Building Peel/Bamby P50 (road legal UK) beginner questions

[ThyCheeseLord]

Hello,
I am 19 and from the Isle of Mull and I was wanting to build an electric road legal Peel P50 as alterative to work experience (I am in second year at university doing Mech Eng).

Basically I was looking for some basic help.

You may need to google the Peel P50 to understand what I'm talking about.

I was wanting to know if;
*I can use fibreglass for the body, and if I could just make a mold with polystrene and drape it over
*what finishes I can use on the body
*can i use go kart parts for the road legally?
*whats the process for making it road legal (MSVA?)
*anything you think I may need to know

The project is pretty ambitious but I think I could do it, I have lots of free time and all the tools since I live on a farm and we fabricate and repair all our own stuff.

 

[ThyCheeseLord]

Thank you for any help

 

[landuse]

Hello,
I am 19 and from the Isle of Mull and I was wanting to build an electric road legal Peel P50 as alterative to work experience (I am in second year at university doing Mech Eng).

Basically I was looking for some basic help.

You may need to google the Peel P50 to understand what I'm talking about.

I was wanting to know if;
*I can use fibreglass for the body, and if I could just make a mold with polystrene and drape it over
*what finishes I can use on the body
*can i use go kart parts for the road legally?
*whats the process for making it road legal (MSVA?)
*anything you think I may need to know

The project is pretty ambitious but I think I could do it, I have lots of free time and all the tools since I live on a farm and we fabricate and repair all our own stuff.

Welcome to the forum!!

What you are going to have to do is google a bit and see if other people have made these things, and then read up on how they did it.

As for using go kart parts and if they are road legal....I just don't know. You might have to find out from your local transport department what goes and what doesn't.

Have a look at these

http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=6143
http://www.britishspeed.com/forum/showthread.php?2259-My-Peel-P50-build-thread

You and google are probably going to form a close relationship during this build

I look forward to seeing what you come up with

 

[ThyCheeseLord]

Already been on a tonne of websites, including the ones you linked haha .
Really I was wanting just to ask basic questions, like the process for making the body out of fibreglass, and the go kart parts question.

Thanks anyway

 

[landuse]

I am not a fibreglass guy, but someone will tell you about that soon

 

[OzFab]

Making the boby from fibreglass is a great plan but, it may get expensive...

The proper way to do it is to cast a mould off an original but, that's not gonna happen so, what you'll need to do is create a mould; you can use anything from chicken wire to carbon fibre to create a base & build on it with fibreglass, using body filler to finish it...

 

[itsid]

Well you should make a note, that you may do not want to spend a lot more than £1,000 on the body, otherwise you could have even bought one (they're £1,895 @ modernmicrocars.co.uk)

A quick Guestimation ...
You should end up spending ~£300 for the mold (120 for EPS foam to carve the positive, about 80 for fibreglass, and around 40 for the resin and something about 60 for specific tools, filler and mold release agent) and about another 120 for the final body,
which would add up to 420 to 450... so you should have enough room for one or two mistakes


'sid