New Year 2011 Strip down

2nd January 2011
My New Year started with a vengeance to find the problems that had riddled my project for six months previous thanks to a great deal of motivation supplied from a very good friend and fellow enthusiast. We decided to first of all remove the engine which had been rebuilt some months before and which had seized in the garage as it had been left for too long without engine Oil. The process I had tried to re free the engine had obviously had a toll on the clutch and clutch plate. The pictures show the power that had been worn off the clutch friction plate.

Once the engine was out we decided that as time was available we would strip the Beach buggy right down to its chassis, in an attempt to see if the body lift kit would fit onto the buggy chassis as it had been previously fabricated on a donor chassis.

The strip down was fairly quick and everything seemed to come apart really easily. I put this down to the quality bolts I had used.

First the seats were removed by undoing the four bolts that went through the floor pan. Once the two seats were removed, it was then possible to get to all of the 8mm perimeter bolts that hold the body work to the chassis. As several of these hold in the Roll Bar these were removed also and the Roll Bar was lifted out. The windscreen and bonnet then had to be removed along with the petrol tank.The next problem to get over needed the front lights and indicator wiring to be removed from the Fuse box. Additionally the ignition wiring harness and the brake light and horn wiring all had to be disconnected. The front body mounts could be then removed allowing the body to be lifted off. The body lift kit could then be placed on the chassis to see if it would fit. Fortunately it did the work I had done in the summer was fruitful and the two mated perfectly. With the body lift kit on, the body work was placed back on to see how the ride height looked. The front definitely needed to have the adjustable beam that I had been rebuilding and I felt this would bring the front down so that the front wheels filled the wheel arches once more. The front seats were placed back into the car temporarily so that the seat height could be checked . The raised height was fantastic just what I needed so that a soft top could be fabricated that would not need a head hole for my head to poke through. A shopping list was then made to acquire longer bolts some and a new 9mm drill so that the body work could be fixed back onto the chassis. As I had taken the body work off I felt that it was in need of a clean up and thought it would be a good idea to fibre glass the areas properly from the underneath where I had cut out the areas for the cross bracing in the rear.

With the bodywork back on it was apparent that the Roll Bar would be very much higher than it needed to be. We found that it would just fit snugly inside the body lift kit. This would allow it to retain its height and could be bolted through the the Roll Bar and the side of the Body Lift frame. This had the advantage of making a strong structure that contained the people sitting in the beach buggy.

It would be some time before the car was back in one piece again.