I know it may be hard for some people to believe but I actually dug out my buggy yesterday and pushed it into the daylight for the first time in about 4 years.

The main push for this is the 50 year anniversary Buggy gathering at the Kit car show in Stoneleigh in May.

For those who don't know how buried it was, you can play spot the beach buggy with these pictures:

Buried-Buggy by Zebethyal, on Flickr


Buried-Buggy-2 by Zebethyal, on Flickr

The main thing that helped was that last weekend I moved the lathe and set it on the workbench I built for it at the front of the garage. Lifting up several hundred weight of cast iron on my own was an interesting exercise (ultimately it involved a hand winch attached to one of the rafters).

With the main obstacle out of the way it was merely a case of relocating everything that was leaning against it/sat on top of it, inflating the 2 front tyres and pulling it straight out.

I was then able to move the engine to the other end of the garage before pushing the buggy back in again and attempting to attach the engine to the gearbox.

Since this is a "new" 1300 gearbox (in that it has never had an engine attached to it since being installed in my buggy 4 years ago) and since the current engine is a type IV (visible in the first picture above) with a 210mm flywheel, of course it won't it won't go on. so I will have to perform some clearance work where the ring gear is catching before I try again. There will also be an area inside the bell-housing where it catches, but I will need to get the engine in far enough to find this first.

Since I "butchered" the rear end 13 years ago to allow easy installation and removal of the engine, for race purposes, I can perform these trial fittings without needing to remove any parts from the engine.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the event, so there will probably be a few "nay sayers" who won't believe it until they see some proof.

Fitting the engine is the least of my worries - the main issue is locating a suitable tow vehicle to cart it up to the show with.

  Great news. 
But why not drive it up?........it's not as far a Buxton

Top stuff zeb

Great news. 
But why not drive it up?........it's not as far a Buxton

Because the chances of it actually passing an MOT between now and then are a little on the slim side - I am not even sure if I will have the engine running by then - I still have to cut holes in the fan shroud for the HT cables and find where I hid the regulator for the 911 fan if I want the engine to actually work.

If I A-Frame it up there, Tax, Insurance, MOT, etc are all things I don't need to worry about (it's a trailer officer) not that they would find it's real number plate on their computerised system anyway - it has been off the road for too long.

  great photos