George’s Cars

After sitting around doing nothing most of the day yesterday in pissy rain, today I had to come back to work and the sun is out!!

I might get out for a spin after work.

It has been raining all day today, really heavy rain so driving the buggy wasn’t an option until about an hour ago. It stopped raining so i decided to try get a few miles in her.

Don’t drive through puddles in a buggy!! That woke me up thats so sure.

Oh well, i’ll have to wait until it dries out a bit. Still put a smile on my face though

well as finished as these things ever are!! I’ll write a more detailed report tomorrow. I’m tired!!

A small gathering and a mini swap meet. There was a nice selection of parts on display.

A beach buggy. Another day working on the buggy. I really need to go back to work soon!!!

I think i’ll let the pictures do most of the talking here, I’m too tired for a long post.

Now before someone comments, because i know someone will, yes the head lights aren’t straight, i’ll sort that out tomorrow.

I’ll be there!

Well Friday morning I was thinking with a bit of luck i would be test driving the buggy on Saturday afternoon. By 6 o’clock on Friday I knew that was not going to happen.

The first big issue was the rear indicators, yes those arrows, they look savage but they are no where near bright enough, even at night time you would struggle to see them, so I had a few decisions to make. I could have put a second indicator under the body like a motorcycle indicator but i wouldn’t be happy with the look of it. I decided on the hard fix, surprise surprise. I started taking the old ones apart and a new plan was formed, i ordered 50 bright orange led’s and i’m going to rebuild the rear lights in their original casing. Its going to take a bit of work but at this stage i have put so much time into those rear light they might as well be the way I want them. Providing things so to plan with making my own rear indicators the only other problem will be getting the existing ones that are on the body out. They where put in with the intention that they where not coming out.

Saturday morning things went from bad to worse. I started building the dash. Speedo, dials, light switch, wiper motor, radio…Oops. The radio wouldn’t go in. When i positioned the radio in the dash i didn’t have the wiper motor in place. Being honest i forgot all about it until there was a problem. Plus the fuse board also collided with the wiper motor. So the only solution was to move the radio and move the fuse box. The fuse box wasn’t a issue but moving the radio would require repainting the dash. Not something i wanted to do. But in the end it was the only option. I have to cut out the only radio slot, repair it with fibreglass, cut out the new hole for the radio. Sand and repaint the bonnet.

Thats about there we stand at the moment. I’m taking a break today. I have been in the garage for 12 days straight and I’ve had enough for now. I’ll go back tomorrow after work. She will be ready for next saturday,

I spent the day working in the garage again today. It was a bit of a strange day I got of lots of work done but no jobs finished. Most of the day was spent on the wiring, i got most of the rear of the wired up, its not tidied up but i find that when i tidy up wiring before its tested if never works, once i test it all I’ll tidy it up. I did get the battery terminals finished, thanks to dad’s help.

We also got the cage in but some of the bolts aren’t lining up so I’ll wait until its over the pit to get a bit more leverage on them.

I got the speakers in and wired up. They look pertty good but I’ll replace them with marine stuff when the budget allows.

So generally more of the smaller jobs done but not much visible progress.

Peters wiring loom diagram and the one that came with the bugpack wiring diagram, bugpack for the colour coding and peters so I can make sense of it all.

for the last few days, thats not because i have not been working, I have, lots. In fact the reason there has been no update is I put in two 16 hours days in the garage the last 2 days so by the time i got home I was too tired to even look at a computer let alone write an update.

So in the last few days I have got the following jobs done:
Body mounted.
Rear seats made and delivered to the upholster (2 trips which took about 3 hours out of each day but it has to be done)
Started running the wiring looms and connecting up some of the electrics
Padriag got the LED indicator circuit figured out and I’ll get it off him tomorrow.
Cut holes out for speakers (including a little extra work on one of them!!, oops, its times like that I’m really glad I painted the buggy, if i had a gel coat finish i would be in real trouble!!)
Ran speaker cables for the speakers.
Installed speedo in the dash
Installed the guages in the dash
Started making the drop down fuse box.
Installed the brake fluid reservoir and plumbed it in.

I think thats it, there are always little jobs I forget to update but I’m happy enough with the progress. For a little while yesterday I was hopeful of getting her finished for this weekend but then I got realistic again, if she is on the road for next weekend I’ll be happy.

No pictures for now, I’ll try take some tomorrow.

well i came to a realisation tonight, colour sanding a car is time consuming and my paint job is really not that bad, it looks good from 2 feet, but not when you really study it so given the time constraints i’m under, less than two weeks to finish the buggy I’m going to leave it for now. I’ll compound it tomorrow but it will be into final build after that.

I have to keep reminding myself, its a beach buggy, not a Ferrari, not that i would want one of those!!!

I also spend the evening going through the wiring for the buggy. I bought one of the cheap buggy wiring looms before I found out about them. Armed with the wiring diagram I got with the loom and Peters (Manx Manic) wiring diagram i started trying to figure it all out. Man those kits are cheap. I’ll be replacing the fuse box with something a little more respectable. Also they only have about 5 colours, would it really be that difficult to add a few more colours. I have 3 red wires going from front to rear, one for constant live, one for ignition to the starter and one for brakes. In all fairness when producing a kit how much extra would it cost for additional colours. What ever it is, it would be worth the extra cost!!!

I think I have the loom sorted out in my head, now I just need to get additional wire for the extra stuff going into the buggy. Any maybe a few extra, just in case I decide to add anything later!! So thats the progress for now.