Texas Manx Club
As intended, I got up about 4:30 Saturday Am, got dressed and
headed toward Hawkins about 5:30AM. It was a nice drive, a little foggy but
not much traffic, that's a good thing.
David pulled in the same time I arrived and it wasn't long
after I got there that the wheels were off and pieces started flying.
The chassis is ready to assemble (see
part 1)
and the plan is for me to load up the green Manx
and head to Hawkins on a Saturday morning....early. Hawkeye has gathered the
crew, JD, Johnny, David, Russell, Doug. The goal: tear down my green
Manx...remove the body, engine, tranny, trailing arms, front end
and anything else we may need to use on the new chassis. Then put it all back
together and drop my body on the new chassis. Easy right? The fact that all
my wiring is on/in the body certainly helps. We'll just need to reroute a couple
of grounds and we should be good to go. Oh yeah...did I mention the plan is
to do this in
one weekend, a Saturday and Sunday...uh-huh, sure.
The plan was to back my buggy in, the bare chassis was ready
and also "backed in". That way, when the left rear training arm came off, it
went straight back to it's new home. No confusing opposite sides here...An
let me tell ya, these guys don't stand around, well not much HA-HA!
2 hours after we started, what had taken me nearly 6 years, a
little at a time, to assemble now looked like this. Hawkeye had a very
satisfied look on his face! Now the real work can begin. Johnny and JD had
arrived some time earlier as did Doug. We're ready to dig in,
It didn't take Johnny and David long to get the front end
off. JD, Doug and the rest started on the rear. We all wrenched, hammered a
little and got the needed pieces off the buggy. Steering box, trailing arms,
shift rod, nothing was spared...or lost.
Somewhere shortly after noon on Saturday, Jane, Loretta and
Linda brought lunch. We had chili and stack-ups, oh and a homemade cake from
Linda, very chocolatey and very good.
After lunch the reassembly began. Air wrenches whistling and
the occasional, "anybody seen the 1/2" box end?" was the norm.
It was looking like the chassis would go back together as
quickly as it came apart. But wait Kimosabee, we have an oops! Seems the
engine cage was just a wee bit too long...like 4 1/2" too long. Hawkeye and
I looked at each other and decided, yup, let's shorten it.
So after a quick surgery and re-welding, it was back to paint
for the cage. Now we discovered this at the end of the day on Saturday.
Johnny had gone home. Remember, he has the paint and the booth? Johnny
wasn't expecting to see me knocking at his door at 6:30pm Saturday evening.
We got it cleaned up and repainted though. We let it dry overnight and
Johnny brought it with him Sunday morning.
Hawkeye also made so necessary body mods, like making room
for the hydraulic pedals, on Saturday evening.
Things are looking good for getting the pedals hooked up and bled and the
body all together for Sunday. We may just make this in 2 days.
We got the floor pan fitted and pedals mounted. Some more
body prep, like fitting the roll cage and we'll be ready to put the body on
the chassis. Everything has gone together great so far. Pieces fit, even had
some time to touch up the front end so it'd look good on the new chassis.
No major hitches excpet for having to enlarge the hole for
the pedals to go though the firewall. Oh and I needed, with David's help, to
remove WAY too many bolts holding the good down. We didn't
put all of them back :) So with that done and the cage in place it's
time to heft the body one last time and mate it to the chassis. 3 of us on
each side and here we go. Perfect fit.
We got the body mounted, bolted down to the chassis and
installed the seats. Actually just placed them as more work was needed under
the dash area. Much easier without the seats. Just ask JD and Russell! When
it came time to mount the windshield from Dino I had won at Buggy Blast V,
we had our second oops. The glass didn't survive shipping. Now what?
Many minutes were spent pondering just how to handle this
dilemma. We tried the glass from my old windshield but it had a tighter
radius on the corners. Then Neil brought out a piece of glass he had. It
fit! Thanks Neil, that was a saver there. That, and alignment, seats bolted
down and shift rod/e-brake console in place and it's time to call it a day.
Monday morning found us picking right up where we'd left off.
Hawkeye finished installing the steering column. Things were buttoned down.
A cover plate for the area behind the seats on the lower body was cut,
painted and installed. Now we only had a couple of oops over 2 days, Johnny
had done some neat fabricating of a throttle arm to work with the Morse
push-pull c throttle cable. I have to admit the I came closest to having the
"Oh Sh$%" moment. Now that the body sits a little higher, I can put an
unmodified air filter on the passenger side. While taking the old one off, I
bumped my hand against the bolts for the tail light. I lost my grip on the
wing nut and washer. I managed to hold onto the wing nut but the
washer...well yup, into the carb. AAARRRGGGGHHH! I removed the carb and made
sure the butterfly didn't' open. Got the washer out and all was well. Let's
toll the buggy outside and see how we do!The test
drive was delayed...I'd run out of gas. But, Hawkeye to the rescue once
again with a 6 gallon gas can! She fired right up, I got it rolling and
tested the brakes. All was well, let's go out on the road.
What an awesome ride, everything nice and tight smooth and
a real joy. Now did we do it in 2 days? If you mean Saturday and Sunday,
well, no. BUT, total hours spent for Saturday, Sunday and Monday were 21.5
adding @ 18 for Tuesday and Wednesday's paint we totaled 39.5 hours and in
my book, that's less than 2 days... Now, I can't thank Hawkeye, Johnny, JD,
David, Russell and Doug enough for all the help. And of course I can't
forget Jane, who not only fed us on Sunday as well, but was also out there
wrenching on the buggy with everyone else. THANKS!!!
