Reserection of Blue Thunder - Buggy build

bbaxter51

bbaxter51

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2010
Location
Stillwater, MN
I've been waiting for this day for about 5 years now - I bought a buggy chassis.

2010 Cole Motorsports Diamond Chassis - 1 5/8" DOM .120 wall. Powdercoated black
Chev 4.3 motor with Howell Injection - Built by Grimes Automotive, Dyno'ed at 290hp
Sanderson ceramic coated headers, and full exhaust system.
TH350 with RMVB and a Winters Shifter (from my CJ)
Atlas 3.8 with 32 spline outputs front/rear and cable shifters.
2.0" Sway A Way 14" front and 16" rear coil overs with triple rate
Corbeau suspension seats
60 front / 14 rear (from my CJ)
Custom Alum fuel cell, 8 gallons
39.5 Pitbull Rockers on steel beadlocks (from my CJ)
Twisted Customs Liberty hood and grill
2 sets body skins. One set used and damaged, one set new, never installed
Griffin Radiator / trans cooler / PSC steering cooler and pump.
Wilwood Masters and SS braided brake lines

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I've been parting out my CJ and selling what I'm not using to try to put together some cash to put towards getting this one built. Tonight I'm going to get it on jack stands, the axles in place and do some measuring for the aluminum links.

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Nice, I just re read that issue not long ago. Looking forward to seeing it completed again.
 
I had a little time last night after the kids went down to get the buggy pulled out in the middle of the garage and get the axles slid into place. From here I can measure for Alum link bars and get some shock mounts on the front axle changed up a bit. It looks like a big nasty 1 ton RZR sitting in my garage.

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Awesome looking chassis! I can't wait to see more.
 
I did get out in the garage tonight for a couple hours. Enough to get the front shocks mounted up and the axle in place to measure for my link bars.

My shock mounts on the front axle aren't going to work so those will need to be cut off and re-angled. The way they sit now, I've got the pinion pointed down way too far just to get the shocks to line up. I've also got a few brackets on order so once I get back from vacation, I'll hopefully be able to get this into roller status just in time to have the Atlas delivered.

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The other thing I ran into tonight is what to do with my bump cans. I was hoping the would land right on the truss, but no such luck. My brother had a similar issue so he's sending me some templates he used and hopefully they'll work for me too.

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Got a bunch of little brackets and tabs ordered so I'm waiting on those to move the link mounts around on the rear axle.

I did get my springs back from the shock dyno last night. Super nerdy but I love it. I should have video of the actual shocks on the dyno along with data sheets tonight.

Here's the graphs from a couple of my springs. Pretty cool to see exactly what you have and how they react.

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I just ordered a full set of 7075 aluminum link bars this morning, they should be done next Thursday.
2.0" lowers
1.75" uppers.

I just may polish those suckers like a pimp! :lol:






No, but seriously I think I will :D ...




I've also had a gift card floating around for a while so today I went and picked up a Warn 1700lb winch that will get mounted under the chassis in the rear and I'll use it as a suck down winch. The guy I bought it from ran one back there so it's got all the mounts already so I just have to bolt it in.

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very nice! glad to see a build thread on this thing.

We moved that thing around and out of the way in the shop for far too long! Glad to see that its no longer sitting in the corner looking sad.
 
slravene said:
very nice! glad to see a build thread on this thing.

We moved that thing around and out of the way in the shop for far too long! Glad to see that its no longer sitting in the corner looking sad.
Click to expand...

It's such a nice change of pace to be working on a buggy instead of a old stock jeep chassis. Plus Lee has been amazing with fielding all my questions since I bought it.
 
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