Chenowth Sand Toy Project

Hi all,
Thought you might get bored of seeing jeeps.....just kidding. I am afflicted and am a craigslist junkie. I found a sandrail on CL for $500 and couldn't refuse. It is Vw powered and a 4 seater. Sorry don't have pics of it when I bought it, but the first thing was to strip the whole thing down. Next the PO converted it from 2 to a 4 seater. I wasn't happy with the frame and am in the process of re-inforcing it so it doesn't break. Once done it goes to sandblast and I am going to have it epoxy primered. Hope you all enjoy this build.

 

Very cool Ryan. Can I get a ride when it's done?

 

... and here I was just wondering what happened to all the "pipe buggies".
Friend had one on the street back in the 80's, liked it fine except I am long waisted and would bump my noggin on the roll bar.

 

Free rides for everyone when it's done Plan to use a little roll bar padding to help in that department

 

We are building these rigs for racing and/or pleasure. They will use a Honda TRX 700 XX quad motor and suspension.







The top photo is the buggy in pavement/mild dirt prep. the bottom photo shows the full droop of the suspension.

I hope I am not hyjacking your thread.

 

Here's the Motobuggy with the full dirt wheels and shocks.

 

Seems like the little buggies are pretty popular. When I search for sandrail on CL they are always popping up.

 

Got more work done this weekend. Frame stripped and re-inforced, ready for sandblasting and paint.





At this point I think I am going to work on sandblasting the smaller items and repainting the transaxle and front axle before I take the frame it due to space constraints

 

Looks like a fun project, Ryan. Keep the pics coming.

 

Got this neat little toy at Tractor Supply. Many of the small parts on this project are severly rusted, so I thought a little sandblasting might do the trick. Works like a jem. To keep the dust down, I used my garage vacume to suck the air through the filter. I think a shop vac would creat too much vacume and make it hard to work with the items in the cabinet.


These were rusted badly and looked like they needed replacing, but with my new tool they look pretty good.

 

I love my blast cabinet. Also fond of Jasco Speedomatic paint stripper. Between the two of them, rust and old paint doesn't stand a chance.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the paint stripper John. I will have to give it a try.

 

Had to re-arrange my garage last night in order to be able to work on stuff. Dang I have a lot of crap in there. Anywho.... I sourced these tires on C.L. for a fraction of what new ones would have cost. Just to buy new rear paddles they are $375 dollars a piece, and thats without the wheels



Rear transaxle that needs cleaning up and repainting.



Front Axle


An the infamous little stock 1600 this was also sourced from C.L. for cheap. Taking it apart, I broke off one the exhaust manifold bolts. Time for an easy-out.....we'll see how easy it is.

 

Looks like it's going to be sweet ride.

 

I've owned and worked on a number of VW's. Very simple, like a Jeep. I once bought a VW camper (1966) that have a Corvair engine in it. After blowing that engine I put in a VW engine. Imagine my surprise when I put it in 1st gear and let the clutch out and it went in reverse! The Corvair engine rotated reverse of the VW and the differential had been turned around in the transaxle so the ring gear was on the opposite side of the pinion gear to accomodate that. How many diff's do you think you could do that to? If you have some bolt sticking out that you broke, weld a nut on the end of it. Usually the heat of the welding will free it up and you can spin it right out. Use caution with the heat buildup if it's broken off in an aluminum head.

 

I was wondering why they put down reverse rotation on the Kennedy site for adapter plates for motor/trans. That is too kool that the pinion can be reversed to accomodate this. I bet you were going what the heck when it went in reverse. I kinda like the simplicity of this project. I plan on putting together the motor that came with the buggy, but need to buy heads first as they had been grenaded when the engine blew up. Will be my first BW motor build, but looking forward to it. It is a 2161cc.....stroked and bigger bore.

 

Vw for dummies is the book to have if you dont already. The exhaust bolt sounds like a great excuse for 044 heads Also, if you are putting a few $ into rebuilding that motor, I would shoot for at least 1776. That is my favorite all around VW motor, aside from maybe a 2017.

 

Its been several weeks since I posted, but I have been busy working on the new toy. After I re-arranged the garage, I went to work on the front beam, engine, and rear transaxle. Turns out my running engine I got from craigslist was a POS. Upon closer inpection it had a funny sound when turning the crank. I had two decisions, either try and fire it up after hooking it up the the transaxle, or dig into the motor. I chose the latter and glad I did. I found a rod bearing completely gone FYI be very careful with craigslist....Here are some pics of the engine dis-assembled.









After getting this thing all apart. I washed and scrubbed everything in my HF parts washer I got for $30 bucks including HD degreaser. Once clean and upon closer inspection, the main bearing seats were in pretty bad shape. I took it to a place in San Jose called Bugformance who will align board the mains and fix one of the spark plug holes on one of the heads. Get that back this saturday and can start putting the motor back together. I also took the crank in, but it was toast. Found a good crank on CL for $20 and thats going in. After the engine was apart I started to work on the front beam. As you can see by the pics a little rusty. I was amazed about how simple the front beam design is. Basically it's a leaf pack that sits inside the tube and torsionally creates spring to the trailing arms.











Put new boots the the transaxle. Time for degreasing and painting.

 

Too bad about the engine, Ryan. Gonna be pretty cool when you are done. VW's share a lot in the simplicity department with Jeeps.