Totally Tubular: catching up with the Dune Buggy!

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!

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

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

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.