What type of tube should I use?

[jranoa]

Hi I am looking to build a mini sand rail / off road buggy and wanted to see what the best tube to use for the frame. i.e. diameter, thickness etc....

What is schedule 40 tube? I am pretty new to this, but want to make sure this guy is strong.

And if anyone has any plans I would be super interested.

Mahalo,

[Fishy Jim]

Are you serious about this project or are you just looking to make a cool looking buggy and go bounce over some dunes? If you want to get into real racing, they should have a tech book with all the MINIMUMS. Follow or exceed those and you'll be fine. Assuming you can make sound welds in the given material.

[jamscal]

Do a google for Berrien buggy or other off-road buggy and their site will probably give some material standards.

IIRC, you can buy a knock-down chassis a bunch cheaper than you could build it.

PROBABLY built out of 1.5" .095 wall HREW tube, or thereabouts.

Schedule 40 refers to pipe, and I would consider it too heavy and many off-roaders consider it a definite no-no to build chassis out of pipe.

-James

[Sberry]

Yup, about like building a trailer, unless I had it all for free and then some most of the time you can buy it cheaper and better with the engineering thrown in for free.

[TS-Off-Road]

Yup, 1.5"x.095 and 1"x.065 HREW tubing on full size sand rails. Use 1.25"x.095 on the mini's

1.75"x.120 DOM for rock buggys

[jranoa]

Thanks you guys! This is going to be just a hobby product to hit the dunes with. Thanks for the pic, ideally I would like to make something of that caliber!

Mahalo,

[kcstott]

in all seriousness It's not only cheeper to buy the frame prefabed but it's also safer. Proper fit-up of the parts, welds, layout of gussets.

I personally can build just about anything from a picture or a print and knowing what is involved in setting this up so you are not fighting the tubes as you're trying to place and weld them. I'd build a huge fixture and use it to clamp everything up then tack and weld. Then I'd have all the tooling to go in to business for myself supplying frames. NO THANKS. I'll just hand Chenowth 5K and call it good for a rolling chassis.

I'm not trying to discourage you I just want you to fully understand what you are getting in to.
Kerry

[Sberry]

I got a Bud has something like that, maybe some V6 in it? But he scrounge it all together right at about 20K but its nice. In this economy I would look at buying used, ha, Some guy put heart and sole into it and has to part with it for 8K. I got the stuff and you dont see me putting the commitment into something like that. Even copying one to the letter would take substantial effort, makes buying a frame more attractive.

[Broccoli1]

Get a hold of a VW bug