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PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2014 11:34 pm 
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Location: Athens, GA
It's amazing sometimes how things have a habit of falling in your lap. In my case, usually those things are crap, but in this case I think I came out pretty good.

Nope, it's not a true woods buggy like a lot of you guys have, but you guys have been a wealth of info and I thought I'd show you what I've been working on. I've had plans over the previous eight or none months of building a SEAL Desert Patrol Vehicle. Since Chenowth is out of business and there aren't exactly a glut of used chassis's out there, I originally decided the way to do it was via purchasing a Chenowth 4LWD setup and build it up accordingly. I've seen several for sale over the years and usually while they might be called a Desert Patrol Vehicle, in some cases even with a correct chassis, they aren't built to spec and that disappoints me. It's almost like getting an old military jeep, painting it a shoddy green color and putting street tires on it and passing it off as correct- if you're going to do it, then do it right. So that was my intention, build it as close to spec as possible.

So no sooner than a 4LWD I picked up was delivered to the house, I call a friend of mine for work related business and tell him what my intentions are. He tells me that he had not just a Chenowth Desert Patrol vehicle behind his shop, but also had a 6 man Chenowth SEAL Squad Vehicle as well. While they clearly had seen better days, he said I could have them if I came to drag them away. All parts are there and they haven't run in about 5 years, but they'll be worth having-he was literally going to drag them to the scrap yard. Some people collect military jeeps, I guess I'll have a couple of SEAL buggies.

So both vehicles have been delivered, and I started on the 3 seat Desert Patrol Vehicle first. It was the worse of the two vehicles, but is the vehicle I'm the most excited about restoring. I managed to finish stripping it down yesterday and am excited to start the restoration process.

So a few notes about the 3 seat vehicle:

- There were 120 made. Most went to Naval Special Warfare Group 1 (west coast) starting in 1989, another smaller batch was made for Army Special Forces and UK SAS for Desert Storm. The final batch was delivered to the Navy after the first Gulf War.

- It's got CNC Brakes, hubs and pedals throughout and Saco steering box

- It's got a VW Type 4 engine modded by FAT Performance to 2.6 liter.

- It's got a Vanagon Transaxle with locking diffrential.

Anyway, the main structure of the chassis is in good shape. The area under the seats and gas tank need to be cut out and replaced, as well as one of the supports under the diffrential. I'm hoping to not have to cut out the torsion bar adjustment housing, but we'll see when I get to it.

So, enough of my yapping - here's the pics. Let me know what ya think!

Here it is join delivery
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Side baskets
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Front end
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Ass end
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One of the hubs, calipers and rotors - the rest look similar
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Mid way through the tear down
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Gunners seat base
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Gas Tank
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Two snapped torsion bars
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Torsion Bar Adjustment Housing
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Transaxle Support
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Stripped Chassis
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 12:12 am 
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Location: Mason, Ohio
Very cool. I always thought it would be neat to have one of those. Didn't realize there were that few of them.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 1:41 am 
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Location: Lithia, Florida
I always loved the Desert Patrol buggies. Glad to see you're returning it to its former glory Lawdog. What's the story on the buggy in the background in the first picture? Is it a military vehicle as well? Would love to see some pics of it if possible.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 4:00 am 
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That is awesome. It is really cool to see the different ideas and designs they had for the military version.

Thanks for posting and I look forward to following your progress.

BTW..It is nice to see another buggy in Georgia.

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 8:43 am 
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Man, I wish I could find one sitting around, let alone 2!! Is that a sway bar in the back just above the torsion?

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 10:35 am 
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I'm no expert, but am old enough to remember when these were first built. I think that is a secondary torsion bar that kicks in at extreme travel, like overload springs on a truck. If I remember correctly from the article in Dune Buggies and Hot VW's back in the day, the military asked for prototype vehicles. They then ran and timed them over a 9 mile course, and there were three participants. Some existing military vehicle, perhaps a tank, took 40+ minutes. The Porsche prototype (not sure what it looked like, no pics) took 22. The Chenoweth version made it in 11 minutes, and I think the prototype had a Type 1 engine. A statement in a later article quoted one of the officials in charge of training drivers for these, and they said there were really only two types of drivers that could not be trained - those could just could not master a manual transmission, and those who had no earthly fear and common sense. The latter are still driving buggies today.


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 11:34 am 
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Location: Athens, GA
The 3-Seat Desert Patrol Vehicle was based off of the Chenowth Magnum DR2 racing chassis. Some were made with 4LWD chassis's, but those have a shorter wheelbase and didn't really get utilized.

Racebugg, I'm not sure what it's called, but I think it's what Herbie described in that it acts as a secondary torsion bar. The pic below shows a little more detail and is from a Navy recruiting car (Join the Navy and you can drive one of these!).

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Tommil, this vehicle came with the Desert Patrol Vehicle. I thought it was the Chenowth "Advanced Light Strike Vehicle", but with what limited information there is on the vehicle, I can see it only has 4 seats. This particular vehicle was referred to as the SEAL "Squad" Vehicle and has seating for 6. They made 12 of these and they all went to NSW Group 1. If I was smart, I would have started with this vehicle as it's in considerably better shape, but I've never been called the bright one.....

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And here's a few in action:

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 2:08 pm 
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That is cool as hell . I would love to have one of those


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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 4:42 pm 
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It makes more sense in the other picture, I would call it a secondary or a bump spring. sweet as hell!

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 5:24 pm 
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awesome, love the rear gunner seat

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 9:36 pm 
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Now we have to have a dunebuggy paint ball war at one of our events...

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2014 9:45 pm 
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Location: Athens, GA
MickeyMouse wrote:
Now we have to have a dunebuggy paint ball war at one of our events...


How about airsoft, so I can use the M60's that'll be mounted on it?


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PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2014 6:06 pm 
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MickeyMouse wrote:
Now we have to have a dunebuggy paint ball war at one of our events...

that what I said last year . :shock: :


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