This is my humble channel where I work on things (primarily my Baja Bug) in my garage with my buddy (dog) Doug. I work a regular job and don't have a lot of room to spread out with these projects. So I think the purpose of my videos is to show that those of us with limited space can still get quite a bit done if we organize and plan what we do. So please enjoy the videos, comment if you like. Hopefully it will inspire some people to go out into the garage and build something.
It’s been my understanding that you can successfully use epoxy over polyester resin, but polyester resin over existing epoxy is no bueno. Doug looked disappointed when you were using poly over epoxy. Excellent parts without wildly complicated mold work. Kudos.
Really enjoyed the ride. Awesome footage I really really I have always wanted a bug to do that exact same thing Love it keep the videos coming I would love to see it with a 360 cam on a stick mounted to your roof. That would be some awesome footage. Thank you and be safe and God bless.
Tire Pressures: For advice on tire pressures and shock valving for offroad use, call Bob Hummel at Raceready Products in San Diego. These guys have years of experience setting up, and running offroad race cars. With the correct tire pressures you will not need to run beadlock wheels. Don't forget to place your thumbs on the outside rim of the steering wheel, to prevent getting a broken thumb after a heavy landing.
Pretty amazing what you have built. My only suggestion would be to use 1708 biaxial fiberglass. It will give you a lot more strength and rigidness. Good job, brother!
Whooo Doug, it looks like you have a very nice rig ! The suspension setup is impressive, it rides very smooth and I think it could handle a lot more abuse ! Are you going to race ?
I’d try closer to 20 psi in the rear tires. Should help with the little harsh bumps. 20 is well within the safe range for non bead lock wheels. I used to run 2 psi in the rear tires of my old ford ranger pterunner in the dunes, never lost a bead.
Your question on tire pressures, you are definitely way too high!!! Out here in the CA desert high speed stuff, 40mph+, I run 12 psi and have never had a tire de bead on regular wheels. 8psi in the dunes and 12psi up in the mountains. All the low-speed jarring feeling you are getting will be greatly reduced by dropping that tire pressure. I cant remember if you did any power steering on wratchet but it seems like you have to saw that steering wheel a bit! I recommend adding an electric power steering setup to it! Ive been in a few cars with epowersteering kit a few times, and I definitely recommend it. I believe they just use chevy electric units so you can probably handle sourcing and building your own setup too!
Ah, great info on the tire pressures, I will run much lower next time out and see how it goes. There is no power steering right now, the wheel jumps all over the place. I'm looking into electric power steering units, I think that would be fun to try out. Thanks for the info.
It's been a while since I had a notification from your channel, Mike. What ever you did, the track footage showed Wratchet was handling the track smoother than before. Nice job👍. You guys are having too much fun at the track, I envy you guys. Looking forward for the next vlog.
Seems like the low-speed dampening is too firm, and the high-speed dampening is too loose. It drives hard as a rock, but bottoms-out at landings. You can actually see the fronts bouncing at landings. Nice to see the heel stop is working.
That heel stop is a game changer, it sucked before that. The rear is easy to play around with because of the bypass, but the front is just a single coilover. I'm thinking the front needs to be tighter or firmer, but that's going in the opposite direction for the smaller stuff. I'm still going to play around with lowering tire pressure too. But I'm surprised it bobbles so much on the smaller stuff.
G'day, Hey, it's great to see Wratchet out on the tracks. You certainly got some serious air time. So, thanks for sharing ✌️ Peace from Melbourne Australia.
As long as you make those changes I did to the spindles, this design is super strong and geometrically correct. I can now say I give it a double thumbs up. 👍👍
Man, those landings look buttery now! I guess maybe they don't feel as buttery as they look, since you said you were getting beat up...? Looks awesome though!
Thanks, the landings are actually really soft. The part where I get rag dolled is when rolling over the small stuff. I need to figure out how to get it to soak up small terrain and still have the tight valving to absorb bigger landings.
@@DougBugBuilder That's fantastic! Sounds like maybe there is something that you can do with your valving to make it a bit more progressive, or maybe it has to do with those high-ish seeming rear tire pressures? It'll be interesting to see what you find!
@@MiahsBug I've started looking at beadlock options. Believe it or not I'm having trouble finding beadlocks that have the exact dimensions of these Tacoma wheels. I might go to 17's.
Alot of bad info on the LE5. Nothing wrong with it. Its gets a bad rep from the 2010 2013 equinox etc. The transverse mounted engines had lots of problems. The direct injected engines are junk so are turbos. Stick with port injected non turbo setups and they will last a good long time.
Wow Get down Wratchet !!!!! That suspension is working great, If I took that many jumps in my car It couldn't handle it. Don't know if there is much room for improvement, If so ,what and where would you start. You hit that double a few times and the car lands so nice. Great job Doc.
Steering is my first priority. I need to put the cutting brake somewhere easier to pull. And I need a dampener or some kind of power steering. The wheel is all over the place. Then I need to try to get it a little softer on the small bumps, but still be able to absorb the bigger jumps. And I need to put some attention into the EFI, it runs good, but couple things can be better on engine control. But all in all it's running great! Thanks for the comment.
awesome sir been watchin this build since was just a parts pile and a idea.... i honestly expected no less sir youre so meticulous..... im an amputee with right foot missing... so i fabricated hand throttles for both my rail buggies and my Porsche Boxsters .... theyre basically an ATV thumb throttle actuating the throttle cable piggyback so the foot still works.... this is attatched to my shifter .... throttle modulation bouncin off these Arkansas rocks is easy peasy and startin from stop heading almost verticle is childsplay ..... after all day did yer kneck and back hurt? yes? suggestion: when ya git airborn land with throttle on ...not idle or clutch pushed in both those hurt stability and the kneck..... a tether to limit helmet travel and a Hahns device are not wasted $ good luck have fun be safe
This thing beats the crap out of me, it really rag dolls me on some parts of the track. I removed the swaybar, that made it a little better. I'm still experimenting with lower tire pressures. Next I might try better seats, these grab me and really connect me to the chassis. It's not the landings that are tough, those are actually pretty soft. Its getting jiggled around on the smaller stuff, after longer runs I swear my whole body is numb for a couple minutes when I stop. Good idea on the thumb throttle, and thanks for watching for so long. 👍
@@DougBugBuilder youre more than capable of fabricating suspension seats..... theyre the cats meow for a good ride and they stay a LOT cooler when the temps go up.... any place that sells offroad parts sells suspension seats..... youre spot on with swaybar disconnect especially if jumping a lot how adjustable are your shocks? look at softening compression dampening and slowing down rebound? .... just try an adjustment and change it if its worst lol ya cant Mess em up just make sure both sides are set same same .... youll get it dialed i got faith in ya sir have fun is the most important part
Awesome video🤙 All i need to say is lifted 2000 f150 4x4 😆 that’s why im here 👍 horrible steering bump🤦🏽 im in the process of designing a new setup for steering and control arms. I dont understand why they make upper control arms so short 🤷🏽 im hoping to get a rack and pinion conversion to eliminate the pitman and idler arms. I do realize having my torsions cranked is where my problems start. I dont want to do solid axles and i have a plan for a different diff to allow for long travel with 4wd 🤘
Have you ever thought of making a locking hub? to enable and disable with ought having to unhook if you pull up to a trail? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-19kf-4W7uSo.html
I have a buggy I want to build and I was looking at the chassis you are building, what is the thickness of the tubing you are using? My build is thought on light off roading and I will use vw parts for it. Hope you can help me
@@DougBugBuilder awesome, thanks a lot. Id be using square tubing for the bed frame and the rest will be DOM on the lower side, I'll use 1 1/2" .125 mild steel for the roll cage
I'm really happy with them. I've used them over some pretty good terrain, and made lots of valving changes with them. I've had them taken apart quite a bit and I've had no issues with them.
hi i know i am replying to a 4 year old video but could you tell me how did you mount the spindle point to the knuckle, it would be really helpful as i too am a car enthusiast just as you , and i will be making my own baja buggy. Thank you
I’m really new to this & don’t understand why you are making a mold from the fenders to then make some fenders rather than just use the existing fenders as the mold. Can anybody explain why please?
The actual fenders can't be used as a mold. The mold has to be an "outside" copy of the part I want to make. Make the mold off what you want to make, in this case the fenders. Then when you make the fiberglass part it will be a copy of the original piece.
@@DougBugBuilder Thank you, it just seemed like a lot of effort for ‘only’ some fenders but I understand what you mean - this is the only way to get an exact copy. I do appreciate you taking the time to not only produce these videos but for replying too. Cheers 👍
I never calculated the instant center. What I did was lay out the geometry of the pivot points of the upper and lower arms and the steering arm so they all were all in line with each other, at least geometrically. This way when the suspension went through its motion there is no bump steer. Roll center and instant center were not my primary concerns, suspension travel was my main goal. I hope that helps.
@@DougBugBuilder Thanks Doug! We modeled our suspension off yours and couldn’t seem to calculate instant center as upper and lower control arms are close to parallel (formula was coming back with 198”)…. So likely little bump steer. Your videos have really helped us (and his high school buddies….they’re learning to weld, use plasma cutter, calculate geometries, spring loading on coil overs, etc). Thank you again!
