Some buggy pics for Baloo

[PhillipM]

Yep, I know, I need to go through and repair this whole topic, sorry, there's a lot of updates missing too, however, it is finally coming together and back up to making noises:

Everything is going back on/in - cabin is looking a bit busy!

 

[Ton-up]

If they are ally, how thick are your floors? I always try to advise people to have thick ally or steel floors. Reason being, we were doing the Welsh Hill rally about 20 years ago and I was navigator in my mates LR Bowler when a 2" thick branch unseen in the mud, came through the floor and up between my legs just in front of the seat!!
He had used 3mm ally but we changed them to 6mm dural! I think I remember someone being seriously injured by this happening to them?

 

[normspanners]

I think I remember someone being seriously injured by this happening to them?

I was doing chase for Phil Collins on RAC one year and he slammed sideways into a log pile in the manta and a rogue small branch was stuck out and that went through the fibre glass door and into the car to the prop tunnel just behind my mates the NAV seat at pelvis height the seat wouldnt have stopped that either, sometimes luck is with you BUT it wasnt a few years later (2003) when he slammed a red wood tree and him and the driver where killed instantly on the Oregon trail rally.

 

[PhillipM]

Floor is 3mm 5251, but it's got sections where it's thickened up to half an inch in some places under the front and read edges and centreline. There's also a pair of front bulkheads at 2mm each.
Under the seats has an inch crossbar in T45 specifically to stop anything coming up through the floor - we've had a few rocks punch through before - I'll get a photo of the cracks in the old one if I remember - you'd have to make the whole floor far too thick to mitigate the risk completely.

Simmonites father was killed by a pole coming through the bottom of the car, that was actually up here, just a little further down that lane in the testing videos.

 

[PhillipM]

And yes, I know, the old seats and mounts look rather tired at the side of the new bits.
Don't worry, shiny black and red ones are en route....we needed dated seats to run internationally and those vinyl ones are now 20 and 30+ years old...

 

[Ruffian]

What class/racing do you use these buggys for?? Would love to have a bit more informaton etc.

 

[PhillipM]

We race in comp safaris - there's about a dozen championships nationwide, and the Rallyes TT in France we're aiming for - generally most of them just have a separate class for 2wd vehicles which we run in. But to be honest we don't worry about that these days, we're more interested in the overall results.
Then depending on the championship 5-7 more classes for various things from production cars (freelanders with a rollcage), polaris-type side-by-side buggies, and up to chopped defenders with V8's or full on custom-built 4wd spaceframed kevlar-clothed 500+bhp cars at the sharp end.

 

[Ruffian]

Does look great fun, seen a bit of the bowler/tomcat racing previously etc.

Do you have any links into rules/regulations etc?

 

[PhillipM]

Really depends what you want to run with as to what the regulations are, but you could build a spaceframed, carbon clothed 1500bhp monster if you really wanted to (not that you could ever put the power down) - or just pop a cage on your daily Freelander and race it between school runs - they're pretty open.


http://www.marches4x4.com/bccc.html

http://www.allwheeldriveclub.org.uk/

http://www.norc.org.uk/

http://www.ffsa.org/Rallye/Pages/AutresCategories/Championnat-de-France-Rallyes-TT.aspx

 

[PhillipM]

Gonna need a serious diet to get in the new seats...

 

[Robotstar5]

Gonna need a serious diet to get in the new seats...

View attachment 134939

So your pet hamster navigates for you?

 

[PhillipM]

 

[Wightsparks]

Phil's never ending quest for weight reduction...

 

[PhillipM]

Oooh, shiny lights:

 

[jpmillermatic]

I love the mix of high tech, milled aluminum, sharpie marker dash notation, high end anozided bits, ect, ect, ect....what a cool result....

Ive been following this thread for ages, love the progress....

oh, and stay safe, will you?

JP

 

[PhillipM]

What is this 'safe' ?

 

[Wightsparks]

Don't think he's seen the vids

Is that off the shelf or DIY with a tablet and printed case?

 

[PhillipM]

Off the shelf, it was one of the early prototypes for DTA's new dash, so we got a good deal.

I have been considering making a DIY one with a tablet for touchscreen and then an arduinio I/O shield to control all the switches and relays though....I'll have to leave that for version 4...

 

[Wightsparks]

Took a look at the DTA website
Not exactly an Acewell knock off from ebay are they ! - my car's not worth that much

 

[PhillipM]

We're from Yorkshire, we don't pay list price, those are just guidelines