College Transportation

Cool Project - I'd use a air cooler VW engine and drivetrain.

Yes Stilljester that's what we have always used in the past to build our summer play toys with and it has always worked fine. It's just we wanted to do something no one else had this time as there are/where 15 or so of our buggies with VW, and 1 with a Corvair 6 cyl. fuel injected engines in them running around here. We also wanted to stick a little nitrous to say 16hp Briggs and see what happens,,,,no I'm not a mean Dad,,,,,lol

If you could find an old snowmobile (maybe in the Smokies) with reverse, you be all set, torque converter and all. Also, some heavy motorcycles have had electric reverse units added -- some of which apply a friction drum to the rear wheel, engaged/disengaged with a lever.

Thanks Ken, good idea. I think I'll try to find some prints or sketches that show me how they worked while I'm looking for a used one as we are a full blown machining and fabrication job shop with CNC Mills and Lathes with all the manual support stuff to go along with it. As a result we end up making most things if we can. If anyone has any idea of where I can find info on the kind of Reverse Ken is talking about please let me know. I'll try google I guess, but thanks again for the idea Ken,,,,,

Chuck

Sounds like wheel re-invention to me. In the first place a one off car like this would probably be pulled over by the local police right away as it lacked many mandatory features such vehicles need.

Secondly, if this was not well made and engineered it could become a death car for the kid.

When I was young we bought old cars and fiddled with them to make them go.

Chuck could correct me in this, but I'd guess that in Sugar Tit, SC the local police would probably just chuckle, as long as it looks like it could get down the road without killing more than a couple people.

Ah yes, the good old days, with the good old boys, they still exist in Sugar Tit SC and West Nipple AL

Sadly here in Canada you would be pulled over in a heartbeat with a non licenced gas vehicle. Licensing a private made vehicle is nearly impossible for the road due to safety and emission regs here.

LOL Ken, no boss all we have around here is county cops, no locale police. The community has been called Sugar Tit for a very long time, like back to the pony express days, see we have paper work and news print that talks about the community known as Sugar Tit in South Carolina. We even used to be on some maps. Anyway all the talk in here about the car seems to be running towards a pile of junk they must think we build. We have never built anything in this shop for the road or dirt that I'd not let my own mother drive, safety is always first. Knock on wood but the only accident caused by anything we have built happened to me. when we built a chopper for a friend and I was riding it out of the shop, when I stood on it a little I hit grinding dust on the floor and proceeded to look like someone making a three stooges cartoon. Cost me a new door and hanging my head low for about a week, lol. Several folks have made a big deal out of getting tags and insurance for this, all I can say is we have never had a problem. We build to the states specs and all is well. We still go the way of using a title to something that we have dismantled like in the case of most of our VW Rails, however like now, when we go from drawing board to the machine shop it's all home built titles and we have never had any problems. The only thing along those same lines i can think in the trouble department is I built a rail once that I drove to a hill climb in Kentucky and as I went through Tenn. I was pulled over for noise as I did have the cutouts opened up so it was straight headers and in Tenn. cutouts are illegal in Tenn. and I didn't know that. Another thing, someone mentioned women, I'm working on a Chastity belt for him now,,,,,,lol. Folks I may talk and look like Jed Clampit from the Beverly Hillbillies but I promise you we do first class work here in our shop. Hell we've been making Cross Drilled and Slotted Rotors for the public and NASCAR for 15 years now. All I asked for is help in designing a way for reverse, not sure what happened with all the other comments.

Chuck

PS. 5 miles from Sugar Tit is where BMW built and opened it's first American factory! My nick name is Bubba,,,,guess what BMW stands for,,,,,,Bubba Made Wheels,,,,,,lol

I can see you live in a car builders paradise. Here (canada)we have remnants of socialism and huge layers of rules and beurocracy and it is almost impossible to get a home built licenced here.

Bill

I can feel your pain as we do have our own type of pain, like when ever I register a toy we built, unless I get a lady that knows us, it's just like I have to teach them how to do their jobs to get tags title and the like.,,,Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I drive past the BMW plant fairly often, on my way to and from NC from GA. Funny, after your first post, I tried to find Sugar Tit on Mapquest, and mapquest didn't seem to know the town, but I found a description of the location and a funny story re how the place got its name. So when I looked again on Mapquest, I said to myself -- I bet he's near the BMW plant. Sure nuf.

You've probably fooled around with differentials, (turning one wheel, and watching the other go backwards, etc). I was wondering if anyone had used a differential to make a fwd/rev gearbox, and did a search and the first thing I came up with is this gearbox, that is built exactly for what you are doing. It's not based on a differential, but was just a coincidence that it popped up.

In GA, the idea of keeping receipts is purely to prove ownership, not to show that components used are suitable. I'm in the midst of building a prototype that I'll register the same way you do your vehicles.

For it, reverse is temporarily an issue too. The vehicle is extremely light, so when my dad was about to throw out a 12 volt cordless drill (new batteries cost more than the drill is worth) I said, sure I'll take it. Given its specs for torque and speed, I calculated that I could use it to get this little vehicle moving backwards up a slight slope at 1 mph. I may drive the rear wheel through friction, or might have a retractable arm with a small urethane wheel at the end. But it's temporary, and a little cruder than you probably want. One step removed from cutting a hole in the floor and sticking my foot out.

BTW, if you look for an old snowmobile, be sure it has actual reverse gearing. Some (maybe most) actually started the engine in reverse for going backwards (which only works with a two-stroke). But some have planetary gearsets, actuated via pushbutton (is that sissified, or what?) Other possibilities: Many ATV's have reverse -- of course then you might want to steal the entire engine and gearbox, which might not be as much fun...

Also, in your shop you could build a gearbox. A simple way to do it would be to use a pair of parallel shafts with a duplex chain ( or hyvo) drive near one end, and a spur gear drive near the other. A sliding dog on the input shaft, between the gear set and the chain set, would lock either the chain sprocket or the spur gear to the input shaft. (Same basic construction as a motorcycle gearbox, but with only two "speeds" -- but in this case one speed would be reverse.)

Hmmmmm, Ken, you are making me think,,,,lol

What is the rest of the drivetrain, How heavy will the car be? If you are talking about something like a sand rail, pick up a dune buggy magazine,in there they advertise foreward reverse gear boxes for the bike engined rails, inboard boats have foreward reverse gearboxes or if you are running a chain drive, an old style ford starter motor with a sprocket fitted on the armeture shaft and mounted to line up with the chain could be used as an electric rererse. Pull lever to engage sprocket in chain,then push button to run starter motor. You had better be ready to go when you push the button because that starter motor has a lot of torque.

Hilltopper I love it, wow, man I must have been asleep at the wheel again because I never even had any thoughts such as you just shared. Let me study on this a while and run it by the son. I really like the starter motor idea. Many thanks for it,,,,,Chuck

I thought Planetary gear, also!.........How about an old Model T Ford gear box?

g scott

Build a VW powered sand rail or Manx style buggy. You can use the donor cars VIN to register it.

I'm sure to legally drive this thing even on campus you'll need to register it. In order to do that you'll need to get a VIN (only if built from scratch.) ...and to do that you'll need to get it inspected and approved by the DOT. To do that you'll need all receipts of every component. Proof of DOT approved glass, lights, signals, safety belts. It must pass current emissions, etc.

But first check with the college. I'd guess they wouldn't want to assume the responsibility of letting an unregistered and uninsured vehicle run around.

Guest, I'm not sure where you live, but it's not near that hard in South Carolina. We've built many from scratch in the winter and registered them in the spring as home built with no problem.,,,,but thanks for you input,,,,Chuck

Do you have room to squeeze in a through-bore electric clutch with bearings between the motor/torque converter and final drive so that a starter could drive the buggy in reverse when clutch is engaged? If not clear, let me know, and I'll send a schematic. BTW, I'm in Clemson. Where's Sugar Tit?

Nice plan to make sure that he isn't distracted from his studies by girlfriends. Does need a glove box or is his pocket protector big enough? Being the guy in the noisy B&S buggy is not going to be real cool. Get him a motorcycle instead, that way he can actually park in the same zipcode as the college.

"Nice plan to make sure that he isn't distracted from his studies by girlfriends."

Exactly! Girls can be used as an excellent resource to gauge normality. An absolute abomination of an automobile will get "zero" girls whereas a sweet little roadster will get "all" the ladies. Somewhere in between should be about right.

Something of the sorts of a Lebaron convertible or pre-GM Saab might be a nice affordable choice for a college student.

If your hellbent on building something custom. I'll suggest a chopper!