Pipe or Tube?

[KeithXtreme]

Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 12:14:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: john kunkle luscombe68017@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: your buggy.. Pipe or tube?
To: randy0288 randy028@henderson.net
In-Reply-To: <bah2sj+8oc4@eGroups.com Randy:

Welcome to the world of trying to find tubing in the
US in those sizes. I did find some in 1.315 with a
.120 wall and 1.050 in a .109 wall. This is what I
used.

Big problem if you want to find someone to do the
couple of bends for you. All of the commercial
benders that do race car stuff have is 1 1/4 or 1 1/2"
dies.

Good problem if you want to buy one of the cheap
$99.00 hydraulic benders, as these are sized to bend
PIPE, not TUBE. Because this is a pipe dimension,
they work fine. This is the way I went.

If I were doing it again, I would downsize the tube to
1 1/4" and have someone bend it for me. Nothing magic
about the 1 5/16". The 1 1/4" is readily available in
.100 wall or something close.

Because my tubing was a thicker wall, I had to turn
all of the polyurethane bushings that I got from
Badland Buggy. I made a mandrel that fit in the drill
press and mounted a lathe cutting bit in the vise and
fed them into the bit with the quill. They cut very
well. I only had to go down .040 and did it in one
pass. Took and hour for all bushings.

I had the bearing carriers made from some 3 1/2" solid
bar that I had. It was nice, because I had two flats
milled to reduce the width to 3" for the side plates.
MUCH easier to clamp and weld and keep everything
square. Rough machined the through hole, welded the
whole thing up then finish machined the two counter
bores for tapered roller bearings and dust seals.

Hope to fire it up this weekend. It is all but done,
but only running on two cylinders. Carb problems. I
have someone that knows more about engines than I
coming over to help.

Thanks,

John


--- randy0288 <randy028@henderson.net> wrote:
> John, first let me say what a nice job you have done
> on your buggy. I
> have looked at it on the badland buggy site. I have
> a couple of
> questions. Did you use Tubing or pipe? The Plans
> call for HSS tubing
> but all I can find in that size OD is pipe. If you
> used pipe what
> scheduale size did you use? Have you tried your
> buggy out yet? If so
> how did the driveline do? I have the sabertooth 1
> Plans. I also have
> the piranha by the edge. The sabertooth plans are a
> lot more user
> friendly and there is a lot less machining to do. I
> had a question
> about your hubs. but I found the answer in the msg
> archives. If
> anyone ask, the American version of the Sprint is
> the Geo Metro. Or a
> Suzuki Swift. I have a Geo for parts but I plan on
> building 2 buggy's
> I have a Honda 650 that I too bought for $100
> dollars. I am going to
> use a 4 bolt hub and weld a peice of 1 inch keyed
> bar in it. I like
> your bearing carriers. What was the round thick
> stock you used for
> the bearing to ride in? Thanks, Randy Cummings
>

[KeithXtreme]

Randy:

One thing about tubing when ordering. I haven't
checked this with Bruce yet, but I ordered according
to the materials list and cut carefully, only wasing 3
feet or so in cutoffs. Came up about 10 foot short on
the 1.315 and have two 20 foot lengths of 1.050 left
over. You may want to adjust your order. Your
material price is good. Any time you are under
$1.00/ft you are doing OK. I agree the DOM is high $.

Thank you for your compliment on weld quality. I TIG
welded the entire frame. Slower than MIG, but in my
opinion a better weld. Also, I was able to convince
the wife that ALL welders cost $1,700 :) so I was ble
to buy the TIG. Also the bonus of being able to stick
weld heavier stuff was there.

The ST2 is a total redesign, and I think an excellent
design. It takes advantage of more laser cut parts,
will be lighter and the heim joints in the front
A-arms will be nice to have. It is also a lot lighter
buggy. Also the rear half shafts are fixed length and
do not have to slide. This was done by redesigning
the hub carriers. As it is now, my last joint where
the half shaft goes on the rear spindle is not locked
down and floats back and forth 1/2" as the wheel goes
through the full travel.

I hope the u-joints will hold up. Hope to find out
this weekend!

As far as shafts and hubs, The fonts are simple--use
the trailer hubs and stub shafts. For the rears, I
used some from surpluscenter.com They are 4 on 4"
with a keyed 1" bore. (Same bolt pattern as the
fronts to make it easy to match rims.) I used the
keyed shafting that is used throughout to build shafts
and made my rear hub carriers in the same manner as
the front trailer hubs with tapered bearings. Came
out great and the hubs are only $9.99 each. The fact
that surpluscenter is in my hometown is a bonus. I
also got my steering shaft with u-joints there ($9.99
with two u-joints!) and my trailer spindles. They
have a complete on-line catalog and ship anywhere.
Check them out!

I have cc'ed this email to the group, as your comments
are of interest to all.

Thanks,

John Kunkle

[Bart]

Bart from Canada here, I am building a Badlands buggy ST-2. There was a set or a collection of images of this build. Does any one have these pic? Just looking for ideas on rear end mounting and engine mounts.

Thank you
Bart