Steve and Jennifer Schmidt

Whew, what a month!

2009-07-02T17:03:00.009-04:00

So it is July 2 and we set a tentative deadline for ourselves of July 3 (baby's due date) to have the buggy running. I am proud to announce that we might just make that deadline. Steve has the day off work tomorrow and a few last minute things to put together but we could actually get this thing running tomorrow!! Woo hoo!!

Steve has been working very hard the past month and unfortunately for this part of the project I'm not so useful. As it turns out, a nine-month pregnant woman can't get herself into small spaces to run tiny wires through the tubing of a buggy! Not to mention, it's just so HOT!

Anyway, Steve has run all the wires in the buggy so everything now has power. He tells me that once we put the gas tank back on, hook up the fuel lines and bleed the brake and clutch lines, we should be ready to rock and roll. Crazy how everything is coming together! Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to post about our first ride in the buggy, or maybe I'm just being too ambitious. As long as this baby decides to wait (which he seems content to do) we are making progress to get it done.

Wiring photos aren't the greatest to look at but here it goes anyway.

The horn mounted underneath. Elwood is not a fan!

A whole mess of wires up front. Blogger keeps rotating these photos, sorry.

A whole mess of wires in the back. They all look much more put together now.

The battery box behind the passenger seat.

Steve's new toy, a soldering gun for connecting all the wires.

And the headlights work and everything!

We are really excited to move on to the next steps. Tomorrow should be a busy day and hopefully a landmark one as well.

The buggy is getting it's plumbing

2009-05-25T11:23:00.008-04:00

We have been running the brake lines on the buggy for a couple weeks now. We have been going to several different stores around town and ordering online to get all the right sizes. They are steel lines that we are bending and shaping to fit the buggy. The next step will be all the electrical wiring which Steve tells me he feels confident we can do now. This should be the most difficult and tedious part of the job so far. Can't wait!

Here are the photos of the brake lines and CV joints we finally got installed.

Our "supervisor" is getting more and more lazy by the day!

The brake and clutch lines...

Sometimes Elwood can be such a micro-manager!

The shocks...

(These are the rear ones. We learned that the front ones are not so good and will need to get replaced at some point.)

The CV Joint before the rebuild...

Put back together...

Getting gooped with grease...

...and installed.

The new tie rods. Shiny chrome. Very Pretty.

Someone found the box the crib came in Apparently the boxes are more fun than what's inside!

The under bars are installed again to protect the motor from the trees we will be driving over. LOL. We also installed new exhaust pipes that look much better than the old ones.

The view from the rear. We added a chrome guard over the fan/generator belt to keep fingers out. (Very important.)

We also finished putting together the "dashboard". This will be one of the big wiring hurtles that is next on the agenda. We have turn signal indicators and a high beam indicator light across the top. Under that is the tachometer and volts and oil pressure gauges. Next in line is oil temperature. The switches are for four-way flashers, high beams, and the lights under the buggy. There is a horn button. The ignition is at the bottom. No, there is no speedometer, we are gonna wing it! (plus we have the gps as a backup, if we really need it!)

Everything is STARTING to come together!

2009-05-01T15:17:00.006-04:00

Since paint and wheels, we have started to re-assemble the buggy. The seats are back in, pedals, gas tank, floor, lights, steering rod, "dash", etc. We also have the transmission and motor installed for the first time ever! This is an exciting day for the buggy. It is not hooked up to anything yet but it is there. We have also started running the brake and clutch lines. After we get those hooked up to where they need to be, we will get a battery and start wiring everything else. We are currently waiting for a few parts to get here from California. We are replacing one of the CV joints because we lost a piece of it during the fabrication process. That is one of the things we are waiting for. Steve did successfully rebuild the other ones though. Here are some photos of the progress...

So, the motor needs some cosmetic attention, but it seems mechanically sound (at least it did a year or so ago when we last started it). We've made some progress putting things back together. Slowly but surely...

The Buggy has a new pair of shoes

2009-04-12T15:24:00.005-04:00

We finally found a great deal on tires for the dune buggy and had to jump on them. Luckily, we found a place here in town that sells decent used tires and they had just the right sizes to fit our wheels. I got a lesson in mounting and balancing. The place we went let me watch. We also painted the floor this week so the whole thing is painted and ready to roll. Ha Ha. I guess our next steps will be putting it all back together again. Here goes nothin!

We had to use a converter because the wheels on the VW had four studs and the new wheels

have five. Didn't think I had taken a picture of that yet so here it is.

The back tires are a little bigger than the front ones.

The floor, primed.

Painted.

A close up of the paint.

And the Buggy has a new home...

2009-03-31T13:16:00.005-04:00

Last night we touched up all the red paint. This morning, it was moving day for the buggy. We need to clear it out of the garage so we can prepare for our Yard Sale this weekend. Ultimately, the buggy will live outside anyway. We just wanted to make sure that it was painted and rustproof before subjecting it to Florida weather. Steve put the front end back on so that we once again had a rolling chassis.

After Steve attached the front end, I put the wheels and tires back on all by myself!

Steve put the steering back together. Elwood napped...

Next, I got in and got to "drive" it, Flintstone Style! We put it in the back yard and there it will sit for a while until we get rid of our stuff in the Yard Sale.

From a Project to a Product...

2009-03-26T18:10:00.010-04:00

This week was painting week! We had a couple great weather days and decided the time is now. We picked up the paint from a shop in Orlando and got right to work. Here is a photo of the primed frame.

The Paint "Kit"

We had to roll the bedliner paint on which was quite a chore with the texture and all. Amazingly, we got one really good coat on before the sun went down that day. We should be all finished with the painting except for a few touch ups here and there.

This is tough stuff!

Steve just showing off

Turning it upside down to get the bottom

A closer look

PS I kinda outgrew my painting clothes! :)

Now we are really having a Blast!

2009-03-19T11:07:00.009-04:00

As we mentioned before, we are almost ready to paint the buggy. We wanted to have it sandblasted before priming it though to get some of the welding slag and surface rust off the steel. Ultimately, we ended up having it media blasted today which is apparently very similar to sand blasting except with a different media. The media choices are sand, crushed-recycled glass, walnut shells, baking soda, crushed corn cobs, and various other types of ingredients with varying grits and hardness. We chose soda. No, not Coca-cola, but baking soda! It is environmentally friendly and because it is a finer grit, we were able to do some aluminum pieces as well. It can also be sprayed with a little water so it keeps dust to a minimum and keeps everything nice and cool. We found a local company that comes right out to the house and does all the dirty work. Don't worry, Elwood still supervised the event to make sure everyone did a good job. The next step now is to prime and paint the steel. We have a short window of time with which to do this before the good old Florida humidity starts to rust the steel again. Here are a few photos we took of the SodaBlasting today.

A plug for Blast All, the company who did all the work. A little trivia the man told us, this type of cleaning was invented in 1972 for cleaning the Statue of Liberty. Apparently you can clean copper the same way!

The equipment...we don't mess around!

The buggy is ready.

We removed the front end and wheels because we already painted it back when we took it off the donor car.

The "Supervisor"

About to be chased

by the Soda Cloud

The before and after wheels. What a difference!

We aren't using these wheels on this buggy.

Hopefully we can use them when we build

Jen's "Barbie Beach Cruiser" someday which

will of course be all pink!

He was pleased with the work.

After about an hour and a half,

our leader was getting tired and bored.

"C'mon already!"

All clean and back in the garage...

Dune Buggy 2009 Update

2009-03-10T18:36:00.006-04:00

Well it has certainly been a while since we blogged about the dune buggy progress but have no fear, the project rolls along. We have decided that at long last the buggy need not be naked anymore, and it is time for some paint. We think we have decided where everything is going to go such as seats, mirrors, lights, etc and have completed all the appropriate welding for those items. The next step is then, to paint it. We have decided to paint it red to optimize visibility since it lacks a body. We have also chosen to use bed liner paint used in truck beds for extra durability. We have ordered the paint but there is a little prep work involved before we can actually paint the buggy. Our project this week was to remove everything from the buggy we had spent the last year building. That's right. Take it all apart! I have to say, it was a little disheartening to realize that a year's worth of work could essentially be "undone" in a matter of two afternoons. Oh well. We did it and now we are on to the fun part...Painting! Here of some photos of the "demo" we did before painting.

Jen, taking out the center and dash consoles

The "naked" buggy in the driveway

We decided to flip it over to take off the floor

God-willing this is the last time the buggy is in this position!

Floor all gone

That is not an illusion, the buggy frame is bigger than my car!

Stripped down to it's frame

The floor pan. We are painting it black with

the same kind of paint.

Next, we will put everything back on, hopefully not have too many left over pieces, wire everything, install motor, and cruise. We have also purchased the new wheels for the finished product but are still in search of the perfect tires tires for them (in other words, cheapest).

I know, I know. I have some splaning to do!

2008-08-22T11:16:00.007-04:00

Well clearly it is time for a dune buggy update! I will admit that progress has slowed a bit since my work schedule got a little hairy but we are still focused and still doing small things to make progress. We were held up for about a month and a half waiting for parts to arrive. Now we have all the pieces we have been waiting for and are getting on to the install. Most recently we have acquired a center console with a key to serve as our center console/glove box/trunk. It is installed, waterproof and ready for a stereo. We installed the steering wheel and driver's seat. The seat ended up eventually being put on a track so that it is adjustable. As you know, Steve and I are not exactly the same height so we needed that to be adjustable if I ever had a hope of driving. We installed the headlight casings, the fuel tank and temporarily mounted the gear shift. Steve fashioned the windshield frame so that it will bolt to that eventually. Oh and we also have seat belts! Here are some photos of the progress.

The steering wheel, center console and seat

The fuel tank.

The "headlights" and turn signals

The long awaited pedals. (the brake has two master cylinders. I'm told for added safety)

Another view of all three pedals.

This is the clutch slave cylinder.

More to come on that!

These are our Marine gauges.

Yesterday we drove to an airboat store in Inverness to pick them up.

Steve bought a piece of steel on the way home to mount the gauges.

Steve's new toy. A drill press. For making the gauge-sized cut outs in the steel.

Another handy tool used in this project!

The finished project from yesterday's adventure. See my blog for all the details on that one.

We are still having fun with the project. I know it looks like we quit altogether but we didn't. Just haven't been as faithful with updating the blog as we should. We are starting to get to the point on the project where the steel tubing and floor are starting to rust due to being untreated. We are planning to tackle "plumbing", electric and paint next. In order to paint, we we be dismantling everything we have put together so far, including the floor. We decided on a bedliner paint for extra durability. It is a paint that has texture so that it won't chip quite as easily. I think we are doing black on the floor and red on the frame. That will hopefully make us more visible on the highway. We have also toyed with the idea of LED lights along the tubing for extra visibility at night. We'll see when it comes down to that. Can't wait to keep plugging along!

The First Light of Day...

2008-05-13T20:45:00.004-04:00

For the first time today, we put tires on the dune buggy frame and pushed it out into the driveway. This presented an opportunity for photos:

Slowly, the frame of a car escapes the garage into the bright light of day...

So, the little wheels and tires look kinda silly, but you get the general idea. We spent some time playing with the steering to ensure that no part of the frame interferes with the travel of the front wheels and mechanism. Sadly, there was more than one problem that required some attention. We needed to cut out a few 'accessory' pieces, trim them and weld them back in. Not a big deal, but I'm glad we checked!!! Next, we pushed it back into the garage and measured for the floor. There's still quite a bit of welding to be finished on the frame plus the great big huge pile of work that comes after that, but I'll admit that there was a certain boost that came from pushing this thing into the driveway...

Totally Tubular: catching up with the Dune Buggy!

2008-05-07T21:31:00.011-04:00

We have made so much progress this week it's not even funny. Probably too much to write about in just one blog but here it goes anyway. Our progress began when Steve was able to finish prepping the rear suspension/trans-axel. Here is what it looked like a week ago.

Steve, cleaning up his welds.

The finished suspension

Another view.

But we're not finished yet, oh no. Last night when we got home from work, we got ambitious. We decided to start tack-welding the frame pieces together. We received the floor of the frame tacked together along with 68 other pieces of steel left for us to assemble like a puzzle. All the pieces were pre-cut and measured. The instructions were pretty easy to follow so we gave it a go.

Elwood donated one of his "tools".

Putting on the arm rails on the sides

Arm rails, front and rear suspension in tact.

We decided to attempt one more task before calling it a night. We needed to place the rear roll bar in place because everything else gets placed off of it. We had to get the angles just right so that every other piece down the line would line up properly. After about three attempts, we had some success.

Rear roll bar in place

Our shop foreman approved of the work

Me, trying it on for size.

This morning we got started right away. We needed to assemble the rest of the roll bars, the back end, the side supports and the tree rails. Here are some photos of the transformation.

Side rail supports

The two rear roll bars and the rear engine hoop

The back bars

A different angle

The front "windshield" and "roof"

The first "test drive"

At this point, we ran out of nuts and bolts and had to make a trip to Lowe's.

Rear engine braces

Profile of rear

Rear and side tacked together!

Steve, welding a support brace

Lot's of welding...

Front chasis support brace

The triple bend tree bars

These babies were tough to install

The next step is to finish weld everything together so that it is as strong as it is going to get. Unfortunately, we ran out of wire for the welder so the rest of that will wait until tomorrow. Then we will be able to put the tires and wheels back on and have a rolling chasis. Steve has his work cut out for him tomorrow!

Welders are heavy but the car just got lighter!

2008-04-03T17:54:00.012-04:00

Today we made some major headway. We started by building a much needed cart for our very heavy welder. Now, instead of carrying it around the garage, we can wheel it with ease. Steve decided to practice his welding on this project. We went to a steel supply shop in Kissimmee this morning to purchase a length of angle iron (big piece of steel).

Me and Steve in the welding mask, being silly.

Our big piece of steel.

Then we cut the steel to lengths, mitered the edges and welded it together. We then welded casters to the bottom. (We could have just bolted them but welding is much more fun.) Now our little welder (Nascar edition!!!) is mobile...

The cart that Steve welded all by himself!

With that success, we turned our attention back to the donor "car". We needed to cut off the rear torsion housing from the front portion of the frame.

cutting on the frame....

more cutting...

Three cut off wheels, a zillion sparks, one Sawzall, and a B.F.H. (big hammer) later, we had the rear loose.

Our cutoff wheels, one new and one used.

Can you guess which is which?

Steve with the Sawzall and B.F.H.

The pieces are separated!

Woohoo. Almost nothing left of that bug now.

Now the next step for us is to clean up the cuts we made today, finish disassembling the rear end and remove the rust. Then we will begin assembling the frame and attaching all these lovely pieces to it! We are making good progress. Elwood is also doing a fantastic job supervising our endeavors.

Supervisor...

...bored with supervising...

Today's Progress on the Car

2008-03-27T18:50:00.013-04:00

Today Steve and I had another day off together. We decided to remove the motor from the back of the bug. Then came the transmission. We are currently working on removing the tire mounts too but decided to call it a day before getting them off. Here are some photos of our progress. You'll note that there is pretty much nothing left of the original car that is actually intact.

The motor and the transmission

a different angle

inside the transmission: main shaft and throw-out bearing

cooling fan

the flywheel, that one's for you, Grandpa!

the engine and transmission, separated

all the pieces

transmission and rear axels

Shiny Black Metal

2008-03-19T23:02:00.009-04:00

Today Steve and I had a day off and chose to be productive. We re-finished the front end assembly by cleaning it up and painting it. It looks so much better now then I ever thought it could.

Steve and I ground off the unwanted pieces from the front end and prepared it for painting. I have learned that painting helps keep the rust away while we are working on it, plus it looks really good in the mean time. We used a couple of different tools. One of them we call "the spinning wheel of death". The spinning wheel of death attaches to the grinder and is made of wire and when turned on, scrapes off all the unwanted paint and rust. Unfortunately, when the wires give up, they become dangerous projectiles. One of them flew off and embeded itself in Steve's leg. Nasty little boogers. Don't worry, no photos of the injury. (Don't worry, only a flesh wound!)

I gave the painting a whack. Steve took pics of me and then I changed my position and almost fell over while moving and of course he took the picture at just the right moment to capture my downfall! Oh well, at least I didn't get wires in my flesh! :)

Here are the pics of the finished product for today. You'll notice in the last photo, I put one of the shocks removed from the donor car next to the front suspension to show the difference between what it used to look like and how it looks now. I'd say we made quite an improvement. I'm proud of our work today and I hope we get a chance to work on it again very soon, hopefully tomorrow night.

Finally the garage caught up to us.

2008-02-23T11:25:00.008-05:00

On Thursday Steve and I both had the whole day off together. We finally finished cleaning out the garage that needed it so badly. Now we have some room to work on the dune buggy.

Elwood is a fantastic supervisor for this project. He really holds us accountable and makes sure we don't get distracted. LOL

We ended up taking the front suspension, tires and wheels apart and took them into the garage to start the cleaning process. We are going to clean each piece and then paint it so that it doesn't rust during assembly.

Steve is attempting to take off the two cross bars in the front. It makes a lot of noise and a lot of sparks. It will take a while for this as the air compressor has a difficult time keeping up.

Here I am cleaning the metal with a wire brush attachment. This is taking forever too. The drill batteries also had a hard time keeping up so we decided to call it a day. Elwood was pooped anyway. :)

No Turning Back: more progress on the donor car....

2008-02-18T12:37:00.005-05:00

Well you'll all be happy to note that Steve's welding lesson went well, he did not burn himself and he is actually getting pretty good with some practice. Our next task in the project is to take apart the donor car and separate the parts we need and those we will not be using. Yesterday Steve and I attacked the body of the car to remove it so that we can get to the guts of the car, which is what we will need. It took a while, but we finally got the pieces separated.

You'll note that we felt victorious when separating the pieces. Steve got the engine running pretty smoothly again after that so the next step will be to take the engine apart and clean it and prepare it for fitting on the frame. At some point we will also have to get on the welding of the frame. Lots of work to come. Hopefully it does not get overwhelming. By the way, we are going to attempt to sell the body since we do not need it anymore. It is in good condition. If you know anyone who is interested have them send an e-mail!

I bought a dune buggy from a guy at a truck stop...

2008-02-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

Berrien Buggy had a scheduled delivery to Fisher Buggy in Tampa and we managed to get our frame on that truck, saving a bundle in shipping. As such, I met Dave and Sue with Berrien at the Flying J truck stop in Dade City where I took delivery of our new Cruiser frame knock-down kit and a variety of other parts. Dave and Sue are the founders of Berrien Buggy and couldn't be nicer people. They are now in their 40th year of building buggy frames; they estimate that they've made somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 frames in that time. We've now got lots of parts; should keep us busy for a while!!!

We Did It!

2008-01-31T19:26:00.001-05:00

Tonight, Steve and I finally did it. We ordered our dune buggy frame from Berrien Buggies in Berrien Springs Michigan. We got a smoking deal on shipping and we did so just in time. They are sending a truck down to Tampa from Michigan on Sunday. Our parts just made it on the truck. Here is a list of items that we purchased: A Cruiser 4-seat frame, Frame horn supports, Solid Rear Transmission Mount, Triple Bend Tree Bars, A Chassis Brace Kit, Torsion Cap Kit, Tabs, and a Pedal Plate Assembly. Here is their website if you want to check out our parts. http://www.berrienbuggy.com/id58.htm

The truck should arrive in Florida this Tuesday. Hooray. We can almost get started on our project!

To Weld or Not To Weld, That is the Question...

2008-01-30T21:55:00.002-05:00

I decided to go out on a limb and purchase Steve a welder for Christmas. Neither of us know

how to weld, however in order to complete the dune buggy project, we will need to weld.

There has been great debate about whether or not to buy a frame fully assembled or purchase a kit and take on the challenge to weld it ourselves. Steve has been doing extensive research on the "art"/"science" of welding. For those of us who know Steve well, we know that studying is not his favorite thing. He is quite passionate about learning this new skill. He has even found a neighbor down the street who is willing to give him a few welding lessons to get him started. I have purchased my beloved two books on welding and he has absorbed everything he can from the internet on the subject.

Now we just need to practice. It's a little scary cause the plug is one of those big ones that plugs into the dryer outlet. I've been told the the temperature of the weld is 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit so uh, it's hot!

We could very easily hurt ourselves very badly by taking this on but we are going to take every precaution and hope for the best. If anyone reading this has any tips for us, please don't hesitate to comment! Steve's first welding lesson will be this Sunday evening. Keep him in your prayers as I will be at work and unable to supervise.

The Schmidt Project 2008

2008-01-17T22:52:00.000-05:00

Steve and I have decided to build a sand rail style dune buggy this year. I've decided that I want to learn a little about cars and how they are put together and Steve couldn't be happier to teach me. We are very early in the project. So far, we have purchased a donor car from which we will pull the engine, front and rear suspension, brakes, and entire drive train. The 1969 VW Bug has a 1970 Type 3 motor in it. The body of the car is a cute red convertible (which Steve keeps warning not to fall in love with). We are thinking about getting some seats for the interior, fixing up the brakes and driving it around until we purchase our sand rail frame. Note, it has no doors, no pedals and needs a steering wheel and windshield. We know the brakes need work but once all that is done, it's drivable. The car does not have a battery or a gas tank either. We did get the engine started in the back yard last night so that was exciting. Keep checking our site to view our progress, see our frustrations and hopefully witness the satisfaction of finishing this project without killing each other!