles we've caught up a UTV we didn't even know had been in front of us and pass him. That's the first pass in actual racing (not just someone broken or pulled over) that the buggy has ever done! The steering can't be over stated how much faster and more confident it is to drive the buggy, and this course is perfect, there are spots that are so silty now it literally feels like being on ice just sliding through the corner, and before that would be scary not being able to react with how slow the steering was, but now we can drift through everything and it's doing great. Reach mile three, caught up to another UTV and pass him also. And I don't even think we're pushing it that much, my biggest worry is the rear driveshaft coming apart so I'm being gentle on the throttle and brakes to try and avoid ripping the U-joint straps that are vaguely stick welded on the yoke. Those two people we passed, maybe they're just the slowest ever, but once again I'm fucking stoked at how seemingly fast the buggy is against actual real racecars.
And holy shit we've made it past where we broke last time! Here we go baby!
100 yards later.... and we're fucking breaking again.
Something is making a thumping noise, I'm wondering if the front carrier bearing has gotten loose maybe? And my codriver says something up front is spraying fluid, well fuck. Pull over. And first order is the spraying is coming from the power steering pump feed hose that goes to the reservoir, well that's definitely bad since we have full hydraulic steering so no fluid means no steering at all. Oh and the steering pump pulley is eating itself on the chassis? Well that's really weird, they sit really close but why is it hitting? Engine mount broke maybe? If only!
The chassis had completely sheared the tubes between the shock/bump stops and the engine mount. In the photos there's a tube going "up", that runs up to the shock tower and is the primary load path for the shocks. Additionally, if you go forward the next node is the bump stops, and a couple inches behind that break is where the engine mounts are.
Well fuck, I don't plan on welding that back together in the field. Plus we still have the power steering issues, which are all a byproduct of the steering reservoir being mounted to the chassis and the pump being on the engine so they're now on separate islands effectively, and the hose connecting them is super short so seems to have gotten kinked and split essentially. The power steering pulley is obviously eating the chassis since the chassis just shifted up and ran into it.
Once again, the winch is here to save the day! We run the winch around a bump stop to clear the engine and then down to the lower link mounts on the chassis and suck it in (this time with the engine running, I'm learning!) which pulls the entire front end down to a "normal" spot so we can limp back home again. Call in, tell them what happened, tell race ops we're retiring and fucked but ironically can still drive just fine! Drive back to the pits and straight onto the trailer. I'm sure everyone in the pits thought we were retarded, always entering from behind everyone and not from the course direction. But that whole drive back, still a slow rhythmic thump, not the kind of banging you'd expect from two chassis tubes railing each other...
Load up, talk to some people, thank the RMB 4x4 guys (hopefully they find the money I hid in their truck and thank you note). And we rolled out, stopping to get Chinese food as is tradition now after a race. All in all, we were in Grand Junction for less than 24 hours!
My initial plan right now is to fully tear the buggy down, reinforce everything, sand blast and finally paint it, fix some things like my four speed trans that only has three speeds, improve the accessory brackets on the engine, build a good spare tire carrier that's integrated to the chassis, etc. So first order of business for that is to clean it up since there's power steering fluid all over the place. Quick strip on the trailer to take it to the car wash.
And then let's check the front diff, lets see just how fucked it is.
Oh she's very fucked. Pinion is pretty roughed up too to add a cherry on top. I was really hoping the extra ring gear I had laying around from that time I seized the pinion on the first attempt to gear an axle could be used here, but nope both gears are fucked.
snivilous
Well-known member
Part 3:
And another fun easter egg on the chassis, this tube chose violence after it and three other tubes attempted to hold the front end on after the tubes near the engine mounts sheared.
On a happy note, here's a picture of my new water mounting setup, they worked great and are on fire extinguisher releases so can be hot swapped. No more fucking with camel backs or insanely overpriced "race specific" water solutions, this whole setup was like $50.
And that leaves us with when I came back inside an hour ago. My plan is still the same, I figured the front gears were toast and those are pretty cheap so not a big deal. Though I'm not sure what broke them, maybe just the same big shock loads that broke everything else. We hit some whoops pretty hard, but I wouldn't say it was the hardest hit we've done, but going faster and taking big hits just finally did everything in I think. The front chassis I knew was weak, and had been wanting to brace it up for a long time. I was actually going to before hammers but then got into the rush to get it going to take to KOH and didn't get around to bracing the front. I will tear the whole thing down, I've torn it all the way down in a day before, and had it back together from a bare chassis in three days. So full rebuild doesn't scare me, although I don't plan to go that fast. I want to take it apart, reinforce the fuck out of the front end, truss the front end since it's a shitty trapezoid shape which is the entire issue. Take the front axle apart, inspect the knuckles, do the axle seals and regear it. The transmission I want to fix now if I have it out. I have two 4L80s that are fucked up, either send those out, combine them, buy a new one, I don't know.
The engine is totally fine, absolutely beast. Though I do want to fix my accessory brackets, they've been fine lately but had issues before. I'm thinking of designing some nice billet ones to get machined. Also fix the boost bypass valve, and I'm thinking of throwing a stand alone intercooler in the back with some fans on it so the current cooler that doubles as the power steering cooler can be specific for cooling the hydraulic fluid for the steering. As said above, I want to delete the rear tire carrier that unbolts and just weld a dedicated tail on the back for the spare, and none of that shit where it bolts down, just some straps to keep it simple and fast. Also make the hilift on quick releases instead of bolting down. And then finally I want to sand blast and paint the chassis, and the axles. The chassis got so gross after the rain storm for the previous race, and I've kind of gotten to a point where I'm not doing big fabrication jobs on the chassis and starting to hone in on a final configuration. Of course do that after gusseting the shit out of everything and adding more tubes.
As usual I have the debate of if it's time to build a new chassis. But I'm continuing to learn a ton on this, so it'd be premature to spend that much time and effort and then maybe screw things up that I could learn and experiment with on here. I think the best course of action is to fix and keep this configuration of the buggy, which I do like a lot and is really getting to a good point, and once I think I've learned everything I can from it and actually know what upgrades and improvements a new chassis would give me, then maybe I'll think of building a new chassis and swapping the parts over. But for now, tear her down, do some improvements and bring it back better than before! There's another race in July, I'd be surprised if I make that one, but there's two others with BOR later this year so might make those. And it's hot as balls out right now, so I won't be losing much wheeling by tearing into it in the middle of summer.
I do find it kind of hilarious that the most catastrophic failures I've had, and the buggy still drove all the way back and onto the trailer. Huge breaks, but there's a lot worse ways to break! Thanks for reading.
And another fun easter egg on the chassis, this tube chose violence after it and three other tubes attempted to hold the front end on after the tubes near the engine mounts sheared.
On a happy note, here's a picture of my new water mounting setup, they worked great and are on fire extinguisher releases so can be hot swapped. No more fucking with camel backs or insanely overpriced "race specific" water solutions, this whole setup was like $50.
And that leaves us with when I came back inside an hour ago. My plan is still the same, I figured the front gears were toast and those are pretty cheap so not a big deal. Though I'm not sure what broke them, maybe just the same big shock loads that broke everything else. We hit some whoops pretty hard, but I wouldn't say it was the hardest hit we've done, but going faster and taking big hits just finally did everything in I think. The front chassis I knew was weak, and had been wanting to brace it up for a long time. I was actually going to before hammers but then got into the rush to get it going to take to KOH and didn't get around to bracing the front. I will tear the whole thing down, I've torn it all the way down in a day before, and had it back together from a bare chassis in three days. So full rebuild doesn't scare me, although I don't plan to go that fast. I want to take it apart, reinforce the fuck out of the front end, truss the front end since it's a shitty trapezoid shape which is the entire issue. Take the front axle apart, inspect the knuckles, do the axle seals and regear it. The transmission I want to fix now if I have it out. I have two 4L80s that are fucked up, either send those out, combine them, buy a new one, I don't know.
The engine is totally fine, absolutely beast. Though I do want to fix my accessory brackets, they've been fine lately but had issues before. I'm thinking of designing some nice billet ones to get machined. Also fix the boost bypass valve, and I'm thinking of throwing a stand alone intercooler in the back with some fans on it so the current cooler that doubles as the power steering cooler can be specific for cooling the hydraulic fluid for the steering. As said above, I want to delete the rear tire carrier that unbolts and just weld a dedicated tail on the back for the spare, and none of that shit where it bolts down, just some straps to keep it simple and fast. Also make the hilift on quick releases instead of bolting down. And then finally I want to sand blast and paint the chassis, and the axles. The chassis got so gross after the rain storm for the previous race, and I've kind of gotten to a point where I'm not doing big fabrication jobs on the chassis and starting to hone in on a final configuration. Of course do that after gusseting the shit out of everything and adding more tubes.
As usual I have the debate of if it's time to build a new chassis. But I'm continuing to learn a ton on this, so it'd be premature to spend that much time and effort and then maybe screw things up that I could learn and experiment with on here. I think the best course of action is to fix and keep this configuration of the buggy, which I do like a lot and is really getting to a good point, and once I think I've learned everything I can from it and actually know what upgrades and improvements a new chassis would give me, then maybe I'll think of building a new chassis and swapping the parts over. But for now, tear her down, do some improvements and bring it back better than before! There's another race in July, I'd be surprised if I make that one, but there's two others with BOR later this year so might make those. And it's hot as balls out right now, so I won't be losing much wheeling by tearing into it in the middle of summer.
I do find it kind of hilarious that the most catastrophic failures I've had, and the buggy still drove all the way back and onto the trailer. Huge breaks, but there's a lot worse ways to break! Thanks for reading.
ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
Awesomely detailed recap, though not awesome on the various breakages!
On the water bottle mounts/setup, how was the temperature of the water with where they were mounted? Tempted to try that setup for our rec wheeler as opposed to having to carry a cooler stuffed full of waters.
On the water bottle mounts/setup, how was the temperature of the water with where they were mounted? Tempted to try that setup for our rec wheeler as opposed to having to carry a cooler stuffed full of waters.
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snivilous
Well-known member
Part that was in the hose would get warm, part in the bottle was cool. We had ice in them, and they're vacuum insulated bottles like a hydro flask (but some $20 knock off on Amazon) so should be fine even in the sun for awhile. Only reason I have them mounted up there is theres no good place to put them on the buggy that has easy access. If you could tuck it behind a seat or something I would try that first, I just didnt have room there. The one benefit of having it up high was the hose wouldn't run out of liquid, so you didnt have to prime the hose every time and suck a bunch of air.
ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
Very cool all around. May need to add a similar setup to the buggy and tractor too.
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ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
Got any buggy updates?
snivilous
Well-known member
Nothing whatsoever. Had a stack of parts for a street project so pivoted to playing with that, and then had a lot of other people's stuff I was working on in the shop until last week.
The buggy will get some love soon, but it won't be until later this year.
ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
Fun stuff.
snivilous
Well-known member
The buggy is receiving some love again! It has been parked/occasionally moved around since the last race and breaking the front chassis and ring and pinion. I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with it, but I've had some friends complete their buggies since then and they said I should just slap it back together so I can use it, don't worry about racing it and then start designing the replacement chassis in the background. And I said that sounds like a good idea! Plus the mini truck is waiting for its engine to get back from the machine shop, so I needed a quick project to get one of play vehicles going again! If you're not driving or building one vehicle, you better be driving or playing with the other one!
I didn't want to get sexy with fixes, so the plan was to "jank it together", and not pull the drivetrain to fix it. The chassis is frankly a POS since I didn't know what I was doing for 95% of it, so this is just to fix it to make it work. First up, the front of the chassis was a horrible design and I had meant to make it nicer and never got around to it, and that resulted in two tubes shearing. To properly fix this, the front end needed to get trussed (ie add triangles so things aren't in bending). This is a little tricky since the headers need to be cleared, but I was able to slap in two tubes on each side which gives the shocks and bump stops a MUCH better load path to the rest of the chassis.
I also added a ton of gussets, and I'm just going in and squirt gunning with minimum prep. Like I said, it's not meant to be nice, just work for some basic wheeling. I also added a big plate to the bump stop to help carry load to the front node of the truss.
This was repeated on the other side.
The driver's side truss is a lot more of a pain to fit due to the footwell. First the gusset going to the front bottom node is really compromised but I needed that huge hole for access to the spark plug and header bolt.
But then the real compromise is trying to tie in at the rear and clear the throttle pedal which moves forward really far. I ended up welding a plate flat to the floor/chassis tube, and welding the rear tube into that. I'd rather it go to the tube node, but I couldn't get anywhere near it without completely redoing the throttle pedal and potentially the orbital. I then added a little plate vertically to give the flat plate some depth so there's a bit of stiffness to carry load into the primary tube even though it's offset a little. Not ideal, but still way stronger than it was before. Also quite ugly!
I also went in and added some gussets throughout the front end, including A-pillar and V-brace gussets. When the lower chassis tubes sheared all four of these tubes just ended up in straight bending holding the whole front on, the far one on the driver's side is cracked almost all the way through (cracked around a gusset on the bottom that was already there). The other three looked fine but are no doubt compromised. These huge gussets may be kind of ugly (I kind of like how gnarly they look though) but they are meant to help brace those tubes that took a huge beating and brace them pretty far out. Additionally I will gusset the inner two on the bottom so the entirety of the forward truss nodes will be gusseted everywhere. At the end of the day all the nose loads get dumped into either the V-brace or the tubes directly below it, which isn't a lot so big gussets on those will help a lot.
When the nose broke the chassis around the engine separated from the tubes holding the engine, which resulted in a tube running into the steering pump and chewing it up. Luckily a flappy disk was able to recover it back to glory. The feed hose from the reservoir also got fucked up, so I got a new hose made from Ron @ Hoses 'N' More in Hurricane UT. He went wheeling with some friends the other day and actually lives nearby, he was part of the inspiration to get the buggy going again and worked out that he's able to build hoses and give me some improvements for my routing!
That mostly wraps up the front chassis/engine stuff. The driver's footwell panels will need a lot of tweaking, and like I said there's a couple more gussets I'll add up front but otherwise the chassis improvements are done.
Yesterday a friend and I pounded out the front differential fixes.
This was also the first time getting to inspect the knuckles, though they only have a couple hundred miles on them but they look great! Makes getting to the differential so much nicer since the unit bearing bolts are easy to access and no fucking with the greasy CV since the whole axle can slide out as one unit.
The unit bearing sleeve seems to be working great! The fit is so good I had to tap the unit bearing out with a hammer.
One of the CV boots got eaten up from a ball joint. It still seems to be sealing fine, but the (lack of) clearances leave some to be desired. I don't know if this is a common thing or the ball joints I have just stick up further than normal?
Not a lot of pictures from the front, usual regearing stuff. The ring and pinion got properly fucked.
The bolts on the detroit locker were also really loose, finger loose in some cases. I don't think this would have caused any issue (besides the bolts getting chewed up) since the axle housing would hold the two halves together, but there's lots of wear marks on surfaces that aren't supposed to move. This is a couple hundred miles of wear for a part that is supposed to seat tight:
We took the locker apart, lock tite and tightened it back together. It took quite a bit of fighting before we figured out how to get it together, or maybe stuff was already tweaked to begin with and that's why we had issue.
We reused all the bearings and parts from before since they had minimal miles on them and seemed fine. Cleaned everything out since there was a lot of metal shavings. Took 5 or 6 attempts and got the gear pattern pretty good and said send it! I kept all the parts from the first regears so luckily I had a stack of shims laying around still. And then got the axle slapped back together!
The last "big" task to get it properly driving is to fix the rear yoke, which currently has the U-joint retainers welded to the yoke. The yoke had tapped holes to begin with which I've realized is a horrible way to go since the bolts broke off in it, I'm hoping I can pull the yoke and drill it out to run normal U-bolts and then put the driveshaft back on. If that doesn't work I'll just buy a new yoke with through holes and that should be it in the rear. Then fix the floor and a couple more gussets and she'll be back to wheeling!
I didn't want to get sexy with fixes, so the plan was to "jank it together", and not pull the drivetrain to fix it. The chassis is frankly a POS since I didn't know what I was doing for 95% of it, so this is just to fix it to make it work. First up, the front of the chassis was a horrible design and I had meant to make it nicer and never got around to it, and that resulted in two tubes shearing. To properly fix this, the front end needed to get trussed (ie add triangles so things aren't in bending). This is a little tricky since the headers need to be cleared, but I was able to slap in two tubes on each side which gives the shocks and bump stops a MUCH better load path to the rest of the chassis.
I also added a ton of gussets, and I'm just going in and squirt gunning with minimum prep. Like I said, it's not meant to be nice, just work for some basic wheeling. I also added a big plate to the bump stop to help carry load to the front node of the truss.
This was repeated on the other side.
The driver's side truss is a lot more of a pain to fit due to the footwell. First the gusset going to the front bottom node is really compromised but I needed that huge hole for access to the spark plug and header bolt.
But then the real compromise is trying to tie in at the rear and clear the throttle pedal which moves forward really far. I ended up welding a plate flat to the floor/chassis tube, and welding the rear tube into that. I'd rather it go to the tube node, but I couldn't get anywhere near it without completely redoing the throttle pedal and potentially the orbital. I then added a little plate vertically to give the flat plate some depth so there's a bit of stiffness to carry load into the primary tube even though it's offset a little. Not ideal, but still way stronger than it was before. Also quite ugly!
I also went in and added some gussets throughout the front end, including A-pillar and V-brace gussets. When the lower chassis tubes sheared all four of these tubes just ended up in straight bending holding the whole front on, the far one on the driver's side is cracked almost all the way through (cracked around a gusset on the bottom that was already there). The other three looked fine but are no doubt compromised. These huge gussets may be kind of ugly (I kind of like how gnarly they look though) but they are meant to help brace those tubes that took a huge beating and brace them pretty far out. Additionally I will gusset the inner two on the bottom so the entirety of the forward truss nodes will be gusseted everywhere. At the end of the day all the nose loads get dumped into either the V-brace or the tubes directly below it, which isn't a lot so big gussets on those will help a lot.
When the nose broke the chassis around the engine separated from the tubes holding the engine, which resulted in a tube running into the steering pump and chewing it up. Luckily a flappy disk was able to recover it back to glory. The feed hose from the reservoir also got fucked up, so I got a new hose made from Ron @ Hoses 'N' More in Hurricane UT. He went wheeling with some friends the other day and actually lives nearby, he was part of the inspiration to get the buggy going again and worked out that he's able to build hoses and give me some improvements for my routing!
That mostly wraps up the front chassis/engine stuff. The driver's footwell panels will need a lot of tweaking, and like I said there's a couple more gussets I'll add up front but otherwise the chassis improvements are done.
Yesterday a friend and I pounded out the front differential fixes.
This was also the first time getting to inspect the knuckles, though they only have a couple hundred miles on them but they look great! Makes getting to the differential so much nicer since the unit bearing bolts are easy to access and no fucking with the greasy CV since the whole axle can slide out as one unit.
The unit bearing sleeve seems to be working great! The fit is so good I had to tap the unit bearing out with a hammer.
One of the CV boots got eaten up from a ball joint. It still seems to be sealing fine, but the (lack of) clearances leave some to be desired. I don't know if this is a common thing or the ball joints I have just stick up further than normal?
Not a lot of pictures from the front, usual regearing stuff. The ring and pinion got properly fucked.
The bolts on the detroit locker were also really loose, finger loose in some cases. I don't think this would have caused any issue (besides the bolts getting chewed up) since the axle housing would hold the two halves together, but there's lots of wear marks on surfaces that aren't supposed to move. This is a couple hundred miles of wear for a part that is supposed to seat tight:
We took the locker apart, lock tite and tightened it back together. It took quite a bit of fighting before we figured out how to get it together, or maybe stuff was already tweaked to begin with and that's why we had issue.
We reused all the bearings and parts from before since they had minimal miles on them and seemed fine. Cleaned everything out since there was a lot of metal shavings. Took 5 or 6 attempts and got the gear pattern pretty good and said send it! I kept all the parts from the first regears so luckily I had a stack of shims laying around still. And then got the axle slapped back together!
The last "big" task to get it properly driving is to fix the rear yoke, which currently has the U-joint retainers welded to the yoke. The yoke had tapped holes to begin with which I've realized is a horrible way to go since the bolts broke off in it, I'm hoping I can pull the yoke and drill it out to run normal U-bolts and then put the driveshaft back on. If that doesn't work I'll just buy a new yoke with through holes and that should be it in the rear. Then fix the floor and a couple more gussets and she'll be back to wheeling!
ridered3
Low Talent Wheelin
Glad to see an update, and remember "don't get it right, just get it to stop bending..."