Bed Frame  The bed frame is coming along slowly but surely.  I am trying to keep the weight down to under 10 thousand pounds but I just keep adding more metal. 

Bracing the Bed frame.

Look at the Jake Leg way I braced the floor of the bed frame.  I was wondering why the angle didn't match up after I cut them.

 

Here is one of the latches I ordered for the bed and tail gate.  I can't remember if I have taken a photo of the tail gate yet but it is another little added Fab that is tsking so long to finish.  Grammy is ready for this project to be done.  The indoor projects are mounting up.

I decided to weld a nut and bolt onto the long hitch pin instead of using cotter pins. It will look better but it sure takes up some time.

I am running out of time so I will just bolt the seat belts directly to the frame.

The Tail Gate

The Seat Belts have arrived. I decided to go with just a lap belt. Shoulder harnesses are nice but they can be too cumbersome on a slow moving cart like this one. This buggy has a very low center of gravity along with a fairly wide track so I don't believe the kids will be getting thrown around a lot. I will be installing three sets. So how many kids will be riding at one time? If you said four or five you are probably correct. The linkage for the accelerator pedal and the brake pedal has been adjusted and firmly bolted in place.

I continue to reinforce the hood and shape it to fit correctly. We will need a way to connect it to the frame. I just happen to have this metal L bracket that will do the trick. I needed an extra set of hands to hold the hood in place while I measured for the placement of the bracket so I got Brenda Brackett to help me. That was her maiden name. The pet monkeys refuse to work in this heat. The following photo shows the first coat of fiberglass and epoxy holding the bracket firmly in place. Grammy Brenda has great plans for the paint job on the hood. I think you are going to like it.

The bed is coming along pretty well. As I said this is the final fab of the project. I feel a bit nostalgic. No I don't! This has gone on far too long. Even the pet monkeys are ready to push it off a cliff. I will use a simple hinge made from 1" and 3/4" schedule 40 pipe. The smaller pipe fits perfectly inside of the larger to make for a smooth rotating hinge. I built a small pedestal on the rear of the frame to support the the bed. A piece of 1" pipe is welded onto the pedestal to form the basis for the pivoting bed. The rear of the cart is perfectly level with both shocks dialed up all the way as you can see if you enlarge this next photo. How did that happen? I have no idea.

Paige was wondering if her Go Cart was going to have anything to cover the open bottom of the floor board. I told her she was just going to have to hang her feet out of the bottom. That way she could just drag her feet for a brake like Fred Flintstone. She did not much like that idea so I will use some aluminum diamond plate for the floor board and trim. This material cuts very easily with a jig saw equipped with a metal cutting blade. Now one thing you have to be careful of is the orientation of your template when cutting the material. You will notice that there is a shiny side and a dull side to the diamond plate. Of course you want for the shiny side to be the side that is exposed to view. You will also notice that I have the sheet turned upside down as it is easier to mark the outline of the template. "This is a mistake". Does anyone know why? That's right, the section will be backwards when you try to install it. Why didn't someone warn me, I only have just so much of this plate.
I think this is going to look really good.

Here is the mini saw I was talking about earlier. It is really just a small keyhole saw but it is perfect for cutting foam or wood.

Now it is time to start the final fab. I have been waiting for this day. We need some kind of bed on the back of the cart to finish out the profile. I have been trying to decide just how tall the profile should be so that it will look OK as well as fit above the engine. Once again I will use the framing blocks to hold the frame as it is tack welded in place.

Here is a picture of my new Friend. Right now the biggest hindrance to getting anything done is the heat. This has been one of the hottest and driest summers on record. Someone said it is hot as hell. That is not true. I think it is somewhat hotter than hell. At any rate I decided to try and mitigate the effects of the heat as much as possible. I broke down and went out and bought this super deluxe swamp cooler. It is little more than a fancy fan that blows water vapor. A pump circulates water through a media as the fan sucks air through the moisture and blows it out through the front venturi. I have noticed before that it seems that the hotter it gets the less I perspire. Someone explained to me that once the ambient temperature reaches about 105 Deg. F. your body begins to reserve fluids just for survival. That is sort of like turning the A C off in your physical system. Is this fan worth $600.00. I will let you know. Meanwhile I continue to work on odds and ends such as widening the edges of the front hood. I love working with the foam because it is so easy to add what you need. It is just a matter of gluing on some additional foam and slicing it down to the desired dimensions. Remind me to show you a Small saw that I bought that works very well in trimming the foam.

I need to make a template for the floor board. Now what could I use that is easy to mark and trim to fit. Wow! The foam works perfect for that too.

The Frame Is Painted. It has been over 100 degrees in this shop everyday for most of the summer. At least it is good for the paint drying. Now I can start to put the cart back together. The hood seems to fit relatively well. i will just need to trim it up some and reinforce the edges. Next thing to do is sanding and painting. i am not looking forward to sanding fiberglass.

This next photo is something you don't see everyday. I bet some of you old Air Dogs will recognize it right away. It is the B17 Flying Fortress from WW2. It is on display at the Flight museum in Galveston Texas.

I can only imagine what a couple of dozen of these must have sounded like converging on selected targets across Europe and who knows where else. I know a few people who personally flew missions in this type of plane. It was known for it's ability to sustain major damage and still limp back home.

Now that the cart is back together it is time to do all of those tedious finishing tasks like being sure all the nuts and bolts are secure, fine tune brakes and drive train, adjust shocks and front suspension, and various other things. For some reason the hydraulic storage tank seems to have a small leak that must be fixed. All of the other hydraulic connections appear to be tight.
I discovered a few changes that needed to be made after the first test run. I could hardly steer the cart because both rear wheels are under power and pushing at the same time without benefit of a rear differential. You can steer the front wheels all you like but it mostly just goes straight ahead.

I was able to correct this by removing the
key from one of the universal joints in the rear drive train. This makes for sort of a make shift differential so steering is no longer a problem. Hopefully the cart will not be ridden a lot in the mud and should not miss the positraction. Now I need to put in the floor and figure out some kind of bed for the rear.

Modified hood form. I got the form for the hood straightened out and it is almost ready for the fiberglass overlay.
All of the open ends in the frame tubes need to be plugged. Just a small piece of 1/8" thick metal is all that is needed for this.

Now comes the fun part of sand blasting the frame. I am setting up a crude sand blasting cabinet at the back of the warehouse. A portable sand blast unit is all that is needed. It was well over 100 degrees the day this picture was taken. I was more concerned about avoiding a heat stroke than getting a good sand blast job.
Use of a plastic tarp will aid in capturing the sand blast media for recycling.

The hood form has been covered with plastic packaging tape to keep the resin from sticking and is now ready for fitting the fiberglass cloth. The cloth is draped onto the mold and I am using a magic marker to show where the cloth needs to be trimmed.

The final step before applying the epoxy and glass is to coat the surface of the mold with paraffin to help keep the epoxy from sticking to the mold.

Just mix a small amount of resin at a time so you can thoroughly wet the surface before the epoxy sets up. You can simply mix another batch and start where you left off. Just a little bit goes a long way. I got about half way with the first batch and it was almost too much to work before it stated setting up.

Holy Guacamole! Why didn't someone tell me how much that insulating foam expanded. It blew the pattern apart. I guess we will just have to file this under Things not to do. Meanwhile back at the finish welding farm, I have added the gussets to the suspension pickups.

Supports have been added to the front roll bar landings.

I added another piece of 1/8" wall square tube to the bottom of the frame. I don't think there will be very much flex in the frame unless the girls decide to try and pile on 10 more kids.

I am trying to support this model so that it will not move when the fiberglass and epoxy is applied.

OK. I have an idea to speed this up. The can that you see on the left in this next photo is a can of that expanding foam that they use to fill in spaces between pipes and crevices in the foundation and plumbing. I will just fill in the remaining holes in the model and make it more stable.

Well just one can didn't go very far. But it should be enough to really solidify the model.