Plumbing a buggy

I'm curious as well, however I'm dreading the wiring as much as the plumbing. Let me know what you find out.

I just ordered a 25' roll of 3/16 copper nickel for brake lines and a 25' roll of 5/16 copper nickel for fuel line to plumb my buggy.
 
untchabl said:
I'm curious as well, however I'm dreading the wiring as much as the plumbing. Let me know what you find out.

I just ordered a 25' roll of 3/16 copper nickel for brake lines and a 25' roll of 5/16 copper nickel for fuel line to plumb my buggy.
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I don’t know why I didn’t even think about the fuel. I’ll let you know what I find out.
 
I did the old XCab truck from scratch. It really wasn’t too bad. You’ve got the patience to do it right.

Interested to see the feedback though. I’ll be in the same situation in the future.
 
Depends what kind of plumbing you're talking. Between an install with summit pushlocks and one with brown and miller stuff you're not even in the same ballpark.

Another thing that can take a lot of time is the little hangers to hold everything. Do you expect the person plumbing the buggy to weld all the zip-tie tabs and mounts for your parts or just zip tie everything to the chassis ? Make little mods to the panels can take a while etc

Last but not least, do you know what kind of finish you are ok with ? Like, do you require stainless hardlines with the proper flared AN ends everywhere with quick disconnects and dry breaks or one flex line per brake circuit is fine, etc...
 
I had alliance make me two new hydraulic steering hoses. 3/8 lines with some 45s, a straight and a 90. Came out for like 130$. I was pleased. Went back to have a metric fitting pressed on to an existing 2 foot brake line and they charged me 100$, to make a new line because they didn’t want to be liable for using an existing hose. It was the last piece to get my buggy operational, so I took it like a punk.
The dude that made my hydro lines said that he was supposed to charge me 90/hr for walking out of the shop and measuring for the lines and marking the fitting orientation, but we both knew that was ridiculous.
I happen to be terrible at flaring brake lines, despite my patience and practice. A buddy from work did some hard line flares for me on his Eastwood brake flaring press. That thing is the jam. I would feel confident plumbing all hard lines on a buggy if I had access to one of those. I think with the right supply of tube nuts, adapters, junctions and laying out your routing on the chassis, then welding the zip tie tabs, you could knock it all out in a session or two. I can’t emphasize the Eastwood flaring press enough tho.
 
Brownsxj said:
Has anyone paid to have a whole buggy plumbed lately? I’m curious at a ballpark number of what it would take. I would need brakes and clutch with all new lines.
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That's way too general of a question. What materials, what type of finish, mounts, protection, it goes on and on. You could bend and double flare mild steel lines for a couple hundred dollars. Or you could do teflon lined race hose and AN fittings for a couple thousand.
 
CasterTroy said:
@BigSouth may know, but he's a "no budget" kinda guy so he may not keep track :huggy:
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Oh, I’m definitely keeping track. My setup will be all AN style nose to tail. Dealing with cooling issues in the past, I swore not this time. -20 for main cooling and -8 for Trans and PSC cooling, I’m several hundred dollars into just Fragola fittings. There’ll be another $500 or so in the braided lines. My best estimate including hydraulic steering, fuel line, and cooling I’ll be in the $1500-2000 range for all the fittings and line. Matt will have me tabbed for ziptie installation and I’ll probably do the majority of my own plumbing under his supervision. For brakes, I bought the kits from WOD that include most everything I’ll need minus the sections of hardline that Matt will handle.
 
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