[MOC] Beach buggy

[Jurss]

Pretty long project, started in february, now finished. It is not summer anymore on the beach. 

It has independent suspension on all wheels, steering

Front suspension is at some angle, like on orginal VW beatle, on which these buugys are based. Of course, there is some torsion bar or something like that used. I just made geometry similar.

There is fake flat 4 cylinder engine

Rear suspension also is similar to original

Main function, just like on the original, body shell is removable in one peace, and the chassis is totally independent

 

[2GodBDGlory]

I love the suspension!

[Maaboo the Witch]

Nice use of the Tumbler tyres as well! They're built for sand.

[Ryokeen]

Nice work. The choice of color, supsension(love the front one), choice of wheels and their fitting size difference, awesome.

And that the bodywork can be removed in one piece makes one want to tinker with it and tune it.

[Alex Ilea]

Very cute build indeed. I do like, besides the looks, all of the small details, like the blue pedals, engine timing and carburator... And the suspension is just sublime!

[gyenesvi]

Wow, I love this, it looks really clean and cool (lime here is great), and under the shell it's interesting mechanically, great suspension solutions and execution!

Does the rear suspension change camber of the wheel as it works? I don't see where the pivot point is, can you show more detail? Is that how a real one would work?

[vascolp]

It is very cool indeed! Even the Beatle chassis shape very identifiable!

It's the non cut chassis version isn't it? You could do also the short chassis version!

[Milan]

Frontpaged.
It has slightly larger pictures, so please keep that in mind for the next topic

[1gor]

I like realistic suspension; if it could only be done in 1:15 scale

Edited November 11, 2023 by 1gor
Type error

[Jundis]

Love the simplistic look! Great job :-)

One thing: Seats could be blue :-P

*Edit: Is the steering hindered by the 1/2 stud offset for the gear rack?

Edited November 11, 2023 by Jundis

[Jurss]

1 hour ago, Milan said:

It has slightly larger pictures,

Sorry, was shure, that bricksafe had correct sizes. 

1 hour ago, Milan said:

Frontpaged.

An thank you!

1 hour ago, vascolp said:

It's the non cut chassis version isn't it?

Could be. Maybe something inbetween. Just used panels and beams, which fit best. Didn't scaled it to some specific scale. 

 

2 hours ago, gyenesvi said:

Does the rear suspension change camber of the wheel as it works?

Yes, rear suspension geometry, I think,  is close to original. 

2 hours ago, Alex Ilea said:

engine timing

I think, that is alternator and its belt. Timing is somewhere else.

Thank You all, I tried replicate original, not in scale, but somehow technically.

 

[gyenesvi]

47 minutes ago, Jurss said:

Yes, rear suspension geometry, I think,  is close to original. 

Thanks, yet I'd still like to understand where (around which axis / axes) it pivots, and how the drive train follows it, I can't see it on the images.. I only see one towball connection and that there is some triangulation.. Can you explain/show that?

[Jurss]

Some close up pictures

OK, maybe this even better

 

[jorgeopesi]

Wow it is impressive even without motors, very good.

[Celeri]

Really nice, I love it, well done!

[gyenesvi]

17 hours ago, Jurss said:

OK, maybe this even better

Thanks for the pics and the render. So the direction of rotation that you draw in here seems physically impossible given that the 5L LBG towball arm and the green pin are fixed relative to each other as part of the chassis (a rigid structure (the triangle of the trailing arm) could not rotate around two axes (so far away from each other) at the same time). So I quickly built this in real life and found that due to some inherent flexibility in pins, it does have some minimal range of motion, but of course stressing the parts along the way. Furthermore, as it travels, it incurs both camber and toe change along the way, which motion the drive axle probably can't exactly follow due to having only one flex point. I guess that's enough/no big deal for your case here, but is that intentionally built so? I guess that would not fly in an official build :)

I believe a triangulated trailing arm should actually rotate around a different axis that is perpendicular to the chassis, not longitudinal as it is now. And for that you'd need two CV joints in the drivetrain to be able to follow the motion without stressing the drive axle. I'm looking into this because I am nowadays interested in (independent) trailing arm suspension, it's something that's rarely built in lego form but is used a lot in reality.

Edited November 12, 2023 by gyenesvi

[Jurss]

Yes, geometry is not really correct, but for suspension travel this model has, it works. There was no option for cv of u joints in this case. At least, nothing pops out or brakes, I also didn't noticed any stress, so I used this.

[Lego Tom]

Shades of Meyers-Manx! Nice build!

[Jurss]

3 hours ago, Lego Tom said:

Meyers-Manx

Yes, that was the inspiration

[Lego Tom]

12 minutes ago, Jurss said:

Yes, that was the inspiration

I built a couple - back in the day.

[Jurss]

12 hours ago, Lego Tom said:

I built a couple

For real, I suppose?

[Captain Sidecar]

I like that a lot. Excellent representations of the VW engine and the "kipper" chassis.

[Aurorasaurus]

Really good little build. Nice work! Very polished, I like the bodywork a lot.

[Lego Tom]

4 hours ago, Jurss said:

For real, I suppose?

Yes. Back in the late 60's and 70's. IIRC, I had to cut 14 3/4" out of the VW floor pan, then weld it back together. Didn't have TIG/MIG welders back then so I used acetylene and gas welded them as they were too thin for my AC buzz box. Then all the linkages also had to be shortened.

[dunebuggy]

@Jurss

I really like some parts of your buggy, especially the separation into chassis and body shell as in reality. The shape of the chassis is also very good.
Will you publish a tutorial or is it possible to get the studio.io file?