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Yellow buggy build

d_daffron

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2012
Messages
443
Location
Tuscaloosa
I was encouraged to put a build thread up by a fellow hardliner. I'm not a big photo taker so the pics will just hit the high spots.

The goal for this buggy is light and "inexpensive".

Starting off I needed a light powerplant but it also had to be stout in both the HP department and the bottom end strength department. So the obvious choice anyone would come up with was a Cadillac Northstar out of a front wheel drive Deville.

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In this form it weighed in a touch over 300lbs on my bathroom scales.

Since the goal was light weight I knew I needed the light transfercase I could find. Also since the transmission options are limited for a Northstar engine I already decided on a 4 speed 4L60e trans out of a V6 Camaro because its one of the few trannies that has a gm "metric" bellhousing that will mate up to the Northstar. With a 4 speed trans theres really no need for high range going trail to trail. Also after some research and phone calling I found out the SCS case really is a hell of a deal, its significantly cheaper and lighter than the other options out there. So it was settled and a SCS straight drive case it was, there wont be many high end parts in this thread but sometimes you just have to spend a little money even on a budget oriented build

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So here it is, I gotta say this case is a piece of art.

Next up was the chassis, I'm sure this is where I'll loose some of yall but I decided I wanted to do something a little different for the chassis and the main goal was to keep it light while still being strong. After some research I decided on square tubing in a mixture of .080 and .120 wall thicknesses. Also I decided to mount the Northstar on a motor plate sandwiched between the engine and trans then a second plate on the front cover which makes the engine block a stressed member of the chassis and should greatly help with strength which means less tube and less weight.

So now that all the figuring was done it was time to start putting this together.

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I have no frame table or any of that stuff so I set the Northstar on a piece of 1/4" plywood on a good level spot in the shop floor and started cutting and welding. To get the drivetrain length right I had to cut down the 4L60 a little bit. The way I did that was to swap the 2wd output shaft for a 4wd output shaft. Then I cut out an adapter plate to bolt the tailhousing from an NP231 to the end of the 4l60. This shortened the whole drivetrain a little more than 4".

One of the biggest causes of cracked transmission cases, tcase adapters, and other broken componets is because no matter how rigid you build a chassis there is going to be some small amount of flex. Because of this I knew I wanted the engine and trans solid mounted and I also wanted the tcase solid mounted, but I wanted to allow a little bit of wiggle room to allow chassis flex. The best way to do this was to divorce mount the tcase, this completely removes the stress from the transmission case. Of course a divorce mount case doesnt help keep the drivetrain short so I needed the shortest shaft between the trans and tcase I could get. In order to make this tiny shaft I used the center out of a 1350 double cardan CV and pressed it together with a regular old 27spline slip yoke. As you can see it made for as short a driveshaft as possible.

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You can also see my adapter plate/trans mount and the NP231 tailhousing in this pic.
 
I love it. I miss the seeing the super budget builds man. It's the best way to learn on your own what works and what doesn't.

You'll get on the trail pretty quickly and see how you did. It's how most all of us started wheeling.

I'm scared for you running that northstar, I worked on them constantly. If you even said the words coolant leak, the heads warp and head bolts stretch.

Just pay close attention to her. I'd also be careful of the double Cardon you run in your divorce setup. With that connection never running any angle the kind of ponies you're pushing into that bullet proof tcase is gonna crush the needles in those caps I think. I think if you swapped that cardon for a piece of schedule 40 or even 80 poo pipe with plate caps on either end to act as a flange for each yoke to attach, I think you'd be happier.

Hey but anyway, I love the build. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. These builds are what it's all about to me.
 
It is done already, about as done as an offroad rig gets, I'll get to the point soon. I wanted to make a thread that goes somewhat in order though and turns out its alot of typing.

As for the northstar, yeah they definately had their issues but most all of that is due to GM's decision to thread fairly fine thread head bolts directly into an aluminum block. I went ahead and hopefully got ahead of that issue by going ahead and installing the big 5/8-11 thread insert kit on this engine.

Good call on the ujoints, I completely forgot and left that part out. The pic is a little deceiving but there is a slight bit of misalignment between the trans output and the tcase input. The transfercase sitts slightly offset to the driver's side to give me some extra front driveshaft clearance.

As for the ZJ buggy, its going nowhere. Were planning to go somewhere for New Years, maybe Stony and we'll be taking it with its windshield and heater.
 
This rig is very offensive to me. I feel like a had the HL market cornered on cheap buggy/bouncer homade rigs that work and can run with much higher dollar rigs. Then boom this guy shows up.

For those of you that lack reading comprehension this thread has a very happy ending.
 
Eddyj said:
This rig is very offensive to me. I feel like a had the HL market cornered on cheap buggy/bouncer homade rigs that work and can run with much higher dollar rigs. Then boom this guy shows up.

For those of you that lack reading comprehension this thread has a very happy ending.
It's because dave is smart and you not so much
 
Well I havnt had time to finish this post but heres a few more pics of the lower chassis. You can see the motor plate towards the front of the chassis, the engine and trans are also attached to the top side of the chassis but not the bottom which should help reduce stress on the drivetrain whenever the skidplates take a hard hit.
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I guess I kinda lied when I said the Tcase was going to be the only expensive part on this buggy. To keep it light weight I knew I wanted a ford 9", and I wanted plenty of strength so I decided to build a custom axle, there arent a whole lot of pics of the axle building but honestly there was absolutely nothing to it. When I started this thing there werent a whole lot of people building rear axles with unit bearings. I made a call to CavFab to get a set of their unit bearing cups. Apparently they didnt sell well so they discontinued them but there was a set left on the shelf and they made me a killer deal on them.
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I bought a trail gear 9" housing with 3.5" tubes and welded the unit bearing cups on the ends. I set it up where the shafts will be equal length and it'll be 70" wms to wms. I made some calls around and settled on Currie's 4340 40 spline shafts, theyre surprisingly affordable also. For the center section I went with a Yukon center with a steel spool and 3.90 "pro" gears with the 35spline pinion option. I bought the parts individually from Quick performance and set it up myself which saved me a decent bit of money. Using these parts I'm not to concerned with rear axle failures.

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standard ford 9" pinion on top, standard dana 60 pinion in the middle and 35 spline ford 9" pro pinion on bottom.

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currie 40 spline on left standard dana 35 spline on the right.




So if anyone's interested I'll include the parts I used to build this axle. I'm sure there may be a way to save a buck or two on it but I put in a good bit of research to find the best products at the best prices. I kind of wish I had just bit the bullet and bought Timken wheel bearings, but time will tell how these ebay jobs hold up.
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I wouldn't call the rear axle low budget, more like DIY Baller.

Amazing how much you can save putting the parts and pieces together vs just making a phone call.


Bout lost me with the northstar, but the straight drive case and big UB axle reeled it back in.
Curious as to what you did for a front axle.

Interest is piqued now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The rear axle and transfer case ate up a good sum of the overall budget. But the front axle is where I saved a large sum of money. I scored a +05 super duty 60 with 3.73 gears in it for $350 from LKQ and delivered to a nearby shop.

I wanted to try running a numerically lower ratio in the front than the rear to aid in steering since the SCS case didnt have a 2wd option so I kept the stock 60's front 3.73 gears to go with the 3.90's in the rear.

So for now to keep price down I decided to try these 1550 shafts ford has come out with. $308 shipped!!!! From denny's driveshafts.
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no, thats not a minature pepsi bottle.

After that it was pretty much just cutting and welding for a while with pretty much no pictures taken. Theres no real tech there anyway, its just cutting and welding.

Here are some pics of the pretty much completed chassis.
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And yeah, its not truly "low budget" like my $1,500 ZJ we wheeled for years. But the budget on this one is way below what similar buggies generally cost to build.

And yeah, most people find out its not an LS and immediately assume its garbage. The northstar also got some low buck boost thanks to some great advice from Creepycrawly. But I'll save that for when I have a little more time to type later.

Yeah I'm definately not trying to prove you can build a competitive rock bouncer for $500. But with a reasonable budget, a good bit of research and some DIY ingenuity it is possible to build something awesome fairly "cheaply". There are some parts you cannot cheap out on (see above Tcase and rear axle) but there are also alot of places you can save alot of money and get the same result (front axle).

Some things may need to be upgraded later down the road (front RCV shafts) but the point is to get out and wheelin' rather than spending years building a badass collection of the best parts around that I'd loose interst in well before they became a buggy.

This build started by ordering all the major parts I thought I'd need in June of 2017, July 2017 I started putting tubes together.
 
Yes the shafts come complete including ujoints, seals, both inner and outer shafts etc. the picture next to the pepsi bottle is exactly how they come, theyre even pre assembled. All I did was tack the caps in place for a little extra insurance. Only time will tell how they hold up but so far I'm impressed.

The unit bearings were price for both. So far so good with them they look decent and feel tight but when I redrilled them they drilled like butter. The factory bearings were noticably harder. I dont know that you really want a hardened wheel flange anyway. So far they seem like a good deal and I havnt had a wheel fall off. I dont know if thats a recommendation for or against them, I'd buy them again though. Here's a link to them
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F231915098461
 
So thats pretty much all the "build thread" type pictures I have, like I said earlier I didnt take a whole lot of pictures.

Heres a pic of the completed chassis right after I painted it.
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I would like to mention that I did not bend the two main chassis hoops because I dont have the bender or the skill. I contacted Patrick at Murrah Motorsports and sent him a crude drawing of what I needed then Patrick made it a reality. I have to say he hit the mark perfectly and everything fit together like a glove.

So then I was talked into more woopow for the northstar. I found a deal I was told I couldnt pass up on a Northstar specific Eaton M122. $700 shipped to my door, nope not a typo, I paid $700 for a brand new Eaton blower with intercooler. I also built a set of custom headers for it.
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this pic would be thanks to Creepycrawly. It probably is close to 600 crank HP thanks to the cams, heads and blower.

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I had this spare head to show why I chose a Northstar. As you can see thats about as straight a shot into the cylinder as you can get. Also everybody has heard about all the infamous northstar headgasket failures, but out of all of those failures who has heard of a Northstar bottom end failure. The head gaskets issue is fairly easy to resolve because its not actually a head gasket fault as much as it is those fine threaded head bolts being threaded directly into an aluminum block which causes the threads to pull and the head bolts to release tension, shortly after that its bye bye head gasket.

So thats pretty much all the build pictures I took. Heres a pic of the completed buggy after the Grayrock ride.
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There are quite a few more things I did differently that I'll try to post up with some more tech.
 

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