Building an off-road buggy

Matt Sayle

Matt Sayle

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Well, over the summer I wanna build a buggy to play with in the snow next winter. I found an haynes manual that talks you through it and says it is possible for £200.

Has anyone ever done one?
 
Matt Sayle said:
Well, over the summer I wanna build a buggy to play with in the snow next winter. I found an haynes manual that talks you through it and says it is possible for £200.

Has anyone ever done one?
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If you have the mechanical nouse, I suppose it could be done.

What engine and running gear are you thinking of using bud?
 
Many moons ago some friends & I built a buggy out of an old Vw Beetle.

Body off, floorpan welded & strengthened, roll cage fitted out of tubular steel
& off we went.

Next to no expense & everything we didnt need went on Ebay.
 
fracster said:
If you have the mechanical nouse, I suppose it could be done.

What engine and running gear are you thinking of using bud?
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I dunno yet, proberly a 50cc-125cc scooter/moped engine

ALthough the R1 engines that are on ebay for £200 are tempting:nuts::cuckoo:
 
R.I.P. Matt he went out in style.........:nuts:
 
Couple of lads in Dover have R1 powered quads :bonk: :lol:
 
Might as well just buy something off ebay Matt. You'll spend £200 on tools just to make the thing. Have you got a welder?
 
fracster said:
If you have the mechanical nouse, I suppose it could be done.
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Build-Your-Own-Go-Kart-.jpg
 
i read the haynes manual for 'build a sports car for £250' (presume its a similar book to the one you've been looking at) and it struck me that £250 was only possible if you had all the tools, expertise and most of the parts required already knocking about ready to go, so for the majority of people it wouldn't be possible, from memory that build a sportscar pretty much required you to be given a mk1-2 escort for free, whcih given how sort after they are isnt going to happen. i presume that any 'build a **** for £***' is going to be similar.


you;d spend £250 easily on the very basic tools you'd require before you'd even done anything
 
Matt, if you want to get it out of your system, I can take you over the moors in the six wheeler ATV,in the peeing down rain, nearly freezing and dark.

You`d soon get it out of your system.
 
Stuff the off toad mate just buy the rest of the R1 aswell and have loads more fun.
Lovely back pack and you will be at your shoots alot quicker ha ha ha.
 
Is this before or after you get the Motorbike?

If you want to have a bit of fun, spend the money on an offensive/defensive driving course & skid pan course - learn how to control a car properly, then go teach the chavs in the car parks on icy days how to drift ;)

You'll need way more than £200 to put together anything decent..

Just on a separate note - does anyone know the minimum requirements to make a buggy/kart type vehicle a legal road going vehicle?

James
 
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We won't have any snow next year.......
 
Anything's better than that Corsa, Matt :whistling:
 
Do you get the cap free with the corsa, or the corsa free with the cap?
 
Matt, all i would say is if you can't weld or don't know someone who'll do it free, don't do it!!

welding can vary from £60 to £150 an hour, and there will be a fair amount of welding to do!!

I made a pit bike engined (20hp 150cc, 4spd manual) lawn mower 2 years ago for our annual rallyschool lawn mower race, was a bit bodged (to be kind), had the body of a ride on mower, engine over the front wheels to aid weight distribution, a quad axle and the steering off a 106 gti

all entirely home made and cost me about £400 (engine was £250), BUT, the steering rack was the wrong way round, so you turned left she went right, then wheeled it out the shed to load onto a trailer, pulled up the ramp, SNAP went the chain!! b****r. it's been sat in the back of the shed ever since. all she needs is a new steering mechanism bodging up, and a chain!!
 
Matt Sayle said:
I dunno yet, proberly a 50cc-125cc scooter/moped engine

ALthough the R1 engines that are on ebay for £200 are tempting:nuts::cuckoo:
Click to expand...

is that the one for £250 buy it now

if it is a little warning it will need a new set of casing's not worth it , it is my dad's shop who are lsiting it at £250 and it is listed for part's only

a good r1 engine will be £400 upwards

and if you need carb's for it you wont get them and they are very expensive to buy when they do come up
 
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I thought you already had one. Wasn't that Corsa always off the road?
 
Take a look at http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk It's a site for Caterham 7 replicas (Locosts!) but they will be able to help you. Tell them 'donut' sent you!!!
 
Some of us built a mental buggy using the engine out of an old Honda step-thru when we were teenagers. It was a blast. Lots of the other stuff came from abandoned (scrap) cars, something you rarely see round our way now.
The wheels and hubs came off an old Austin 1100. The frame was made out of old angle-iron bed frames and steel gas pipe.
Welding was learned on the job, using an arc welder belonging to a mate's older brother.
It finally came a cropper when we decided to start doing jumps with it. No suspension so the impact of landing took it's toll very quickly. Maybe would've lasted longer if the welding was better, who knows?
 
Speaking as a qualified engineer, who also restores cars in his (limited these days) spare time. I would read the book, enjoy it for wahat it is, and then put it on the shelf and forget about it.

If you are serious about building a buggy there are various methods, all of which will cost considerably more than £200, especially if you haven't got the tools already. You can make something for cheap but it won't be very good and probably won't be very safe!

Or, you could buy something ready made like an old Land Rover/SJ Jeep etc, and then spend money/time on that - if done properly this has the benefit of a road legal car at the end of it (well, doesn't have to be road legal of course)

"Off roading" is another topic all on its own.
 
:+1:

To the list of possible vehicles, I would add the Lada Niva (I think that's the 4x4 one!) and the Fiat Panda 4x4.

Having had a couple of Landies, I can say that they are thirsty buggers! Driven with a light right foot on the road, even in a Diesel you'll be hard pushed to get much better than 25MPG - and that's SWBs. Get a Long wheel base petrol and expect less than 20. Find a V8 and you can get it down into single figures unless you find one with an LPG conversion, in which case it won't bankrupt you quite so fast!
 
What about Suzuki SJ's - At off roading centres I've often seen these outclass Land Rovers. They are like little rockets going up the hills - and they can be picked up relatively cheap now.
 
R1? wuss.
ya want a hayabusa engine. way more torque.
you could do woth something a little bigger than 125 if its going to be substantial.
plenty of 4 stroke 450 motocross engines about.
seen a few trikes with narrowed sierra rear ends.
 
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