No, not House Atreides and the quest for ****e sorry, just a thread to post **** about my dune blaster. I put this together a few years ago starting with a funky, drag car style dune buggy complete with wheelie bars. I jacked it up with coil overs, added the TA's, KC highlighters, warn winch, etc. Russ Meeks (RIP) ceramic coated the dual exhaust. Twin 48's, high compression aluminum heads, lots of go fast goodies. I built the rock screens over the headlights, fabricated that hood tach mount out of SS exhaust pipe, I built the winch cradle and mounted it with a 2" receiver to it can be removed. Added some SW gauges and a moon wheel. The SS panel on the right of the dash I fabbed to hold the winch remote. One thing I did not care for was the shifter boot. it was sewn in and uuuuugly! I took a blade to it today, removed the shifter and cut the threads that held it together. The shifter required some dis***embly to install the boot. The boot I picked up at the swap meet last weekend for $10, never installed. The boot had a rectangle hole for a Hurst style shifter, I needed a large round hole so I trimmed it the best I could Heated a 3/4" socket with a torch and burned in a tidy hole that I could live with. After which I had to wire wheel and polish my socket. Remounted the ***embled shifter, which of course spent some time on the buffer. Next up, I have to get rid of the e-brake boot. It's a dune buggy- not a hot rod but I think everyone can see that it was built by a hot rodder. I don't know if Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides would drive it, but it beats riding a sand worm.
I used my CAD program to design a template, cut out some SS and drilled it, shaped to the tunnel And drilled and shredded it in. tidy and it matches the shift boot. I matched the corner radii off the shift boot rather than a big oval like they sell at the wannabe speed shops. The leather boot was 9 bucks delivered on Amazon. Cheap fix.
The quest for ****e aside, what we need is legroom! I have been researching options and gathering opinions and information, I was going to expand the pedal area forward 5-6" but my naivety of VW's became apparent when I discovered they have a brace at the forward bulkhead referred to as "Napolean's Helmet" due to its shape. Not wanting to destroy the structural integrity of the car I decided to replace the seats. I'm not going to get a ton of room but the suspension seats I had in there were taking up a bit of real estate. I ordered a pair of buckets, with padded upholstery from Amazon with a 30 day money back guarantee. They are from Jegs and seem to be good quality and reasonably comfy. They fit the floor pan and they did add some room. My *** is several inches back which means my legs can stretch out a bit. It aint a caddy, but it is an improvement. $200 for 2 seats, upholstery and snap kit. The seats are made for my 4 point harnesses which is a plus. I had to move the fire extinguisher back a bit as it made contact with the seat back and I will have to do some carpet work, but I have some black German square weave left over from the PU floor mats my daughter sewed for me. I think she can make new floor mats for both sides and bind them up nice. I had enough room to build a 1" lower column drop so the wheel isn't so high, and I offset the drop an inch or so to the right to give my clutch foot a bit more knee room under the wheel. Beside leg room I sit a bit lower in the car which means I have more head clearance from that roll bar I padded. I hear they make a clutch pedal arm that moves the pedal over to the left a few inches. I may order one of those while I'm at it. The seat covers are a bit cheesy, but they will serve as great patterns for my daughter to sew up some nicer stuff. Maybe blue and white houndstooth inserts in black vinyl?
I really messed my back up golfing and the x rays are nasty. It makes putting these seats in the dune buggy a slow process. I did make a good carpet template and installed the seat cover that I got with the seats. This one is bolted in I got in and it’s is not that uncomfortable. It ain’t no caddy but I had a friend climb in and he said there is more leg run than his model A.
Glad it's working out for you without having to attack the ch***is. You can actually even move the shifter back a bit if it becomes a stretch.
Hi Billy, I have fond memories of shortened VW buggies , me and a couple of buddies had them here in OZ in the late seventies , we played up a little/ a lot on the streets mine could lift the front wheels in traffic light drags , but what your thread got me thinking about was that i made a modification to the hand brake where we push out the pin that holds the hand brake lever pivot and put in a longer pin and installed two more levers one each side to sit along side of the original hand brake , then connect left and right hand brake cable to each these new left and right hand brake levers . You could pull either hand brake lever which would steer the car like a Bobcat or pull the centre lever for conventional park brake . This was awesome fun you could pull the lever and do a U turn at any speed on the dirt or the bitumen and only take up the length of the car which often scared the poor unsuspecting p***enger , it also helps off road if you got one wheel bogged just lock that wheel with the hand brake and you would drive out with the other wheel, any way, we had alot of fun with the buggies and when we started considering a V8 transplant some how common sense cut in as it would have been extreme on the street , we built a cl*** 1 off road racing buggy and went proper racing and not so much on the street , any way have fun with the buggy and thanks for the reminder.
I have been thinking of this for some time. I want turning brakes, but I don't want to lose my ratcheting e brake. I can't quite get my head around your description. I need a diagram.
I got $150 for the old seats just now on marketplace, so it cost me $50 to gain a few inches in legroom. Bargain!
Hi Billy , if you haven't noticed I am new at posting pics , I done some free hand sketch and words for the steering brake set up , I hope it makes some sense to you . It has been late seventies since I made these for my buddies and me and I have never had to do***ent the process .
Hi Billy , with the talk of the buggy steering brakes , many memories of our street driven buggy antics and the fun we had with them has again come to the top of my thoughts , it us a wonder we didn't get locked up .As I have always been a fabricator our buggies had nice tube type nudge bars and rear bars that went under the motor and gearbox to be sump and gearbox guards when off road , well, one night late I was travelling home along a dual lane major 50 mph arterial road not much traffic , minding my own business cruzin along when there was a vision in the rear view mirror that I couldn't work our what is was , it was a bit difficult to see through the faded clear plastic rear window then I realised it was the windscreen of my buddies buggy with reflection of the street lights flashing of it , he was pushing me with his nudge bar,,,so I just put my buggy in neutral and let him push me I just sat there and had to steer ,he pushed me at various speeds along the road for about 3 miles until his turn off came up and then left me to coast.To us this was just harmless fun.
Hey @Bandit Billy That is a magnificent dune buggy, I really like everything that you have done to it, its a road weapon, and Swiss Army knife and pure go fast fun machine indeed! Its definitely a machine, that will generate big smiles, that will cause bug's in the teeth indeed! You have spent your money very well! Bravo from Dennis.
I got a query for you hot rodders watching, can I cover that MSD box? I don't want to cause it to fail from heat or anything but it is **** ugly between the seats. I was thinking something like this, made for a C-3 vette to go on top of the ebrake plastic bit.
I'm thinking that the fins are on the MSD box for a reason. I "suspect" that the MSD box will overheat if covered. That said, my last MSD box was over 20 years ago. Russ
I tend to agree but they are made to exist inside an engine bay where the temps are much higher than the interior of my dune blaster. Last thing I want to do is bake the electronics. I didn't build this little air pump. Don't know anything about it really other than the obvious like that MSD distributor and box. I know it started off life as a 1600 dual port (fuel injected more than likely). It has aftermarket aluminum heads with dual valve springs, hardened push tubes, two EMPI 48's, electric fuel pump, remote oil filter and a wild dual exhaust system. I don't know if it needs that MSD box or not, but I don't want to find out if you know what I mean. I was tuning it the other day and noticed a slow deacceleration. I took the cap off the MSD distributor and the weights were sticking. Gave them some dielectric grease and it seems happier now. I did a valve adjustment recently. There really isn't too much to these things. I think it is over carbed (like it's owner). I may need to jet down these 48's. I have a nagging backfire in the exhaust (advanced?), which I hear is better than retarded on an air cooled engine. To be frank, I have no idea. Hard enough to keep the American stuff tuned.
I bought one of those red plastic jerry cans that you see on Jeeps and 4x4s, did not fit the dune buggy (and looked like ****) so I returned it. I did a different search and located a cheap spun aluminum gas tank that holds just shy of a gallon. Found a cool little quick release bracket so you can pop the can off and pour it in the tank if I run out. All in less than $125.00 Extinguisher on one side, gas reserve on the other, beverage cooler in the center . In the pic below, I have my battery door open to make sure it cleared without removing the tank. I'd rather have a gas gauge, but this will work and let me have fun without worrying about running out of go juice. A gallon isn't a lot, but it will get the VW powered buggy 20-30 or so miles, enough to get out of the dunes and back to the trailer.
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