"Street Buggies," 'Strip-downs", "Vette-Karts" and the Upcoming Salvage Yard Drought.

[RockJustRock]

Why build a buggy when you could build a BUGgy?

[Monster]

Why build a buggy when you could build a BUGgy?

I'd rather have a van ...

[Thumpin455]

I picked this thing up back in October for a winter beater, still waiting on the title. If the title never shows, the supercharged 3.8 and auto transaxle are going into a tube car with the drivetrain in the rear. Think Atom with GM power. Since I am an old guy who can do metal and fiberglass, I will probably make a body for it. Thats the plan for this thing once the salt gods have their way with it anyway even if I get a title for it. If I do it right, I can have a winter beater that will last longer than two years, if I can figure out a way to keep the salt off the metal structure.

A ladder car up here is stupid, its only above 70 for a couple weeks in July/August, and the rest of the time an open air ride is going to suck. Then it has to be parked inside too. Takes up too much space, so to hell with that idea. Where you get no rain and snow plus its always warm, sure great idea.

I don't get much from junkyards, mainly Grand Cherokee steering boxes (A body bolt in with fast ratio) and truck engines. I still find old cars for cheap like my 68 LeMans if I want to build a muscle car with my pile of engines. Not much else of interest in there. Most people pass on the stuff I build because they are afraid of rust. Doesn't bother me much to be honest, as long as there is something left to work with. A quarter sized hole in the quarter panel is a rust bucket in the south west, but up here thats super clean.

Everyone here is into 4x4s, because we kinda need them from a month ago until the end of April. I am working on something with my 00 Silverado, because I can't get the rear header bolt out of the head, so something has to come apart. Might as well be the whole truck and make something else. You guys know me though, I don't think right.

[RockJustRock]

Building a rear drive street buggy from a front drive cradle has always been an appealing proposition. Lots of good raw material all the way back to hotted up 2.2 MoPars and even some old X body stuff like the last X11 packed some stank. I asked an off road buggy guy about it and he said that all that rear weight bias will bite you hard on pavement. Whenever anyone streetified any of his buggy stuff they were sliding the front wheels all over.

[squirrel]

VW bugs did ok....they didn't have much power, and also the engine was pretty light. Corvair was one of the first to fix those shortcomings!

[silver_bullet]

I picked this thing up back in October for a winter beater, still waiting on the title. If the title never shows, the supercharged 3.8 and auto transaxle are going into a tube car with the drivetrain in the rear. Think Atom with GM power. Since I am an old guy who can do metal and fiberglass, I will probably make a body for it. Thats the plan for this thing once the salt gods have their way with it anyway even if I get a title for it. If I do it right, I can have a winter beater that will last longer than two years, if I can figure out a way to keep the salt off the metal structure.

A ladder car up here is stupid, its only above 70 for a couple weeks in July/August, and the rest of the time an open air ride is going to suck. Then it has to be parked inside too. Takes up too much space, so to hell with that idea. Where you get no rain and snow plus its always warm, sure great idea.

I don't get much from junkyards, mainly Grand Cherokee steering boxes (A body bolt in with fast ratio) and truck engines. I still find old cars for cheap like my 68 LeMans if I want to build a muscle car with my pile of engines. Not much else of interest in there. Most people pass on the stuff I build because they are afraid of rust. Doesn't bother me much to be honest, as long as there is something left to work with. A quarter sized hole in the quarter panel is a rust bucket in the south west, but up here thats super clean.

Everyone here is into 4x4s, because we kinda need them from a month ago until the end of April. I am working on something with my 00 Silverado, because I can't get the rear header bolt out of the head, so something has to come apart. Might as well be the whole truck and make something else. You guys know me though, I don't think right.

Just an idea that has been trying to formulate in the brain.....turn the assembly north/south and run the outputs north and south to differentials creating a mid engine 4x4?

[squirrel]

you'd have gear ratio issues....there's a final drive in the transaxle, and front and rear axles have final drives too.

[silver_bullet]

you'd have gear ratio issues....there's a final drive in the transaxle, and front and rear axles have final drives too.

That's the part I have been trying to wrap my head around... would need something along the lines of a quick change on both ends due to the wide variation of ratios... also I was thinking it would be cool to use a Daihatsu utility cabover for kind of a cartoonish Jeep FC look!

[cstmwgn]

That's the part I have been trying to wrap my head around... would need something along the lines of a quick change on both ends due to the wide variation of ratios... also I was thinking it would be cool to use a Daihatsu utility cabover for kind of a cartoonish Jeep FC look!

use stagger! I mean G60s in the front and L60s in the back or heck who knows maybe N50s up front and F70s out back

[silver_bullet]

Alpha tire codes.... wow, that brings back memories! A kid back in the day wanted 50s on the back of his 75 roadrunner, but would not listen when I told him the diameter would be foo small... man, that looked "different"...

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Alpha tire codes.... wow, that brings back memories! A kid back in the day wanted 50s on the back of his 75 roadrunner, but would not listen when I told him the diameter would be foo small... man, that looked "different"...

You had to go with the N50-15s to get decent height (almost 28")

http://hpwizard.com/tire-calculator.html

I suspect if one is going to build a modern version of this sort of car and they're not aggressively back-dating it, they've got to nutzo-huge on the "skins" . . . Not donk-dub nutzo but real w-i-d-e MEATS ON THE STREETS!

[Gateclyve Photographic]

[Gateclyve Photographic]

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Just an idea that has been trying to formulate in the brain.....turn the assembly north/south and run the outputs north and south to differentials creating a mid engine 4x4?

With the growing dominance of the AWD EcoBoost powertraiin for police work, I'm wondering if any of these units will become attractive to low-buck JY-source builders in future?

[Eric]

With the growing dominance of the AWD EcoBoost powertraiin for police work, I'm wondering if any of these units will become attractive to low-buck JY-source builders in future?

maybe, but I'd think low mile non fleet units would be better than the very very high miles police/fleet ones, way more to go wrong in an awd drivetrain.