Hatchet Job

[x-bird]

Thought I had this build already up and going here, but I guess not.

Refreshed my daughter's buggy at the end of the summer and sent it off to a new home since she'd pretty well outgrown it.

I got this heap in trade last year when I sold the Sunl-zuki project. Based on the design and parts, I'm thinking this may also be a Sunl, getting Suzuki quadsport front end parts, so I'm going to call it the Hatchet Job. A quick chop here and there and it's going together pretty nicely.


Not going to toss a lot of words in, rather pics are enough to catch the build up. Will be sticking with 150cc GY6 drive.

[x-bird]

this brings it up to current status. gotta grab a few steering parts, seat, harnesses and carb. doesnt' need much more than that.

[70Cobra]

Hi x-bird,

Looks great!

I wonder if you could have a look at my Manco XTK thread? I just got a quad front clip and have some questions about installing it.

Thanks.

[x-bird]

Some updates. Been battling the flu or some crap for a month now, so winterizing work, the house and keeping on this build has been a stretch and then some

Decided the old swingarm mounts were too abused so i lopped them off and used some box tube stubs and 3/16ths plate to make new ones.



Mounting the rear shocks follows my typical fashion of putting them under a well supported tubing run. the fuel tank fits in the center rectangle. will likely "package" most of the electrical components in the triangular area above the shock.



Lower mounts I've just started on consist of 1" tube running on an angle from the swingarm box tube base back to the rear swingarm hoop. Going to put 3 or 4 mounting points on it so i can alter ride height and rate. Also need to add some support for the bearing hangars since they're only welded to the original hangars.




Rack mount bridge up front is tacked in, the mount plates will get centered and welded to it. Still need to add teeth to the rack and make my connections on either end of the tie rods.




BMI Karts had a banging closeout deal, picked up a spiderbox steering column and mount for $5 bucks and the double- UJ extension shaft for $2 bucks i think.

Cut 4 inches out of the steering rod and welded it back together.

Dug out the chunk of metal that was my old 3203 steering rod support plate and had to use that in place of the one on the spiderbox mount since the chop left it out of position and too short.

There will be a cross tube in the front hoop that I'm going to connect a bolt in rod to so that the angle of the steering mount can be moved. 3 tabs on the flat metal on the mount should suffice to make that work and prevent the mount clamps from moving.

[x-bird]

Major hurdle cleared in getting the lower rear shock mounts made and in. 1" tubing with support stubs down to the swingarm, some 1/8th plate welded up into c-channel on top of the tube. Gives me 4 positions to choose from.

Also added a piece of angle to my bearing hangars to help support them, they still need triangular gusset plates on the lower inside areas to tie into the swingarm box tube on the underside.

May or may not add a brake to the rear axle. hubs --the axle and hubs are the old SUnl 150 single seater parts. have rotors mounted to them but at the present time i have no provisions for hanging a caliper off the bearing hanger.

Front brakes are straight-up stock LTZ 400 so no real work to do there but running lines and installing the master.

Seat is being a bit of a pain in that i only have 19-inches of chassis width at the leg bolster area (front). this is putting most low-cost seat choices out of the picture since they're wider. It may get the 944 seat out of my rig with a cover on it, other option is finding a reasonably priced used kirkey.

Still have my rack to mod and rack connections to make. after that it's floor and panels time along with engine rebuild and hanging. trying to get some sprocket to engine dimensions for external reverse setup so when i located the engine and drive sprocket, i set it up so i can add reverse later if i choose.

[SYCARMS]

Looking good X.

[x-bird]

TY Tom, Going a lot slower these days thanks to work and just not having the energy and enthusiasm for fabbing that I had a few years ago. The 'ol rockhound sits alongside of this coated in dried mud taunting me with a crispy fried clutch, wiped out front spindle and first race looming fast in april.

[SYCARMS]

I know what your saying, I have to really push myself cause when spring gets here and my ride is down I want to ride and not kill myself at the last minute.

[x-bird]

Got a little further along, finished welding up the rear shock mounts then chopped out the mid tubing and plate that was on the swingarm and related to being used for an industrial engine setup.

The old sunl axle threw a sprocket location curveball at me that required removing this swingarm's engine hangar crosstube (one side was trashed anyway) and putting the sunl one in shifted as far left as possible. The tensioner plate mount up top will likewise need moved over. I'm also mulling over creating a turnbuckle style tensioner to help support the end of the output shaft, coming up from below. would be a rod end with a sealed bearing in it on the shaft and a rubber bushed eye at the bottom with a small tie rod tube in between. have plenty of quad tie rods to make this from.

The engine's output shaft and splined sprocket tube wasn't suitable to this setup, so luckily i still had a carter talon output shaft to replace it with. The sprocket tube fits more snugly on the talon one, but the sprocket is a 41-series, so it will be getting cut off and a 50 series put in its place, but again moved over much further to the left to align with the axle sprocket. then there'd be the tensioner's bearing followed by the end nut.

engine is torn down awaiting a gasket set for the 150 conversion. so i cracked open the trans while i was at it so i could pull the output shaft and inspect the bearings. Most were in good shape, but the upper clutch shaft blind bearing had rust on the races likely from sitting for a long time. picked up a new one today along with a new oil seal.

gearing-wise, this is going to have 22-inchers up front, 23's at the rear. The internals (another reason i opened the trans) are 13/40 and i'm putting a 39 axle sprocket on it and likely sticking with a 16 on the output. Gives 7.49 final, but i think that's a good choice with the 23s. This is also (mostly) going to be in the hands of a 12-year old, so not worried about cutting the top end back a little with that gearing.

[Gy6buggy88]

Awesome fab skills. Nice welding. That homely green buggy you started with looks tough now! What kind of gear are you using to bend the tubing?

[x-bird]

Thank you. None, when i take these old ones and re-do them I use the existing tubing pieces from the bolt together cages and basically visualize and experiment with how they can be cut and re-used to make something a bit more aesthetically pleasing and structurally much stronger/safer. For this one, I've got 27-feet of new 1-inch tubing into it as well.

If i have to combine pieces to use a pre-curved chunk (like the upper side rail's corner at the back) i slug it internally with another piece of snug-fitting tubing, drill and plug weld the other tube to that and leave a slight gap so the weld penetrates the inside tube and the outer tubing ends at the joint. That allows it to be ground flush.

In the case of that upper rail, i ran new 1-inch into a short piece of curved and plug welded it and then welded the joint at the difference in diameters.

[x-bird]

Trans rebuild finished.
Had to make another trip to my local supply house for two more bearings. neglected to check the primary side of the case and had two more upper bearings with rusty cages and races.

If you're dealing with an engine that has sat for an unknown amount of time, this is definitely an area to inspect. the gear oil level is below the higher mounted bearings and with the trans being vented, those bearings are exposed to whatever atmospheric conditions it's stored in.

Meantime gasket set and carb are in hand and both upper engine mount bushings have been replaced with new ones. 50-series sprocket has had its hub cut off and been bored out to 27mm shaft dia. Should get the engine conversion/assembly completed this week and it will then be time to align the mounts n sprockets and weld the swingarm bits in place.

[x-bird]

engine is finished, 125 to 150 cc conversion went pretty smoothly ... 'cept for some chucklehead who forgot to put the timing chain on when bolting the halves together ..and then forgot you can't get the upper timing chain guide in with the the halves bolted together ....third time was the charm. jug n top end were Xlint's with some porting to the head he'd done to it, so time to put that to the test pretty soon. A-10 cam, cheap junk new carb and basic exhaust. Also put an 8-pole stator and flywheel in it that I got from him. It's going to be interesting when i wire it up since i have no clue what type cdi is in the wiring bundle that came with the old beast. may run ok, may run rev limited or it might melt the cdi ...

with that job out of the way, setting the engine mount tube threw me a curveball in that I can't run the 39T sprocket i have. putting it on one side of the axle mount puts the chain in the boss that the reverse box reinforcing brackets bolt to, and is to close to the bottom of the case even without that. put it on the other side and the drive sprocket ends up too close to the engine case, no room for even a thin head bolt where the tensioner mount hole is.

So after monkeying the axle in and out 4 times, i got the 32 tooth sprocket on it with no clearance issues. Question now is run either a 6.0 or a 7.0 final ratio with the 23" tall rear tires ?? i've got the 16T sprocket ready to weld for a 6.0 ratio. for 7.0 i'd have to cut down and bore out a 14T sprocket i have in the supply. did the bore-out with a die grinder mounted in my drill press and went round n round for ever inside the bore. not looking forward to that again. .....

[x-bird]

Made a lot of progress the last week. pretty much wrapped up re-engineering the swingarm.

flipped the stock type tensioner bracket inboard then used parts from the tensioner that came with the engine to make a secondary one that provides support on the outside of the sprocket.
top view


Braced the corners where all that pull is hitting the top frame bar. secondary tensioner is made from a bearing shell with a new sealed bearing (rides on output shaft), another shell with an engine mount bushing in it (bolts in up top) and a tie rod cut down with tie rod (l/r hand) ends cut off and welded to the shells.



back end mounted up. i still need to trim down a spacer tube that'll go to the end nut on the output shaft.




Simple battery tray from angle iron. Ground stud welded to swingarm tube above. Frame will have same and battery and all grounds will tie in on the studs.



Mulled over a few ideas for additional support for the bearing hangars before settling on a simple tube riser.



Also threw the old harness that came with it in place, was able to verify that the starter switch/ starter circuit works.

[x-bird]

Happy smile getting bigger daily, connected remainder of electrical that wasn't related to lighting and have verified spark with nothing going "Szzzzt!" and releasing its smoke reserves.

Here comes fuel .....

[x-bird]

and after a few fits involving getting fuel to the carb then thru the carb, we have fire!

http://youtu.be/CjwS2j7c4v0

Among the issues in getting it going were a "dead" float needle in the new carb--it's likely missing the internal spring in the float needle since the plunger stays down in the hole and will not support the float.
It also seems i was using what might be a plugged fuel line, went to a clear hose to resolve that.

The vacuum petcock also seems to be "fighting" with the carb, have the carb and petcock T'd together to the intake and I'd swear its pulling the fuel back out of the system.

will most likely convert it to gravity feed.

At this stage, it's a verified runner, only things i haven't checked are the charging feed back to the battery and whether or not the cdi is rpm limited.--didn't sound that way during the test run.

At this stage i can work up electrical mount tabs etc. and move on to seat, body panels and the couple pieces in need to fab for the steering.

coming soon!

[x-bird]

About due for an update as I'm closing in on test ride time.

Decided on a single rear rotor and caliper for brakes, I can add a front master liked to the pedal and connect the fronts later (stock LTZ setup) if i feel the need. Rotor and caliper are spiderbox and surprisingly the caliper bolted right up to this old swingarm.

Master cylinder is from the LTZ rear brake, after a full teardown and cleaning, it works very well and was an easy bleed and install.

The rotor mount was another matter entirely, I had to make a mount for it on the Sunl axle by boring out a spacer a friend made for me years ago and grinding it to fit the axle's taper. I got lucky in having another smaller rotor with matching bolt pattern for the yerf. cut that center out and welded it to the mount on the axle.

Go-power comes from the old brake pull rod from the 3203 (I'm still making red dust on the floor with 3203 bits ) a lawn mower cable kit for the housing and a bicycle inner cable.

Pedals for both gas and brake will be modified to "full foot plate" style as they're awkwardly angled and easy to get one's foot under.

Nerf bars are in, seat is in, 5 point harnesses from a jr. dragster are in and fitted.

presently repairing/modifying front lower control arms by cutting off and boring out the welded ball joints and installing golf kart tie rod ends and threaded tube. Will allow for camber adjustment.

Once i finish that, I have some more dent hammering to finish on the old floorpan, panel nut tabs to make and weld in and it will be paint time.

[x-bird]

Added about 10 teeth to the spiderbox rack and made my bolt on connectors for the spindles and rack. basically flat stock built into a box with the original tie rod tapered part chopped off and welded into a hole in the flat stock base.

3/8ths tie rods came from bmi on closeout, if they're not strong enough, i sized the connectors to fit 1/2 heims with high misalignment spacers.

[SYCARMS]

Looks like it is ready for paint or powder coat.

[x-bird]

Paint it will be, frame is going to be rustoleum gloss black down low fading up into metal cast red with all of it over shot with the color shift clear. When it comes to the body panels, not quite sure yet.

Thrashed about 12 hours on it yesterday shooting for a test run only to run out of light with 3 cotter pins to go. Rained half the day today and still debating a test run, hate to get it too slopped up.

also got one issue to trace in the wiring, key switch off doesnt' kill it, gotta be a ground return somewhere missing on that.

[x-bird]

Quick walk around vid along with a test ride.

first 3 clips of the running you can hear it misfiring, ignition + wire connector slipped apart. Felt soggy and could hear it sputtering then it died on me. Added fuel, no dice, found the wire loose, plugged it back together and off she went. last two clips sounds and felt much healthier.

And pertinent to a recent discussion regarding stators and regulators/rectifiers, this is running an 8 pole stator and flywheel with the small gray 6 pole regulator ..... It sacrificed its life's smoke to the demon god Lucas in short order.

Otherwise, very pleased with it, nice and tight up front, rear springs are a bit stiff. didn't want to do much more than a few loops, ground was very soft . well wanted to, but didn't want to muck things up LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJestSnrGJk

[x-bird]

bit of research led to the fact that while dead on similar in looks and pin out, 110 regulator/rectifiers are circuited differently internally and this needs a 4 pin for a 150cc.

[x-bird]

final stretch, spent a few days with the snips, jigsaw and drill. Over 100 little 18 gauge tabs and 200+ pieces of hardware later, the panel work is done. Floor has been hammered back into shape and welded back on along with some extra pieces left from the 3203 seat pan to fill the floor voids. 1/8th aluminum firewall, and made a roof panel out of the same tonight.

[SYCARMS]

Looks good

[OLDKID]

Sweet !!!

[x-bird]

window nets went in today, couple more tabs ...funny how the need for those things keep rearing their ugly little heads then it's squirt time.

[x-bird]

Spent quite a bit of time getting down the home stretch with controls. Took two corners of the washing machine shell and made an enclosed switchbox. Had to make a tube stub for the ignition switch, i didn't want the box to be a deep lump hanging in the side view, nor did I want the switch backs exposed.

top is light switch, then key, kill and horn and an aux toggle if ever needed.

parking brake was a fun bit of cable routing, only cable i had was a HD throttle cable that came from the LTZ I think. not much length to it, but the handle set in well. Had to be basically vertical since i'm pulling from the front instead of the back as it's designed to do. it's attached to the brake pedal and pulls it to the front.




Switch box close up, mirror mounting bolt also holds the switch box at the top. another small tab at the bottom completes the mount. undo the screws and the front and inside half of the box come right off with all of the switches and wires attached to it.

[x-bird]

in the home stretch, blew some color on it a couple weeks back. been putting the big little "model" back together and dealing with the "find/make" the right hardware bits n pieces.

Am finishing the wiring for lights, have to sew a couple straps to the seat cover to keep the 5-point belts from falling away when popping the latch and she's good to go then.

Couple of minor issues drove me nuts. Front end geometry kept looking all out of whack. finally spotted that i have a pair of 21.5 and a 22.5 inch tall tires up front.

Other item is the ignition switch. It appears to be original to the harness, but has no ground position. all contacts are 12v +, nothing's shorted or mis-wired. Buggy will only shut off with the kill switch. That has had me going in circles last couple days. finally decided that's the way it's going to stay. cdi is not rpm limited, so i dont' know if this had a remote kill wired into it or what the deal with this setup is.

Have the correct regulator/rectifier in place, pulling 4.5 volts with the buggy running and the positive wire off the battery, so charging circuit appears good to go.

Despite the case being cast with 125cm/2 on it, I'm fairly certain this was a 110cc and not a 125. that fits in with the wiring harness layout and the little regulator that i sacrificed to Lucas.

The "real" pictures will be coming soon.

[x-bird]

Finished it up last week. Still a couple little tweaks and tuning to mess with, but nothing to stop the riding. Having a hard time keeping myself from running it .

[EVILWS6]

Looks like a fun buggy!!

[SYCARMS]

Nice job

[SJR]

Nice jobs what's your reactions now that you rode it?

[x-bird]

It's more fun than my 434cc beast! LOL At least in my backyard anyway. 150 can handle the 23" tires out back with no issues, turning radius is excellent. Center of gravity feel is so much lower than mine it isn't funny. with the tall tires i have yet to find top speed with it, it's still pulling when we run out of room looping the house. I want to say 35mph is no problem at all and it may be close to 40 topped out. Pedal position makes it a little knees up tight even for my daughter, there's room to move things up front, but that will wait til the winter at least.

Race report on the lil miss. 3 buggies, all 12 year old pilots at the wheel. Round one was against the HH mid size mud bug, the girl at the wheel was able to keep it floored all the way around, but kathryn caught her at the line by a half a buggy and took the win. Round two she took out a boy in a larger buggy with an old 200cc sled engine and cvt setup, short tires, drifting corners and spinning them cost him the win. that style of riding is popular, but don't work. round three double elimination agains the green one again saw her shoot her foot over the gas pedal after launch, came back hard but put it slightly on two wheels in the corner never lifted, pegged a barrel and lost that one. Round 2 same girl same muffed launch "technique" and lost it by a nose. took second and was happy with it as was I for not backing off one bit in both runs after losing a lot of ground at the start.



One of these is not like the other ;~)

[SJR]

I like how you used a quad frontend, thanks for the report