A few weekends ago I finally got off my butt and put some lighting on my buggy.
Quite a while ago I found a large sealed battery box in my shed, and wouldn't you know it fit perfectly in the front of the frame where the two suspension A arms are mounted.
A month or two ago dbil84 came up and we went to harbor freight for their early spring sale. We loaded up on cheap stuff, and I found a set of offload lights (100W) for $20, I could not pass that up. It even came with the switch and wiring. The silver fox had a lighting option, so there were mounts already for the lights. I was going to mount them up on the top of the cage, but they're starting to grow on me.
Here's the battery box and lights test fit:
Nothing happened for quite a while until my wife went away for the weekend a few weeks back. I went to Advance Auto where my friend works and picked up a used car battery (they test fine, but were replaced under warranty for whatever reason) for $35. I added a pair of terminals and a hold-down kit as well. Finally I had all the ingredients I needed.
I had dbil84 and some non-buggy owning friends over so they could watch while I worked on it
Here's the holes and grade 8 bolts I found laying around (bag of 20 with nuts and washers all unopened!)
Box mounted
Tie-down kit added, battery in place
Contrary to all my other "projects", I didn't half-ass anything. I got some split-loom for the wiring, I soldered/heat shrunk connections and zip-tied everyone down tight in place.
I was trying to think of what I could use for a "switch panel", I wanted something sealed just to ward off the elements. The only thing I could think of was a 3"x5" index card box. It's sealed and hinged so I can get at the switches. Unfortunately the dremeling and drilling has taken it's toll on this box and it's in pretty rough shape, it's not as sturdy as I had hoped. This weekend I moved the kill switch from the steering wheel to this box (not pictured) and it works, but it could be much better. Any other (cheap) ideas?
And finally, the money shots so to speak:
For $20, the lights are great. I did a quick night ride and if I wanted to readjust them, I'd probably have about as much range as a car, which is PLENTY considering this buggy is much much slower.
The extra weight from the battery on the front end seems to actually make turn-in better, though the "fake" suspension is more bouncy now. Eventually I may look into some ATV shocks or something.
In then end, things turned out better than I had expected, which was unexpected and great.
Bonus picture of my "apparently I like silver" garage of toys (this was not planned, and I didn't notice it until I pulled the buggy in, haha):
