Custom made volkswagon powered 8x8 with sea doo pump

[chris davison]

Just purchased a 55 amp alternator to replace the 14 amp generator on the vw motor and bought a master cylinder for the brake pedal. next is to weld in my caliper mounts had to move them from the back of the disc to the front for exhaust clearence. Then its a battery gas lines and brake lines. I have to cut and cable clamp both the clutch cable and throttle cables as the stock length is about 4 inches to long.

[chris davison]

I can see what your thinking, there is no torque flex of the motor it is solid mounted no movement at all no rubber mounts. The cross bracing of the frame and the strength of the hull wont allow any flexing. This works great in sand rails but in the high horse power
motors all it has to do is rain on the sand and you start breaking axles and ring gears on engines with 125 hp and up.

[chris davison]

The trans axle is bolted in 3 places with (3) 3/8 and (4) 5/16 bolts the engine is bolted directly to the transaxle Identicle to a sand rail.

[Mike]

That looks really good. Very nice work. How do you have the motor mounted to the frame? Is it hard mounted? I was just wondering how much rotation / flex you were going to get from the torque of the motor.

[chris davison]

pic of the exhaust sys. I built

[chris davison]

All the exhaust and noise is out back behind me. These are mufflers with some waffling but you can see straight thru them, reminds me of the s/s mufflers I put on my vette.

[LarryW]

Looks good! The muffler tips are cool.

[chris davison]

I have already been dreaming about a car with 75hp elect wheel motors (4) that use variable frequency drives they sence torq at each wheel and send this info 0-10vdc to an analog input card in a plc this info is compared with gas pedal position. The processed info is sent out an analog output card to each vfd telling each what frequency to run at. Can you imagine no more slipped tires and how long they would last when you have balanced torq. at every tire all the time no matter what position the seering tires are in or the gas pedal. or the road conditions rain ice. Dynamic braking could also be used. Of course you would need a 350 hp motor generator to run it.

[Beeman]

Looking good! Once you finish your PLC class you should try find an application for one in your machine.. not sure where, but it would be pretty neat to say it's PLC powered!

[chris davison]

Here is a pic of the rear showing the muffler tips coming thru the rear.

[chris davison]

Mounted my first muffler today, its mounted to the top frame bar and parallell with it thru the hull 20 inchs above the water line. One on each side dual mufflers 45 inchs apart kinda like old race boats. hope to post some pics this weekend. Finished another class on mechanical drives chain drives spur gear drives,herringbone and Helical gears. Learning about pitch circles gear pitch, backlash, compound and multiple gear drives. All very interesting. Hopefully it will be plc programming next.

[chris davison]

Got my ebay welder working its a hobart 120 wire feed with .024 wire using 75/25 gas first thing is to modify the exhaust to work so I can fire up the motor.

[mudbug3]

chris davison

I,m looking forward to your next update and pictures.

[chris davison]

Dont have a lot of time lately working 6 days on 3rd shift and just finishing Intermediate Hydraulics class. I did buy a welder on EBay and some other parts from the vw section. Bought some # 80 chain guide UHMW to make chain tentioners. I wil do some work on it if I ever get a day off that I dont need to catch up on sleep.

[chris davison]

Thats a lot of weird looking vehicles but I sure like the first one, the tracks come up out of the water.