My previous car was a VW beam car. Very limited suspension, but a whole lotta fun. I hope this new project turns out to be even better. Here goes the story so far... I purchased the frame from an add on Craigslist. The seller gave me a story that it was built by Sick sandcars. Turns out they never seen it before. Oh well, the frame is straight and well built. The frame needed to be completed. RFR built the front end and rear arms as well. The rear cage needed to be completed. This was subbed out to a guy named Mitch Weber (formally of Dice Motorsports). As some of you may already know, he screwed me pretty bad ($1400). Needless to say, I am rebuilding the rear cage with the help of a fellow GD.com person. Limo has been helping me with the technical side of bending pipe and the reasons why it must be done a certain way. I am learnig the art of tack welding everything first. My funds are limited so I apologize if it takes a long time to see changes. No one wants to see it done more than me. Well,maybe my wife. Thanks for watching. Tim. (Hydro).Click to view attachment

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachmentThe frame with the cage removed.

Limo helped me figure out where the first two tubes needed to be.

New pipe. Now it is time to get some work done. Alot of measuring went into these seat tabs.Click to view attachmentClick to view attachmentClick to view attachment

Finally mounted the steering wheel.Click to view attachment Found out it is too high. It will be coming out soon. The red roof I bought from our classifieds. Click to view attachment I had to make it nine inches smaller from front to back. This was my first experiance with fiberglass. Not sure if I would want to tackle anything harder than this.

Did you go to the Yoshi school of Fabrication?

LOL, it does resemble a Yoshimobile a bit doesn't it?

On another note, I was just looking more closely at the pics (to see the Yoshi resemblence) and noticed the front arm hiems. Aren't these typically mounted 90 degrees from the way these are? This looks like your travel may be limited by how far the mis-alignment spacers will go.

edited for spelling
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Looking good, keep the pics coming.

Good point and easy tackle right now vs after the car is further or pposible powdered...

Deleted my original post. Sorry. It was unnecessary.

Yea Mitch jacked one of my buddies too. Stay away from the Dice man!!

I think it looks kinda cool, it's definitely different and I like stuff like that, although i'm wondering how much fun it's gonna be getting in and out with the bracing, and the lower windshield tube may need to be dropped a bit for better visibility, but the design is triangulated and looks like it would handle a tumble pretty good.



And I see no resemblance to my rails, lol....

What makes this a joke??

I think the car looks well built and should be fun for the guy to build. Don't rain on a man's parade just because you don't like what he is celebrating.....



Good luck with the build and keep the pictures coming...

I agree with Yoshi... wow. It is going to be a fun climb getting in and out.

Don.t let people talk you out of your build. It loooks well triangulated, good luck.

Funco runs their heims like that. With misalignment spacers the heims can cycle about 70 degrees. A-arms don't need to cycle near that far in most cases.

Good luck on the build Hydro! If you have Limo helping you you should be in good shape.

So far it has been alot of fun building. The angle of the one photo does make it look even more strange. Not sure if it would really make someone give up on the build though. At least I will be able to find it in a crowd. Im sure people probly gave the Funco guy a hard time. Then they saw what he could do. I will not let the haters detour me. I appreciate all the positive feed back. I really thought the same thing about the bar at the bottom of the windshield. I have since put the seats in and it seams perfect. I did relocate the steering wheel. It was way to high and it blocked some of my view. Even getting in was easier than I thought. It is like the old igloo shaped jungle jims they had on the play ground, when I was a kid. If I ever roll maybe it will force me back upright. I saw a Youtube video of a rock crawler that was round on the sides and it seemed to help him when he rolled. That would be funny as sh!t. Thanks for looking. I am looking for flooring ideas and maybe some thoughts on what switches and guages are a must have. This is a budget build, so keep the suggestions on the inexpensive side. Tim.

Lookin good

Here's some ideas:

Floor: I used 0.090 alum sheet with the 5 bar pattern. Ive seen alum diamond plate, perforated, or welded in expanded metal. just depends how you feel about visibility. Ive never had an issue.. Also mine is cut into individaul sheet and mounted on top of the floor bars, this way i doesn't trap sand on the floor. You could powder coat them, bedliner them or leave them polished aluminum.

Guages: Minimum I would suggest is Tach, oil pressure and water temp.

Switches: I have six... 1: front HID's/rear tail lights/gauge lights , 2: in camp headlights, 3: HID light bar, 4: radiator fan, 5: interior lights, 6: whip lights. The brake lights are wired directly in and the amber dust l.e.d. is wired to the ignition "key on"

Side panels: 0.063 aluminum sheet.

And, it might just be the angle, but that front cross bar does look a high high, maybe you might want to move it down since you said it puts the steering wheel up to high and you had to space it down.

Also, make sure you like everything the way it is. Don't say "oh, it'll be ok like that, I guess.." It will drive you nuts later, believe me! This isn't a completed car, so change it to how you want it now.

Lookin good! Good luck, Limo's the man!

Hey thanks for the info. When I sit in the seat I can see past the front of the car totally unobstructed. It does look really high. Just an optical allusion I guess. Just like the bars on the side. I thought for sure they would be right where I needed to climb in. It must be the weird shape that makes it difficult to judge or maybe I just got lucky either way it's good news for me. Tim. P.S. I did add a bar lower for the steering wheel to mount to. In the picture it is still mounted to the top bar.

It's actualy an interesting design and has good triangulation. RFR did a good job on the suspention and gave him a good deal on the work they did in my opinion. I have not seen it with the seats in it but that was my only concern with the design. Tim is a big guy so the cabin being to big should not be a concern. There are a few suspect welds but we will will check them all before the first run. I was hoping to have the cage done by now but work got so busy that I don't even know if i will get to the dunes the year. Maybe we can make some things done this weekend.

dude, really???



good for you

Hey there young fella, don't be discouraged you'll be fine, keep your head up......we'll all be checking this thing out at the hill....

Besides speaking of "Odd Shaped Things" Chicks dig it, just ask my wife !!!

Deleted my original post. Sorry. It was unnecessary. Good luck on the build Hydro.

Hey Spencer, we all have bad days. Maybe this was one for you. I recently jumped to the wrong conclusion on another post and insulted a good cop. Not my shining moment. I appreciate the retraction. Tim.

Updates... pics?

New pictures coming soon. My partner in crime fortunately has become extremely busy with work. He and his friend have been kind enough to loan me there bender. Now if I can figure out how to make what I need, I will take pictures. I think I figured it out. Now to figure out how to notch the next two pieces at this weird angle. Thanks for the interest and best wishes to Limo and thanks for everything. Tim.

New Pictures

Nice work... keep it up. Appears it is coming along well for ya.

How close is your head to the tubes beside and behind the headrest?

sorry about the Mitch guy bro...his name is mud on my end of town too....crazy lookin yet kewl..button this biotch up lets go dunin!!

Lots of room Yoshi. I can't wait to go dunning. I still need a whole bunch of parts. If I had the money it would be running by now. Thanks for all the possitive feedback. It has kept me motivated. See you in the sand.

That thing is sweet. Love the front end design. Keep it up!

I like it. Keep up the good work! It inspires me to finish a few of my own projects.

Sorry to bail out on ya but work has to come first. You have done a fantastick job of learning and picked it up quick. When we loaned you the bender and you said you were done with it a week later i was shocked but it looks like you got it all taken care of. I want to come take a look at it when I get back in to town. That thing looks like you may even make it on a test ride this season, can't wait, I have not even had a chance to work on my own.

Good Job

Never seen one like that before. Nice!

Here are some pictures that I just took today. Hope you like them. I did it all my self, so I have no one to blame but me.Click to view attachmentClick to view attachmentClick to view attachmentClick to view attachment[att
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Nice work Hydro.... see ya in the sand....

Wow you are serious about this thing. Looks like we will get a ride this year. Looks good. Merry Christmas.

Maybe you posted already, but what motor are you going to run?

A Buick 3.8.

Making good progress, keep up the good work.

looks good keep on keepin on, farmdog.

Thank you all very much. The incouragement helps alot. I can't believe how much time is involved in each step. Wow.

Lookin' good Hydro, keep the progress going.

Yoshi jinxed me. I am lowering the windshield. I sat in it and was going insane looking forward. I never noticed it was high. Actually I would like to thank him for pointing it out. I just got done moving it and building a new dash. I am so glad that I did. What a difference. I even built a much better dash than I had before. I will try to get some pictures up tomorrow or Saturday.

It is certainly an interesting frame. The only thing i would change would be to put more gauges in the dash, I hear its an extra 10hp per gauge

Here are the pictures I took today.Click to view attachment
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Very cool looking buggy, love the lines...Good work Boss

And extra thanks to yoshi...the good builders build because other people trust them to build what they know how to build...and are willing to pay them for it. I thought the industry was going to grow out of good fab guys willing to help the ones not buying thier stuff-I think the economy slowed that down quite a bit...but this website is proof that the builders still love what they do and are still excited when they see other people opening up their minds and laying some pipe...Their advice is worth a lot more than .02 cents...and thats my .02 cents!

Guy is learning how to fab and build a car in a quarter the time my build has taken Keep up the work man