Starting to get some stuff together for my last project I plan on doing.Got the shits on with the Drag Car at the moment.Got sick of being pissed around by "experts".When I get it ready to run again,I will hook up with Pat at CB to finish it off.Going to send this wheel, button and flasher switch off to have a black pearl finish with a red flame through it.I already have a rear disc brake conversion I made from new ED Falcon stuff with a 5x130 bolt pattern and a new set of front rotors from Sherman for a link pin front-also in 5x130,as well as a set of dropped spindles.I will buy some of those 17x7 copies of the Fuchs alloys.Looks like I will be able to use some stuff laying around here.Have to do an IRS on the pan and cut it to fit a Bus auto trans I have left over from the Drag Car.I have put new bearings in the diff,but will get the 003 auto overhauled.I have a 54 in fairly rough shape I got from 57 oval that will be suitable for some radical cutting and modifying.

Should be ready for Valla then, Gary.

Whats the rough 54 shell look like? Not my old one is it?
T54

No- it had been laying here for many years. The doors are in excellent shape which for me is the big bonus. The rest is all fairly easy to fix.

Sounds interesting....... enjoy the journey.

Yes-looking forward to it.The plan is to reproduce my Drag Car in a street version from the 54 with a Suby turbo and the spare Bus auto I have.Got to finish the closed in trailer for the Drag car first though.

Sounds very cool Gary!!.
I too, want to build a street notch back with the same engine and trans as my unfinished drag notch.
You might want to make the primary pressure valve work off the throttle cable as it might not work under boost.
I love watching new projects take off.

You will be a part of the journey Aaron- the transmission will be your project when the time comes. I was going to use the Bus Trans with the 003 .

Bought another tool for the workshop-only a small version,but what an amazing thing to use.I have just cut some 6mm 316 stainless and just like a hot knife thru butter.Cleaned up the torsion bar tube for the new ute and modified the jigs I made for the Drag Car-will still be 100mm longer but only 60mm lower this time.The 90mm I did on the Drag Car is a bit too low for a street car.

Something has got in the way of this toy-fibreglass shortened buggies.I have done full rebuilds of 2 in the last 2 months for customers,and somehow have ended up with 2 of my own.I have almost finished cutting and shutting my new pan and have done things a little differently to the norm.I have recently done a pan shortening for a customer,and got the idea of cutting the full rear floor out like I did to my Drag Car,and replacing it with a flat steel panel.Saves having to piss around trying to get the join in the OG pan welded up-way too thin for a good finish.I have done the same in my pan,but went to 2mm plate instead of 1.6.It's so much easier to weld and cuts unreal with the plasma.I have bought almost everything new for mine-eg,new 7inch stainless headlights,all new tie rod ends,stainless cannon exhaust,50mm ally mill finsh tube for roll bars,extruded ally channel to make a new taller windscreen and all new VW style dash switches.I am having a double sider IRS box converted to swing axle,so gives me a 3.88 diff for better cruising with the 1600 twin port.I had a spare LH Drive 22mm master cylinder left over,so I have converted the pan to take LH and RH drive cylinders.The LH drive ones are a fraction of the cost of RH versions.I have cut the gear lever base from the tunnel and shifted it back so it sits in the same position as the Super Bugs.Will modify a short hand brake lever to take the early type cable attachment.

A couple more.The buggy I have almost finished for a customer-he wanted a 2inch lift kit,so I made the whole thing from 50X25X2mm ally RHS.Turned out fairly good-but a lot of cutting and welding.His is a yellow Manx style body.I made a full trans/engine sump guard and a round bar rear protection set up.

The body lift kit.I made the kit so it can be bolted to the pan in its correct location with the seal under it,then the body can go on and be bolted thru the normal body attaching holes.I have done a 30X30X2mm square tube strengthening beam under both pans where the body bolts down and plug welded it to the pan between each of the body attaching holes.

Some more.I have 2 38mm holes each side of the back of the pan.I have ordered some stumpy stainless marine drain plugs to put there-should be a lot easier to hose it out after a day in the sand-just get the front up a bit higher and unscew the plugs.

Holes in pan floors and the seat belt anchors welded in.

The clutch cable tube had broken at the pedal end,so I had to cut the pan open to fix that,and because I was using a set of Super Bug pedals,I also had to shift the tube over to the passenger side.All worked out good.I added 2 more braces to connect the clutch tube to the pan along the tunnel-so it should never move any more.While I had the tunnel open,I ran a new 8mm fuel line and bought it out the LHS of the pan.Doesn't get in the way of any steering arms or fuel tank fittings.I machined some chrome moly tube so the OG hand brake cable tube would slip inside,then welded the C/M tube to the pan and the handbrake bracket.Just pushed the steel tube in from the rear and hit it home,welded it to the C/M and cut the excess off at the frame horn.

Can I ask a question please?
Is the 30 x 30 a perfect fit into pan bolting channel, or does it have a few mm slack once sitting in the channel?
Did you need to weld in crush tubes for the pan-to-body bolts, or isn't there enough torque on the bolts to matter?

Not a snug fit- but I keep it tight against the inside edge of the pan. There are long raised sections in the pan channel-so keeping it hard against the pan edge keeps it all square.I drill 13mm holes in the pan so I can plug weld the tube to the pan- it seems ironical, but where I need to drill the 13mm holes is where the holes are left from the small spikes used at the factory to hold the body seal rubber in place. I cut about 20 slits in the tube with a 1mm disc to create the bend, then clamp it all in place and make a cardboard template of the bend, cut a piece from 3mm flat and cover all the slits and weld it all up.Of course I pre drill all the holes for holding the body down. I drill them 10mm and use a heavy 8mm flat washer underneath- never had the tube crush yet.

Funny you should mention crush tubes in the lift kit, my engineer made me put them in every body to pan hole, even though I'm 100% sure the fibreglass would crack before the lift kit would crush... Love your work mate! Looks great, got a link to the drag car? Or still a sore point?

You are correct about it destroying the fibreglass way before crushing the tube.I used 2mm wall thickness, but reckon you could get away with 1.6 at a pinch.I put the bodyon the yellow one last week- you cant actually do the bolts up tight because the fibreglass starts to come apart, so I used nyloc nuts on everything and it seems all OK.Check in the "Drag Racing" section for the Drag Car- "another toy for me"

Picked this Ghia clock up from Ebay-bady burnt out-probably 12volts put to a 6volt unit.Put in a 1.5 volt battery clock to replace the original.modified some hands to suit and now have a working unit.Used a glass from a 6volt speedo to replace the plastic OG one with the adjusting hole.Will use it in my Manx buggy.

Clocks fast Gastro your post was 417pm and the clock reads 435pm ???

Picked up my shortened buggy pan this morning after a blast and fresh paint.Very happy with the finish.Have finished an IRS rear disc brake conversion for my Hot Rod with Ford stud pattern and I am halfway thru a swing axle conversion using the Ford stuff-but got new undrilled rotors some time ago and drilled for Porsche stud pattern.I bought new front rotors from Sherman years ago in Porsche,so have cleaned them up,fitted 14mm studs and painted ready to be fitted.I have ordered some new rotors from John in Ford stud pattern for my Hot Rod project.I already have 2 15x6 Fuchs for the Buggy and bought 4 15x5.5's last week from a bloke in Sydney,which I will use 2 for the front of the Buggy.

I modified some Super Bug high back seats by fitting the runners from early seat bases so they would fit the seat frames on my 6volt pan. I found that they wouldn't slide right back on a shortened pan, because the backrest adjusters hit hard on the centre tunnel.I cut some reliefs into the tunnel and fabbed some steel plates to fill the holes I had to cut.Works really good now with full travel.

Started to assemble the Buggy pan.Made all new brake pipes and modified some to make the LHD master cylinder fit.I have filled every cavity that can hold moisture with Fish Oil-things don't smell too good at the moment.Stripped a late pedal set,sand blasted,painted and lubed up for years of trouble free use.I modified the clutch pedal with a gusset welded where it attaches to the pivot shaft and bent it to sit closer to the tunnel-it was way too close to the brake pedal.

That pan looks sweet !

Have got a problem with the buggy body-I mounted it on the pan and it hangs low on the LH rear corner-about 35mm.I checked the pan for squareness-and it had pulled about 25mm low on the RH side where I welded in the 30x30 reinforcing tube.I don't remember it being out before I had it blasted and painted.I checked with straight edges and spirit levels-and the front frame head had pulled also by 15mm low on the RH side.I took the pan to a shop with a 3x2 metre by 300mm thick cast plate.I blocked it up level,strapped it down and jacked it until it all squared up.I now have less than 2 mm twist from front to rear.Back to the fibreglass body-on a flat surface,it has 35mm difference from floor to each rear corner.It must have been made like that - because its only as good as the mould it came out of.I has a Fibreglass Bloke look at it today and he has taken on the job to fix it.He has had me make a slit right along the LH side,about 70mm up from the mounting flange,bolt it all back down and support the body to set it at the correct height.All done and it looks way better now.Off tomorrow to have him fix it.I have put black plastic right around the join on the pan,to stop any resin stuffing up my newly painted pan.Has anybody ever had a body this out of square.I have finished 2 major buggy rebuilds lately-2 different types of bodies,and both hung low at the LH rear corner-but not as bad as mine

Have got the body back from the fibreglass bloke,very pleased with the work.I have got a lot to do now with sanding,bogging and high build primer.I have made a frame to go under the trans and engine for sump guards as well as incorporating a towbar and protection bars.

Neat work!
Keep it up!!

Have started to mount the body to the pan.The body seems fairly short over the motor compared to others I have seen.I had the spare wheel cavity glassed up to make an on board esky.Should hold a couple of sangas and some beers.Will put a padded and hinged seat over it.Just fitted the boat bung to let out the water.This body won't allow the carby and air cleaner to go under it-hence the big bit cut out when I bought it.Will solve that issue with some Type 3 twin carbies.

Got a few more jobs done on the Buggy.I have finished the rear protection bar/towbar and it is away being blasted and painted.Made a trans and engine skid plate from 6mm ally checker.The body won't allow the standard centre carb so I have fitted a set of Type3 duals and had to fabricate the full throttle assembly.I did use part of the Type3 centre pull.Just finished doing a rear disc conversion on a Type3 trans using ED Ford stuff.Bought a pair of new undrilled rotors and drilled them 5x130.Bought some new front rotors from Sherman for the link pin beam also 5x130.Can now use some of the spare Fuchs 911 rims I have.Will probably buy a new set of 17x7"s for the rear and use some 15x6's on the front.My buggy had no dash when I bought it,but I was doing body off/new floorpan resto at the same time on a customers Buggy.His dash was a perfect fit to my body.His was full of holes which were no longer being used-so I sent it away to have all holes filled and then a mould made from it-I now have a new clean skin dash for mine and a new mould.