thanks Rodney,
we took the buggy and bikes out to the farm again, for the long weekend a few days ago.
the kids had a blast, and probably put another 60-80k's on the clock too.
the weekend was pretty hot, 38C saturday, 40C sunday and 42C on monday.
the buggy is a lot smoother now after fitting the new Ultra High Performance upper ball joints (Heim Joints),
saturday night i had the chance to pull the steering column out and shim up the worn bearings too,
so i ended up taking out a fair bit of play and vibrations in the steering.
last week i took the big single piston, rear disc brake caliper off. (i had borrowed it off one of the pit bikes front ends and now had the bike back together, ready for a mate to ride)
i had used my custom Orion pitbikes' front caliper.
the original brake caliper fitted to the buggy, was the tiny twin piston type, that used the 15mm tall x 40mm long, disc pads
these brakes were hopeless stopping the buggy, especially from 70kmph.
a while ago i upsized the rear disc brake on the axle from a 160mm cross drilled disc, to a waved, slotted and offset 190mm disc i had spare.
i was trying to work out what type of caliper to use to make the brakes work better, and ended up fitting a large twin piston caliper, much like the latest DHZ 160's run.
the caliper mounts were fun to make, as one of the caliper slides comes off the bottom of the caliper the other at the top rear.
my new fabricated caliper mounts now have one slide at the back top, and the other is in the middle below the caliper mount on the frame.
it required notching out the existing frame mount to allow for the slide to move.
i also upgraded the brake master cylinder to another Nissin remote resevoired master i had sitting around spare.
it didnt take much to remount the master, and it makes it so much easier to top up the brake fluid, or flush it when i need to.
while i was at it, i also made up a mount to run a microswitch off the brake pedal.
the dune buggy now has a working eye level, led brake light, it came off a Hyundai .
i now have a way of telling when my son hits the brakes, comes in handy when i'm tailgaiting him, lol.
with the muffler mount, i thought i'd try something different,
i made up a couple of hooks, one off the engine frame and the other off the muffler, and i used a big rubber donut off a car exhaust.
on the second day away, i noticed that the exhaust header pipe, coming off the head, had a 40mm long crack running down it.
and it had started to crack horizontally too, damn, my new rear mount had allowed a bit too much movement and broken the front pipe.
i ended up temporarily wiring it back together with some exhaust heat wrap and some fencing wire.
i lasted the day and a half we had left there.
i picked up a brand new pitbike pipe from the bike shop yesterday arvo, cost $20, so now i just need to give it a cut and shut to make it suit the buggy.
when i mount it back on the buggys' engine frame/swingarm it will be bolted through a solid mount again, i've learnt my lesson there!
next time when we go there riding/driving again, i should be able to finish off wiring the electronic speedo too.
it is now all mounted into the dash securely, and i wired up all the accessory lights as well.
it now has speedo blue backlighting,
the battery indicator comes on when the ign is turned on.
this light goes out when the engine is running, it will also light up if the magneto charging circuit fails.
the indicators now light up on each side of the speedo when you use them.
the high beam warning light works too,
it just needs the sensor magnet fitted to the rear disc for the speed pickup and odometer, and all will be good.
i revised the bodywork on the front end too before we went away, the old foam checkerplate bonnet has now been retired to the bin.
and in it's place now sits a nice polished piece of 1.6mm thick Aluminium diamond/checker plate, i shaped it to match the contours of the front end, it kind of wraps around the bar work.
and i made another plate to sit across the front too, to stop any plants/weeds etc from flying though the gap and onto the drivers feet and floor.
another thing i got done was, i've replaced the dodgy china 100db electric horn, it was lucky to put out 50db i think, it was on its way out.
in it's place, i mounted an old air horn i had, it is 350mm long, and i mounted the air pump infront of the rack where there was some unused space.
we can now hear my son blasting the horn almost 1km away, it sounds like a train, lol
i doubt he'll have trouble attracting our attention if he needs to now.
i cut a 75mm round hole in the front of the new diamond/checker plate panel for the horn to blast through,
and riveted an old computer fans' chrome grill behind the hole, looks pretty neat.
thats about where i'm up to for the moment with the buggy,
i was hoping to get a lots pics on the weekend, but it all went too fast.
i will get a heap of pics and hopefully some videos too next time we are up at the farm in the next few weeks.
cheers, craig
