Off road buggy ...

[rvndraju]

As i already discussed about my OFF ROAD VEHICLE which is being fabricated by my team in our collage i am posting some pictures of the 400cc diesel engine which i will be using to power my beast..

This diesel motor was brought from a famous scrap yard in my town , it is called as "shivajinagar gujuri". Dealers hear pick up gud working parts from busted vehicles or wreaked cars and trucks and sell them for very less price. name any they will have it, right from tyres & rims to ABS & ECU modules.

We took a working engine with tranny, fuel tank, drive shafts & exhaust for around $150
After we brought it we started cleaning & repairing it for worn out components like feed pump, clutch plates ect ...

 

[rvndraju]

I already mentioned details about the engine in my introduction post. there was a lot of grease and oil on the engine so lot of cleaning was required, later after cleaning the engine was looking very tidy and lot of parts had to be replaced like

-feed pump
-new fuel filter
-oil filter
-fuel lines
-gasket
-had to replace a couple of bearings in the tranny
-change of engine oil and trans oil .. etc ..

we spent some $35 for the service

 

[mckutzy]

Well that looks good.
If it were me, although I see you have a sheet down to keep the parts clean, But I would keep all the internal parts like bearings(especially bearings), gears and seals off the ground.
Any speck of dirt in a bearing, will promptly destroy it.
The last pic shows an example of what I mean, an open bearing, just on the drop sheet. That potentially will be contaminated with dirt. If you have to use the open bearing, open it up right when you are going to use it, or immediately covert it up with a clean paper towel or rag.

Looks good none the less. not many diesel builds here.

 

[rvndraju]

Well that looks good.
If it were me, although I see you have a sheet down to keep the parts clean, But I would keep all the internal parts like bearings(especially bearings), gears and seals off the ground.
Any speck of dirt in a bearing, will promptly destroy it.
The last pic shows an example of what I mean, an open bearing, just on the drop sheet. That potentially will be contaminated with dirt. If you have to use the open bearing, open it up right when you are going to use it, or immediately covert it up with a clean paper towel or rag.

Looks good none the less. not many diesel builds here.

thanks for your kind advice mckutzy. but that was a garage of a local diesel engine mechanic whom we took help from i know it seems lyk a worst place to service a engine but for our luck everything went well and We brought back the engine to normal working condition ...

And yes i dont see much carts running diesel on this forum but i remember i saw one. The reason why i chose diesel engine is because we had to test it with different blends of biodiesel and conduct a performance test for the same

 

[rvndraju]

Engine testing

Our engine was tested in the collage "ENERGY CONVERSION LAB" on a rope brake dynomameter test rig which was custom made by us to suite our engine . Different blends of bio diesel like B100, B70, B50 & B20 where used and brake-thermal eff, specific fuel consumption & brake power where calculated.

 

[mckutzy]

You will find testing with just vegetable oil will work too. With that you wont need to do the titration process of the oil.
The veg oil will have a higher viscosity than the other, so a preheater using exhaust or coolant(im not too sure if it was liquid cooled) and/or electrical means, just to thin it if it gets colder out.

The motor will need to be started with real diesel, but can be switched over when up to temps( by that time your Veg oil is warm/hot).

With a liquid cooled engine there is a heat exchanger that is plumbed inline with the rad, to be an immersion heater to keep the oil thin.

If air cooled, I can assume you could make a heat exchanger, that can be made with some copper pipe wrapped around the block, and a coolant with a pump and another coil in your tank for heating.


The used cooking oil will need to be clean, as in filtered many times to get all of the solids out as best as you can. You will need to have a fuel filter in the buggy aswell.

There is a number of things on the web about this subject, on just veg oil diesel.

Edit: I would suggest, rigging an electric motor from a large fan or other machine, with a pulley and a belt, then you will save you friends arms and back from trying to start the motor by hand....

 

[rvndraju]

But mckutzy we are not using pure veggi oil, and yes veggi oil has high viscosity index & it needs to be preheated to reduce its viscosity before injecting it into the engine . what we are using here is a pure biodiesel which is extracted from Pongamia oil by transesterification process (u can get some idea about the oil in wikipedia) . The bio diesel obtained has a pretty much same viscosity & calorific value as petroleum diesel so it can be directly used on any conventional diesel engine.

our engine is single cylinder forced air cooled. And about the pull start that is the pulley where in we r putting the ropes of the dynomameter so its not possible to hook it up to a electric motor with belt, but this engine has a provision for mounting a self-start motor which is couple to the flywheel by gear. but unfortunately we ruined the armature on the motor during testing . more over we are running outa funds so buying a new motor would hit hard on our budget coz it costs around $70 .. hand cranking wil do for time being

 

[rvndraju]

 

[Poboy kartman]

Not exactly sure how to take this post...did you put yourself to sleep with your last post??????? I can relate.....Let's keep the BS to a minimum please....You never know who you might be messing with. ....

 

[landuse]

I am interested to see how this project turns out. Have you got any preliminary drawings of the buggy that you plan to make?

 

[rvndraju]

yes landuse i have the complete CAD design of our chassis check out the pic its the ISO view

 

[rvndraju]

Chassis fabrication

Finally after the engine testing and stuffs we brought tubes for fabrication of the chassis. We thought of using Chrom-Moly steel tubes but when we enquired about it we found that those where priced too high and it was out of our budget so our second option was to go for a cheaper priced material. Finally purchased the below tubes.

-Four (30*30*2mm) square tubes of 20 feet each
-Four (dia 30*2mm) round tubes of 20 feet each

All tubes are of Cold Rolled Mild steel and paid $75 for all 8 tubes

The yield strength of these tubes is little less than Chrome-Moly but it does not matter for our project coz we don't do too much OFF ROADING like SAE BAJA .

 

[rvndraju]

My team 1st started fabricating the front end i.e suspension arm mounts and then started of with the chassis base.

TIG & MIG welding m/c's where not available in our collage so we decided to go for Metal Arc welding which was available.

Our collage did not have a cutting m/c but it had a power hacksaw which was not suitable for cutting hollow tubes. So we borrowed a POWER PLANET cutting m/c for 15 days from my close friend who was a building contractor, actually it helped us a lot . without which we should have rented a m/c which would cost us $8 /day and a security deposit of $30

 

[rvndraju]

more picz

 

[mckutzy]

First thing is get a welding helmet on. Not a joke
Not sunglasses, or cutting goggles.
A helmet. With at less a shade of 9.
At least a long sleeve shop coat or leather jacket.
Any one welding needs to have gloves on. That's just looking for getting yourself burned.


You and/or anyone welding without a helmet can get severe burns to your face and any other exposed skin with out proper protection.
I know sometimes schools or people can't afford much but you can't replacements for your eyes. That should have been in any school basic shop safety. If no one showed you that then you need to do some research on shop safety.

 

[firemanjim]

I'm gonna call you raj for short ( and after one of my favorite tv show characters). First off, HAVE to agree with the above statements. Your buddy in pic 3 shows major arc light burn on his arms. It's like a bad sun burn. You can actually do the same to your eyes, just using them goggles. Even if it's a cheap pos, buy a hood with at least a 9 shade glass. (And a 12)..... And wear long sleeve work shirt and some gloves.... Enough lecture....
Really dig your (all of you) design, but I have some reserve about the width. I fear you will end up being top heavy. What is the width of your rear axle? What is the width of your frame? What is the wheel base? Not sure if I missed those bits of info from your intro or not. With the a arm front, you should have added a swing arm rear. Your design is screaming for more of a full suspension set up. Good job so far....
EDIT... What did the tranny come out of? (no Doug, leave it alone.... LoL )

 

[landuse]

Yeah, I would have to agree with the statements about getting a proper helmet. I have burned myself badly just because the sleeve of my long shirt kept on falling down below my wrist when welding. I was wearing short gloves and got a good burn on my wrist

I like the project so far raj!!

 

[fowler]

looks awsome

id be turbo charging that engine for sure
deisels are real easy to turbo

as long as u can turn up the fuel a bit
and unlike petrol running lean is fine and its hard to kill them with too much boost
running rich kills then

certainly a good start

and for sure get a welding helmet
if it feels like u have sand in your eyes then u have done damage and flashed your self

 

[rvndraju]

Hello every one thank you so much for all ur concerns. actually that was my first time welding though, i really dint know that i should wear a welding helmet i thought just the welding goggles would be sufficient. but after 2 days of welding i felt burning sensation when ever i wash my face & then slowly skin started peeling on my forehead and cheeks then i came to know the importance of wearing a welding helmet or mask from then on i started using them.

Really dig your (all of you) design, but I have some reserve about the width. I fear you will end up being top heavy. What is the width of your rear axle? What is the width of your frame? What is the wheel base? Not sure if I missed those bits of info from your intro or not. With the a arm front, you should have added a swing arm rear. Your design is screaming for more of a full suspension set up. Good job so far....
EDIT... What did the tranny come out of? (no Doug, leave it alone.... LoL )

hello firemanjim my front track width is 1100mm and i am planning to reduce the rear a couple of inches, as i read in SAE BAJA forums about the track width they say that maintain a narrow track width will increase the cornering ability & reduce under-steer of the vehicle since over steer is always advantageous for off road ATV's. I am expecting the chassis weight alone would be around 70kg & its a good number for me. And about the wheel base its 1800mm. Yes i should have gone for rear a arm setup but certain parameters like engine and trans mounting, rear track width, Lack of time, cost of a arm fabrication & ball joints did not let me go for that setup so i switched to trailing arm. The tranny and engine come together as a set its from light commercial vehicle check out the link http://www.piaggio.co.in/Category/p...ap-xtra/Specification/tech-specification.aspx

looks awsome

id be turbo charging that engine for sure
deisels are real easy to turbo

as long as u can turn up the fuel a bit
and unlike petrol running lean is fine and its hard to kill them with too much boost
running rich kills then

I thought of throwing a turbocharger into it, since it is a 400cc engine a small TC should be used but when i searched online smaller ones where costing around $500 + shipping, Our project budget is only $800-$900 max. So we scrapped the idea if turbocharging our engine .

 

[rvndraju]

After completing the base we started off fabricating the seat support (firewall) & side impact members.

"Big time converting all the images to lower resolution and bringing the size down "

After coming to this point of chassis fabrication we all really felt like VOW its happening