Rolling on some gash old wheels for now, only a few jobs to do before it's a proper rolling chassis. Engine before and after. Shell is still at least another week away.

Built up to a full rolling chassis, ride height set, new shocks, brakes completely rebuilt with new hard lines, flexis, master cylinder and shoes, gear rod bush replaced, I was beginning to run out of jobs when....






Thanks to Rob at East Coast Buggies, very happy with the shell. In case anyone is wondering, the shell will fit in the back of the lwb Peugeot Boxer van, but only just..

Looking good keep the updates coming

Mines one of the original James Hale GT's built 1998. They are a wide buggy at the back and anything smaller than 10 inch wide look lost.  Also, when you fit the tank use supports for it as it'll sag the fibreglass down and it'll hit the steering box when full.

Thanks Buggy Baron, good advice there.

The front body supports don't need to be anything fancy, just two Z shaped bits of steel strip from the threads in the top of the axle beam to the body at the front of the tank.

Once the shell is fixed I'm looking at fabricating three support sections, front of the tank, steering column and the rear section from the old body mounts or top of the rear shocks. V5C was sent off the other day for colour and body change, along with the V627/1 form and a few photos, one showing the unaltered wheelbase measurement. All the supports will be fabricated to mount at the existing mounting points so the chassis remains as standard.

Any signs of the V5C coming back yet? 

I know we have moved on  but I do like your air filters

Looking good! Nice to see where we will be with ours soon we hope? We are getting ours from Rob at east Coast buggies too... nearly ready. Great advice for the supports for fuel tank etc, thanks for posting.

Time for an update, V5C was back after about 7 weeks, they must have been happy with the submission as without any further contact or clarification it came back with Make: VW Beach Buggy, Body type: Convertible and the colour changed to red. All my changes are now done including the new engine to 1776 cc.
Ride height has finally been sorted, I had to fit dropped spindles on the front beam as the adjusters were at full drop and the nose was still about an inch high. The buggy is very unlikely to see any serious off road use, my main concern was getting the ride height at the back at a point where the back wheels were as near to upright as possible, there is slight negative camber but that's fine, the front then had to come down to level it.









Wheels are 10x15 with 295 50 15 tyres on the back and 6x15 with 205 50 15 on the front.


Now I'm tackling the driving position, seats are in but I'm not certain they will stay there. The stock seat runners have been removed and the runners that came with the seats are bolted straight to the floor with 50mm heavy washers underneath. First impressions are the seats are very low compared to the stock beetle. The seat squab is about level with the top of the tunnel. I've looked at pictures online and it seems there are a lot of buggies like that, it's not an issue with the pedals, but it might be once I've mocked up the steering column and wheel. It would be an easy job to fabricate a 50mm square box section frame to raise the seats a bit if I need to, but I'm thinking lower is better for the go-kart arse inches off the ground driving experience I'm after.

Smart work.

Worthy of use by Santa...

Looks lovely! Can I ask where you got your seats from please? 

Thanks Nicki, seats are from BB Classics, they have an EBay shop. About £400 the pair complete with the runners.

Thanks Dougie I will have a look. 👍😜
Merry Christmas