George's Cars

Just got e-mail these pics from my roll cage guy.

Its only tacked waiting for my approval. I would like the front hoop closer to the windscreen but we are limited by the dash. Have to make my mind up soon.

I just got off the phone with Ronan in RoCo, he is making good progress on the cage. It should be ready Monday or Tuesday. Looking forward to seeing it. He is hoping to send me a picture tomorrow but from the sounds of it, its going well.

for a few days anyways. I finally found someone who knows what they are talking about when it comes to roll cages. Its nice when the guy who is doing the work knows more that me and thats not hard cause I know fuck all, as ye all know at this stage.

Ronan from RoCO Performance seemed like a nice guy and I saw another buggy he is working on at the moment, its a full off road buggy which has space frame chassis and the work he is doing on that is savage. I know he is up to the job its just when it comes to these things, my wife keeps telling me I’m a fussy bast*rd so I just hope he understood what i wanted. This is where i would prefer if he was local, that way I could pop out and see it when its tack welded so I could be 100% sure but I’m sure it will be fine.

I can’t wait to see it!!

Or lack of. The buggy has been a love hate relationship over the last few days. I got a bit of bad news last week about the roll cage and after that nothing seemed to go right. I must admit i did about 2 hours on Saturday morning and again things went against me so I called it a weekend and did no more work on it. Even now I’m not that enthusiastic about working on it BUT i’ll will motivate myself over the next day or so and get back to work.

[rant]
We are a third world country when it comes to certain things, especially with cars. The selection of services and the lack of locally available tradesmen who actually know what they are talking about is a rarity let alone getting good value for money. Naturally there are more services available on the East coast but here in the West of Ireland we have very little options. It would seriously put me off undertaking such a big project again.
[/rant]

I have another contact for a roll cage, this one I’m sure knows what they are doing and have the necessary equipment to do the job, however they are on the east coast but given the current circumstances and the impending deadline, 20th August, I need to get it done. If there was no time pressure I would love to have a go at doing a roll cage myself but I don’t have the time to be messing at the moment. There is enough jobs to keep me busy on the buggy. Plus if i do sent it away to get the roll cage made it will give me about a week’s break from the buggy which i think i need at the moment. I might be more motivated when it comes back. I’m waiting for the guy to ring me back and if he can take it, I’ll probably bring it up to him tomorrow.

So thats where things are at the moment, not the most positive update I have given but anyone who has done projects like this will know there are highs and lows, my project is in one of its lows at the moment but it i can get a few big jobs done it might start climbing again.

Well its offical, i’m not going to hit the current deadline. It looks like i have to do the cage so with that and the other jobs its just not going to happen. I haven’t set a new deadline but i will. I just need to find a show or something to aim for. I recckon mid august should see her on the road

I have been doing a lot of work on the wings the last few days, i have them 90% but you can still see some ripples in the wing, so i have more filling and sanding to do. This is where my bodywork experience is letting me down but if i give it enough time I’ll get it right.

I also have another problem to fix, my rear wheels have serious negative caamber. I know a lot of guys run VW’s that way but i don’t like the way it looks so i’ll have to raise up the back of it a little to level the wheels out. I have her lowers 2.5″ at the front so I can’t go too high at the rear but I have to do something with it.

This is the reason for all the work, the tyres are way to far out past the arches.

And this is how she looks now.

And now the negative rear camber.

well i started work on the buggy wings tonight. the front ones went fairly well but they are not finished, the structure is done but all the nice work is still to be done. the rear arches will be a lot more difficult. we started them and have one side ready for fibreglassing but it look a long time.

I do love my rear wheels but they are starting to really cause me headaches. Having said that changing them is not an option. I went to bring the buggy down to get a quote for a roll cage, yes another company, this one is local and hopefully they can do the job at a reasonable price.

Anyways, we where putting the buggy on the transporter to bring it down and we discovered that the rear wheels are too wide to fit on our car transporter. Not much but enough to prevent the buggy being loaded. Something i must remember if she ever breaks down.

I changed the rear wheels to standard items to get it down to get the quotation. She is back in the garage, hopefully i will get the quotation tomorrow and it will be reasonable. They were the first to talk about tubing from the start!!

One way or another it will be Monday before they will be able to start it so i have the weekend to try get the wings sorted before then, we’ll see how things go.

The mock up build continues.

And finally a picture of my rear lights, this is the better side, the other side will need a little more before it gets to this stage. nothing a little bit of sanding won’t sort out