Freestyle Buggy Build Diary

Had conformation that the chassis will be arriving on Monday which leaves much work to be done before then as I can’t fit both the donor and the chassis in the garage and I don’t want to leave the chassis outside for too long.
I’m off to my Tomo’s (my brother) wedding on Friday so that only really leaves today, tomorrow and possibly a little on Sunday evening to get anything substantial done.
Got a couple of hours this afternoon so started work on stripping the donor. Removed bonnet, boot, exterior trim, lights, fittings, bumpers etc.

Came back in the evening for another 4 hours and removed most of the interior and glass, labelled all wiring as parts were removed. Started a couple of little jobs in preparation for engine removal: drained oil and coolant and removed carb and air cleaner.
No problems today at all (except for not finishing till 2am). I feel like I have made good progress. Everything went reasonably smoothly, even getting the bottom hose off to drain the coolant, a job which from past experience is a right royal pain in the arse. This time however, I was prepared and armed myself with the mother of all screwdrivers which reached down into the bottom of the engine bay and the job was done in 5 mins.
The photos show the car as it was when I finished and the terrible mess around my garage.

Time taken: 6 Hours
Money spent: Nothing (The donor was worthless after being sat at the back of the house on grass for 2 years so I don’t really count that)

There’s more info on the main page about the Freestyle Buggy and it’s construction, but here’s a little about the one that I ended up with.

I bought the basic kit, second hand, but unused, from eBay. To complete the build I will have to purchase various other parts to enable it to pass the SVA test and be road legal.

I plan to make a couple of modifications to the standard setup which at the moment are going to be:
Disc brakes instead of drums for more stopping power;
a 4-pin diff rather than a 2-pin, it’s an off road vehicle so it’s going to take more abuse;
adjustable suspension (ride height and damper), mostly because I have the parts so I might as well;
and finally a few engine mods such as the obligatory MG Metro inlet manifold, K&N air filter and Maniflow/RC40 combo exhaust, plus I might have a tinker with a spare head I have and see if I can squeeze some more power out of it and I’ll probably put a racier (or perhaps downright sick) cam it in, it a weekend fun car so I don’t need to worry about drivability in city traffic.