New Year…

The festive period out of the way, my foot is improving, and I’m back in work but we’ve changed the shifts around a bit so that I’m now working around 42 hours a week instead of my previous 66+, and as a bonus I get Mondays off!  So I started the day with a bit of shop maintenance and DIY, but then snuck out to the garage to catchup and get my brain in gear…

For Christmas I treated myself to a few bits (“To Dave from Dave” ) – two mighty rouble cardon propshafts (Toyota Hilux / Surf front props), another pair of 26 spline side gears, and a Lockright type locker, from VitMods as JimnyBits have delisted the Lunchbox 

Just got to squeeze this into the front diff then?! (You’ll remember the rear diff is “open” (no traction aids) as it’s having fiddle brakes…)

That’s one big mighty prop!

And it’ll work nicely on a slight angle so that the props can conect to the (rocklobster) transfer box set offset to the left of my seat in the buggy…

Speaking of the transfer box.. a box full of 410 box transmission drum brakes arrived from my mate Richard “Rockwatt” Wattam (“The God of Gearing”) so that I have spares too!.  And I bought new shoes and a cable off another Suzuki friend on Facebook, so that will provide a handbrake, being as the brakes are standard front disks all round…. And these –

… are on the way to convert the 8mm studs to 10mm, and on a different PCD to suit Suzuki / Toyota props…

This will also need machining to suit too… this is the electric reverse drive cog (powered by a starter motor), I’ll pass that to my machining friend who used to make Bits4Vits parts but is on the point of retirement but still does the odd job for pocket money… that just needs machining with a tidy face, and the correct PCD holes and grooves / lip indexes as per the example propshaft spacer. shown in the photo. This will sit on the input flange of the transfer box to give a reverse gear… if the buggy ever needs to go backwards – hopefully it will always be going forwards! A two way winch as per my greenlaning buggy will also assist with this,,,.

I should be able to work out the wheelbase of the buggy soon, by adding two times the axle to end of the monster prop measurements to the total length of the transfer box flange to flange (transmission drum brake), and that will allow me – when the front axle is assembled – to then start on the “chassis” rails – the radius arms will be bolted to the inside of the box section chassis rails so that the buggy eventually has a completely flat bottom…

More soon!