The First Light of Day...

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!

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