Side Impact Bars - part three

29th August 2007
I Finally had enough time to get the welding gear outside and the house. The weather being the hardest thing was great and I bought the buggy down to the house with both impact bars bolted in there respective positions ready for welding.

Unfortunately my generator was not capable of delivering peak voltages that the welder needed so I could not do this work in the garage as it has no constant power supply.

The piece that I needed to weld was sitting on top of the body works fiberglass perimeter and I was unsure weather welding or tacking the pieces would cause the fiberglass to burn. I ran a bucket of water and placed a cloth in it just in case. The cloth would also be useful to quench the metal should they get too hot.

I started with the passenger side as I would not have to navigate past the steering column on the first weld and hoped I could gain experience, that would help me on the other side. I placed the two pieces of plumbing matting that I had found on the wall of the body to shield it from the heat. I managed to tack the two pieces together fairly easily. The join seemed fairly good as I was able to unbolt and remove the two pieces which where now one. Once I had removed the part I was able to weld the two items securely all the way round. I remembered my father telling me that you test a good weld by tapping the different parts of the same object and listen to the ring it gives out. The tone should be the same wherever you tap, indicating the item is one solid piece.

The driver side was much the same although the restricted access made the taking process a little difficult. I managed to remove the joined pieces and again successfully welded them.

Once the pieces had cooled. I bolted them back in and cleared up wanting to take the car out for a run to see if it had made and difference to the cars handling.

Straight away the buggy seemed stiffer and seemed to handle more positively on the road. I was surprised that this had improved the handling and am now wondering what else I can find that will improve the cars handling still further. bearing mind I was planning to fit a turbo + injection system to the car any increase in the cars handling on the road would be beneficial.

I am planning to get the new bars zinc plated , but I will have to contact my metal plater to see how much this will cost and when it can be done.

All in all, my side impact bars seemed to be a success.

Side Impact Bars - part two

28th August 2007

After taking some time to think through the position and placement of my newly acquired tubing. i set to and started of by rounding off the flattened end , which had hard right angle corners. This then allowed the bar to be placed in position to check its position in the car.

I drilled a hole to allow the Roll Bar hoop lugs to take a M12 bolt through the lug and through the new bar (pictured left).

Three of the perimeter bolts where then removed nearest the front of the car so that I could place the position of the bar in its actual position. I noticed that the cut on the bottom of the tube was not allowing the bar to sit squarely on it. I marked this with chalk. The bar was removed and i used an angle grinder to re cut the angle.

I drilled the holes in the bottom plate to allow the perimeter bolts to be passed back through. This stopped the plate from sliding about . I used a piece of wood to push the tube into position on the plate. I would have to tack weld it in position. I was not sure how to best protect the fibreglass whilst this was done so decided it would be best to make up the other side and weld them both at the same time. Unfortunately It was dark and nighttime again upon me so I had to leave the welding and fitting of the other side to another day ...

To be continued.

Custom Side Impact Bars - part one

28th August 2007
After seeing several videos on Utube and reading about the accident on my beach buggy group. I decided that my Roll Bar hoop was simply not rigid enough to withstand my buggy flipping over.
I decided that I would have to reinforce it with a side bar diagonal that reached the perimeter bolts that held on the tub. I decided that the construction of this would need to be very strong and built with thick wall tubing that I would not be able to bend with traditional equipment. Luckily I had a tubing specialist company 'Anvil Tubing Ltd' in Sedlecome a short journey away.
After describing what I required they quickly used their tube bending heavy machinery to fabricate four sections of material. Two pieces of steel bar to go around the perimeter of the tub and another two sections of thick wall tubing to attach to the Roll bar and weld onto the perimeter bars. Obviously with the correct machinery this was a fairly simple job. The picture right illustrates the design of the side impact bars and shows the raw material before it was drilled or welded. I hoped that the design would also stiffen up the chassis and stop some of the flex that I was getting on bumpy ground.

I would need to remove the side pods to get access to the Roll Bar body bolt that I was hoping to fit the flattened section to. I would also need to remove the perimeter bolts and position and drill the assembly before it could be tacked together and then welded. I intended to have the items sand blasted and zinc flame coated as I had already done with the Roll Bar to prevent rust from gaining a hold.

To be continued.

Shakes, Shimies and steering

22nd August 2007

Having been driving the buggy around for a few weeks in the sunshine , when time permitted. I had noticed that the front wheels where wobbling at around 40mph. I thought this must be due to wheel balancing and booked in to have my front wheels balanced £10.00 later and whilst my front wheels where being put back on, the mechanic noticed my front wheels where moving alot and suggested either the problem was due to track rods being loose, or worn or the steering box was on the way out.

I took the buggy home and that evening had a look at the track rods. They where not in very good heart and seemed to be loose, so I decided to replace them all with new ones.

The track rod ends where held on with split pins and castle nuts. The new rod ends came with nyloc nuts and seemed like they would be easier to install. The first three ball joints the two outers and the driver side inner came out reasonably easily. The final one the inner passenger side gave considerable trouble. I tried initially to use a F wrench and a section of the trolley jack handle to wrench out the ball joint. Neither this nor heat or a combination of hitting or soaking the track rod end in WD40 helped.

I word to the wise.

I decided that a lunch break was called for and went shopping to see if I could find a ball joint splitter. Halfords provided the solution and I was soon back at it attacking the stubborn ball joint. Even with the Ball joint splitter it took an hour to get the track rod end out of the steering box arm.

Once I had the track rods out I measured them to ensure that when I replaced the new ends that the track rods remained the same length, hopefully ensuring that the tracking was OK.

Whilst I had the track rods out .I resprayed the track rods and cleaned them up. This was principally as I new the buggy would need to be tracked and if the rods where greased up and free this would make the job simpler.

I reassembled the track rods and placed them back into the car. I was unable to check the tracking by eye as it had become dark. I left this job until another day.