My Buggy Re-Build Project |
Solidad Canyon
Out playin' at Solidad Canyon when you could play there. I really liked this place, it was close enough to go anytime and had all kinds of terrain. |
Same Jump as Above
This jump is coming out of the river bed coming up to the railroad crossing at Solidad Canyon. This place was always a lot of fun till they closed it down because of some fish that never got over a ½" long. |
Little Jump
This was way back in the mountains behind Solidad Canyon, close to Vasquez Rocks. This was a nice little bump in the road that would let the car fly about 3 - 5 feet off the ground for about 50 ft. as the road would drop away going down hill. |
Rough Jump
This jump was a little more brutal with the limited suspension. The jump was so rough it even hurt the camera to take the picture!! LoL It knocked the wind out of me, but I was still have'n a good time. |
Broke It
As it turned out, that rough jump, or one of several others that day, must have cracked the spindle. After taking a break and having a few beers, I let Jim take the buggy out for a ride... ... about 10 minutes later he came walking back. He said your gunna have to go get your car, the spindle sheared off at the backing plate! I told him to go back & get it, I didn't know where he left it. He said he couldn't drive it with the front end buried in the sand. Me & Doug told Jim he was a lazy slacker & went to get the car. It wasn't that hard to drive back Doug just stood on the left rear corner of the chassis while I drove it back to his truck. The trick was getting it home!!! I had driven it the 35 miles to where we were at Solidad Canyon. We ended up lifting the remaining front wheel into the bed of the truck& turning it so the back of the tire would lock into the corner of the bed, and tied it in. We just towed it like a 5th wheel. LoL |
Fresh White Paint.
Shortly after that trip, I lost my eye working on my Baja Bug and ended up out of the action for quite a while. Later, while I was healing, the buggy got sanded down to the original orange glitter gelcoat... WAY UGLY!!! So she got a fresh new base coat of white paint, and the chassis got repainted black. Even though this picture was taken much later after moving to Santa Ana, that's how she looked for a couple of years. New wheels, new tires, and new paint I was really like'n it, the white was real clean looking, but it was pretty boring to me and needed some color. |
Going to Dove Springs
The buggy is all loaded up on it's trailer between 2 motorcycles & under a bunch of ice chests ready to go to Dove Springs. This was my first trip to Dove springs, and one of my first trips out to play again after recovering from all the eye surgeries. (almost 2 years) I was ready to go, just sitting there waiting on the women to get loaded up. That's my old '72 Blazer, I sure miss that truck. That is Doug's German Shepherd Duke sitting with me waiting on everyone. Boy, that dog was letting go of some toxic fumes that trip, almost caused us to wreck once in Mohave!!! |
At Dove Springs
Here we are!!! Just got unloaded and took a quick play run before setting up camp. This place was awesome... hill climbs, high speed trails, whoops and river beds... just about any kind of terrain you could want. I wish I had more pictures of my adventures in the buggy, but since I took most of the pictures on our trips, it was hard to get pictures of me doing stuff in the car. I do have some more, but I can't find them yet. I want to go back to Dove Springs again, or Jawbone after this project is finished. That would be a great place to try her out and see how well things are working. |
