First Tube Chassis

After wheeling with Junky for a few years, I came up with a decent sized list of gripes. I thought by building a tube chassis buggy, I could resolve a lot of my complaints.

I wanted to do away with leaf springs, body mounts, and axle wrap. So I came up with an air ride suspension that was adjustable on the fly. I also built the front fenders out of 1/4 inch thick steel so you could use them as work benches. Hydraulic steering, automatic trans, and four wheel disks were among the option list. I wanted a good crawl ratio, but I also thought I would be driving it on the roads a lot so I came up with a triple combination transfer case. It consisted of a double under drive, and an overdrive.

It worked very well, but had a few design flaws. First I forgot to make room for the transmission dipstick, second, it was only a two seater, and third it was so short that it sometimes did not know what way to go. One time I rolled it over two and a half times going down a hill that all of my buddies had all ready gone down.....they all started laughing! The girl that was with me never returned my calls again.....probably a good thing.

Here are a few things I learned:

If you want to go straight, you should be longer than you are wide.

1.5" .250 wall tubing is not strong enough for lower link arms.

Don't forget the dipstick!!!!

Your rear links should not be too short, more on that later.

Don't use cheap stamped rod ends for suspension.

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.....and

If you have a rock buggy and you pull off this amazing feat, no one will care. But if you're in a beater jeep, and make it through a simple section of trail, every one will cheer.