Saturday rolled round and we dragged the buggy out, I popped up the shops to get a 1st few we needed, nuts, bolts, washers, brake light switch, fuel line, low pressure brake line. While i was out we got some assistance from a mate who turned up to see how the project was getting on and ended up staying about most of the weekend.

While I fitted up the brake light switch and lines, Simon replaced our test engine wires with proper cables and I gave the body-shell a quick pressure wash.

We checked the chasis over for things that we still needed to do and it appeared to be that time, so before fitting the shell again we thought “Oh what the hell, lets start the engine”, out came the fuel can and the jump leads, after a few tries it fired up with a nice rumble.

A little off the side please...

Once this had been done we where really in the mood. So we lifted the body back on and realised that the fiber glass wouldnt quite bolt down as we had forgotten to remove some body mounts designed for the beetle shell, this was nothing the angle grinder couldnt take care of in a few seconds, with that done the body went on and car really started to take shape again.

Seeing as we had fitted the low pressure side of the brake system we decided to add some fluid and see if they worked so we topped it up and bleed the system through. Low and behold the foot brake started to hold the car without the handbrake.

Given that we had wires and pipes in place we decided it was time to bolt the body back down, out came the nuts, bolts and washers and i got to work with the socket wrench.

Starting to take shape again

As the sun started to set I decided to get the steering column out and see what it looked like with it fitted up, after a bit of fiddling it went in and i bolted the dash support in place to hold it up.

Following the success we had on Saturday we got up Sunday morning with a renewed vigor and set to work again.

We found the brakes had gone spongy and after a quick look around we tightened up one of the nipples on the master cylinder as it had been leaking. After bleeding the air out again, we started connecting up the wiring loom. We had previously fitted this into the shell so it just needed plugging into the engine components and did a bit of tidying.

I went back up the shops and bought a battery for the project and some other bits and bobs and we started working on the wiring. We connected up the engine electrics to the wiring loom and checked it was all in the right places.

Then came another big moment when we released we had the wiring all in place to fire up the engine from the dash switches (well by dash switches i may mean wires hanging out). So we moved all the loose tools and sealed a length of spare fuel hose into the top of a plastic bottle, filled it up with some petrol and taped it to the bodywork.

We put a spare battery on the floor as something to rest on, then came the big moment, we flicked the coil switch and touched the wires together, tick, tick, tick, BROOOOM.  The engine fired up quite easily, all be it with a puff of blue smoke from one side.

With the engine running Simon jumped in, dipped the clutch and and popped the buggy into gear and slowly backed it off the drive. This is the 1st time the buggy has moved under its own power since we started the rebuild.  I have this on video and will post it as a seperate entry once i have sorted it out and uploaded it, at this point the camera ran out of batteries so there are no more pictures from todays work.

Having archived this by lunchtime we both had places we needed to go so we tidied up quickly and went out with big smiles on our faces.

Getting back to the project a few hours later we fitted up the rear lights are back on and connected to the loom, I mounted the volt reg in the boot and tidied up the engine electrics, we tested all the lights worked by connecting up there relevent wires in the front of the loom to the battery, we also accidentally tested the horn.

After so much time and effort, I got chance to fire up the buggy and move it around the drive, oh what a feeling.

We finished off the day by wiring up and testing the headlamps, there where a few more jobs we could have done but we have run out of wire terminals.

Buggy

While my daily car was off to the garage to have some work done i decided to drag out the buggy and see how it was. Having been under a thin cover all Christmas i was happy to see the drain holes had done there jobs and that it looked to be in the same condition as we left it.

Firstly a quick recap on the few bits we did over christmas, we cleaned up the lights, labeled and rewired them, recieved a few parts and stuck them in the garage.

Anyway onto the few bits i actually did the other day, one of parts i ordered ages ago turned up last month and got chucked in the tool chest. The steering column has a rubber square in the linkage that was all cracked and old. 3 of the bolts came out with a lot of force and some penetrating oil, the last one required a bit of a heavy handed approach, nothing that 2 Min’s with the disk cutter couldn’t fix. Then in went the new one along with some new bolts.

Washer Bottle

Rain

We’ve pinned the loom in place by drilling holes and looping heavy duty cable ties through the shell.

I’ve also put a hole in each floor side for drainage as it’s going to be permanatly open topped.

Floating Body

We started by lifting the body up onto the rack we used for the floor pan welding and a work bench so that we could get underneath it and so that we didn’t have to bend over onto the floor to work. Simon and Robin scrapped most of the old rubbish off the inside of the shell and around the holes to be filled, following this they patched the holes with wire mesh and repaired the fiberglass.

While Simon and Robin worked on this I started work on a technical drawing for the dashboard following the graphical design Simon made last night to show what we wanted it too look like. I have started building it in CAD so that we can produce accurate plans. The reason for this is that we are looking at getting the plate stamped out instead of trying to cut it out ourselves, this will be a quick and easy way to make it look professional and get everything in exactly the right place.

Here is the cutting diagram as it currently stands, it may well need some adjustments before it can be pressed but i will work on them once i get a response from the companies I have approached to do the work.

Technical Drawing

Here is one of the patched holes: (Better pictures to come tomorrow when it’s light)

Patched hole

Next steps:

• Build a basic boot (wood only no treadplate for now)
• Get the wiring loom in place suspended in the shell
• Clean the body up some more

We have also decided on the new layout for the dashboard; the old layout was a mess and looks like the dials and buttons have been chucked at the dash while blind folded.

New Dashboard Design

The dials/lights are as follows left to right:

• Volts, Amps, Oil temp, Oil warning light, Oil Pressure, Revs, Speed, and Fuel
• On the far right hand side is a clock, as well as a plague we’re going to have there.
• Switches underneath are for main power, push button start, ignition, aux, hazard lights, headlights, dip/high-beam. All of these have a telltale light underneath them as well.

From this mockup I have just started work on a technical diagram of what needs cutting and where.

We did complete a few more little bits yesterday, here is a quick list of what we did.

• As a sort of celebration we started up the engine again, this still involves connecting it to another car with jump leads and sticking the fuel line in a plastic fuel can, But it ran again and still sounds awesome. As a test we made sure that our throttle pedal and linkage worked and it does, we also tested that the clutch system works by putting it in gear and letting it pull itself up the drive a little.
• Following the engine tests i greased the gear shift mech as it was really stiff.
• Finished off the tin of hammerite covering up all the open metal from the weeks work, i also went round the outsides of the floor pan as we are planning to put metal plate down over them and we don’t want to see any black round the edges.
• Covered all the moving parts that couldn’t be painted in a thin layer of grease to stop them rusting.

Later on in the day I picked up the last part for the brake system, the drivers side front flexible line and tried fitting it onto the buggy.It went in ok only then to find that when it was mounted to the original bracket that you could not get full lock as the line wasn’t long enough and also that the solid line we had made up was only just long enough.

The answer to both these problems seemed fairly simple to me, the original bracket was in the wrong place. So out came the grinder and off it came, followed by a quick bit of fabrication from some steel plate and a spot of welding and we have a new bracket that holds the brake line in the right place. You can now go to full lock in both directions and everything is secured properly.

I didn’t take any photos as it was cold and raining but i will get a picture of the new bracket next time we are working on the buggy.

This caused a lot of expletives to get shouted back and fore until it was decided that it was all my fault, and that I should be ended there and then. So after that i set to getting the tie bars back out, this involved a lot of levering as by this point it was too late to be banging or using air tools. Well basically it wasn’t going to happen so i slowly managed to remove the steering arm with both tie bars still attached by using the 3 legged puller to ease the hub ends out. This allowed us to get the remaining parts in a workbench and heat it just enough to smack it out with a very short burst from the air-hammer.

Anyway the parts have all been refitted now this time making sure they are the right way round. We then put the wheels back on and packed it away for the night.

Guess whats under the cover???

Out damn nut!

The nut Jon mentioned in the previous post never came out, ended up over drilling the hole to get through it and using a nut and bolt.

I’ve just tallied up in my head and I reckon we’ve notched up 78 man hours of time so far this week on the project. We’ve got a little bit of faffing around to do this weekend before we can move on to the electrics:

• Cover the clutch cable
• Fit the front right brake hose (Should be collected tomorrow morning)
• Neaten up the solid front to back brake line. It’s a bit wiggly at the moment.
• Hammerite the bare metal we’ve left from this weeks efforts

Also, I’ve finally identified our shell! It’s a GP Beach Buggy Mk II.