Should I start back from the beginning again, or pic up from where I am now?

Maybe you could do a quick recap. I am very glad to see you came back. I have been wondering about the baja.Dean

I started building a rail buggy when I decided I would rather have a baja bug. But I didnt want a regular baja, I wanted a tube frame off road monster! Since I already had the rail frame I decided to use that as a base for the baja. First thing I did was cut off everything above the bars that made up the floor of the rail. I left as much of the rear cage area as possible because I really liked the way it looked.

I picked up a wrecked bug body for $100 and stripped it out. The garage door you see above the body is where the car was being built. It was a pain getting everything up there, but all the space has made it worth it.

Once we got the body upstairs I started cutting it up. Oh the sawzall is sooo much fun! First thing to go was the roof, followed by the front and rear sections. I also took out everything in between the rear quarters including the whole firewall section. The front footwell section was removed also.

Next we placed what was left of the body onto the frame. Once I was happy with where the body was sitting it was time to build the main hoops of the cage. Because I dont have a bender, I made a template out of rebar that I took to the shop that bent my tubing for me.

While waiting to hookup with the guys to bend the tubing, I went ahead and mocked up the rear suspension. I installed the 3X3 trailing arms, disc brakes, stub axles, and braided steel lines. The trans went in on solid mounts with a hydralic slave cylinder. I also installed the 16 gallon fuel cell and breather.

Since the rail buggy frame flared out just before the rear torsion housing, I had to cut it back and sleave it to run the cage in straight to the main hoop. I also had to renotch the crossbar that supports the front of the fuel cell in about 3 " on both sides.

Heres another shot of the same area. I went ahead and tacked in the bars that will later be the mounting location of the rear shocks. Dont look too closely at any of the welds because at the time I was probably the worlds worst welder. I am just tacking everything in place for now.

Here is a pic of the main hoop in the car. I was going to go with a front and rear hoop, but I was afraid that with the bends, and how narrow a bug is to start with, that I would lose to much roof area so I decided to go with side hoops.

After the main hoops were in I built the seat supports. I ended up going with the top of the bar at 3 1/4" above the top of the lower frame bars. This put the shifter box at just the right height to be able to run a straight bar for shift linkage. All my others buggys have never felt right the way they shifted. I think it was because of putting the jog in the shift bar. Maybe this will fix that problem.

Heres a shot of the X bracing and the tabs for the diamond plate roof.

The dash and footwell area turned out pretty good. I am going to have to do some messing around with the pedals to get them exactly where I want them. The bracing for the steering column was built so that it can be removed if needed. There as additional mounting point behind the crossbar.

Here is the shifter and turning brake setup. The turning brake looks like it is directly behind the shifter but is actualy offset towards the passenger seat. Up by the steering wheel is the proportioning valve

Ok, now for the front end... I'm running a 6" wider beam with SAW leafs and adjusters, 2 1/4X1" trailing arms, combo spindles, Fox 10" shocks, disc brakes up front too, SACO Magnum rack & pinion with aluminum tie rods and International tie rod ends.


I added some additional bracing to the upper shock mounts. The piece you see sticking out the front is the mount for the front of the one piece front end. It mounts through the holes where the license plate goes. Now that I have had to take the front end on and off a few times Im not sure I like it that way, but hopefully when its all done the front end wont have to come off that often

Here is another shot of the mount. Threaded rod was welded to the flat stock. The rod then goes through the upper license plate holes on the front end.

Here I am making wooden templates for the diamond plate that will make up the dash and footwell area. I didnt make any of the pieces fit real tight because I didnt want alot of metal vs metal rattling.

Here I am in the process of building the mounts for the oil cooler. The cooler also has an electric fan that mounts to it

Before I went any further I had to get the body in exactly the right position and bolted down. Because the main hoops didnt turn out exactly like I wanted them I had tilt the windsheid forward to get the body into the position where everything would fit right.

After I got the body in the right spot it was just a matter of lining up the doors right. Once I got the doors to open and close good I had to mount the body in place. I used three of the original mounting holes on each side from where the floor pan bolted to the body. Luckily it worked out where I was able to use over the counter tabs on 2 of the 3 mounting locations on either side, and just made some tabs for the others.

I just welded some tabs to the main hoops on either side for a mounting location for the lower windsheild area

To secure the rear sections I took a piece of flat-stock and welded some treaded rod to it and welded the whole thing to the body. Then I made another piece of flat-stock that I could bolt to it. After it was bolted on it was just a matter of cutting some pieces to connect it to the main frame. This way the entire body can be unbolted and removed from the frame if I ever need to.

A shot from the front. Right now it has 18" of ground clearance to the bottom of the beam, but only 2" of droop in the suspension at the wheels in the front. I will probably end up lowering the car enough to get about 4" of droop.

And a shot from the back. You can see the cross-bracing I added above the gas tank. This is going to be the mounting location for the spare tire.

Heres a shot of it with the body completely bolted down and the front end partially mounted. I have been having problems getting the dzus fasteners to work right. When they were welded to the body they would move when I tried to attach them so I cut out the sheet metal and I am going to add some flat stock to that area to weld the dzus fasteners to.

I bent my front bumper to look like the bumpers on rock crawlers. I am going to start a skid plate just under the 4" offroad lights and go down to the beam.

I also added a light bar. The lights will actually mount under the bar instead of on top. Ive seen light bars light this in alot of magaizines and I always thought they looked cool. I guess the purpose of the bar is to protect the lights from damage. Other than protecting the lights from small branches I dont think It will do much good, but it does look cool


Here is a shot of the tree bars before the extra bracing was added

I also cut out the headlight buckets in the front end. I am going to use the chrome headlight buckets that are found on alot of rails. I will mount them to the frame behind the openings so it will be easier to get the front end off and put less weight on the front fenders. Heres a before and after pic


A nice shot of the baja in progress

Heres a couple shots of the spare tire mounted. Well actualy one of my front tires mounted. (no money for spare right now )


There are actually 3 lights going up top. At the time of the pic the third one wasnt in stock

At this point we ended up being able to rent out the 1st floor of the warehouse I was working in so I had to disassemble the baja and get it welded up and ready to go downstairs.

All the white spots you see on the frame are from the flux core wire I used to tack it together. WHAT A HUGE MISTAKE!!!! It made it such a pain in the butt to finish welding with gas. Oh well, you live and learn.

Unfortunately I dont have any pics of us getting the baja down. We basicaly just lowered it down by hand out the second floor bay door. It was quite a site, but fortunately no problems or damage.

Shortly after getting the baja downstairs the construction industry here came to a complete stop. So since money was short and I had plenty of free time I decided to go ahead and grind and smooth out all the welds. Im not sure if I would have taken on that job if I had known what I was getting myself into. Heres a few close up shots from where I started in the front.

Here are some more progress shots of the grinding and smoothing process. Some of it turned out real nice but you can definately tell where I was getting tired of doing it When it is all back together Im gonna mark all the spots that are visible and go back over those instead of trying to make them all look good

When I put the body back on I noticed that the frame suffered a little deflection during welding. It wasnt bad though, and all I had to do is open up a couple of the holes used for mounting the body.

My third light finally came in!

Front end reassembled

Looking good man. I thought you were going to build the whole thing upstairs, then jump it out that 2nd. story door. Seriously, keep up the good work.
I'm going to build a baja some day. I already have the donor car sitting in the back yard. It's a 63. I'm not going to go to the extreme like you did but I am going to fully cage it. I am going to leave the body whole and leave the foot wells and rear parcel tray intact.

Stay on it and keep the progress pics. coming...

Roy

Heres a few more pics of it going back together. The only major problem I have had so far is the steering shaft. The only thing I can figure is when I welded the tabs to the sleeve it must have either burned through in a spot or just cooled down funny because now the steering is real still. Seems like the shaft is in there real tight. I guess I will try to take it apart and ream out the sleeve a little and see if that fixes it.

Just some more shots of it going back together. Can you believe that the jack stands that are under it arent even touching it. Fully extended they are still too short

looking pretty sweet! Keep the pics comin!

Thanks, I just cant wait to get it out into the woods!

A few more pics....

Here is one of the rear shock mounts. I used an old VW tie rod and cut it at 4". Drilled the hole through the frame and stuck it through. I have it sticking through the back about a inch. After welding it in place I just ran a 1/2 inch drill bit through the rod to clean it up for the shock bolt. Seemed to work pretty good and easy, which is always a plus

You can also see what I was talking about by my bodywork on the bars in the back still needing alot of work

All the body on and trying to finish up the rest of the list so I can take it apart for paint. Problem is that my "to do" list seems to keep growing all the time


As you can tell Im still doing everything I can to avoid having to mess with those damn dzus fastners.

WOW! great job so far!!