Since this particular Pilot has gotten a little famous over a couple of boards i thought i'd document it's rebirth. Just got done freezing my walnuts off outside taking the suspension off again. Here's how she sits now.




I've never really taken a real close look at this chassis, so i found a few things i never saw before.



Talk about some seriously ugly bugger welds, can't wait to gring those down and inspect whats beneath them.



And this was the suprise i got when i turned it over. This is the reason why i decided not to sell it to anyone.


The repair welds on this chassis are laughable. The rust isn't too bad, mostly surface with the exception of those couple holes.


Plans are as follows. Selling all of the stock Pilot suspension. Building my own LT a-arms front and rear. Honda 400EX atv hubs up front, much beefier than the stockers. Trans will be disassembled and sold for parts since the internals are still good. I'm making my own rear hubs and rear carrier. Utilizing my Porsche 930 axles and cv's i have laying around. Powerplant will be a 95hp Rotax 583 sled Engine. And hopefully if fundage permits some Fox airshocks. It's gonna be slow to start, i still want to finish the carrier in my other buggy first but i'll start with the free stuff on the Pilot. I'll start cleaning up the frame, getting rid of that rust, cutting off unneccesary bungs, plates and whatnot. Stream line it a bit. Just what i needed, another project.

Jay-I will buy the all of the suspension components from you right now-please PM me and we can work out payment and shipping options.Is the rear suspension with bearing carriers?Are any of the arms bent by chance?

You have a message.

Parts include both rear hubs, bearings are good in both, no grinding or loose feeling in either. One does spin slightly easier than the other one but that could be the 20 degree weather. All of the arms are straight. One hub has a BRAND NEW upper balljoint. Front suspension is both set of a-arms. I'll have to look tomorrow but someone did do a fix to one of the a-arms. Looks like the welded a balljoint into place where the original either broke or failed. I'll post pics soon. I have to take the drums apart to see what's salvage able. One good complete axle end to end and one axle without the inboard cup that's stuck in the trans. Both axles sporting new NAPA boots. All balljoints sporting OEM Honda boots also.

COOL-thanks.I am now beginning to see the error in my ways-

wow that really does have some nasty welds, I am intrested to see how good it will be when you are done. Almost looks like it needs a whole new section of pipe.

Hello Jay this is Adnoh. What is the those progressive rate springs on the lower shelf off of.

Those are the stock Pilot shocks

Well i found some more fun stuff when i took that little roof off today. The best description would be swiss cheese. Haha so glad i didn't sell this to anyone, i would have really felt bad. As soon as i figure out what thickness this stock pipe is i can go grab some to start replacing some tubing. I'll get some pics up later. This gets more and more fun everyday :)

Here's the scary stuff i found when i took the roof off.

Good luck with your reno Jay!
Looks cold out there,that snow outside?Winter? Send some of that snow here boy! We had our 1st 38C- 100F Summer yesterday.Where I am, most prob got to 40C-105F.Worked on the Drak clutch align all day,sweated like a pig!
But it always finishes good at Beer O'clock, with a Freezin' Beer n Barbie afterwards. ...Baz

It wouldn't be bad if i had my torpedo heater, i gotta pick that up this week. I wasting tons of good fab time ( wife and kids are gone ALL week)

Wow, I have never seen so much rust, where did this Pilot live?

Have you considered drilling into some of the outwardly good looking areas to see what it is like in those areas?

Unbelievable rust! The best use of that frame is to use it as a pattern to make a new one. Very scary!

I wonder if this thing sat under water?

Looks like it has had a lot of beach use?

Oh it's saveable, the only things i'm going to buy are the two uprights i need. That one with the huge rust hole at the mount is the front one and the rear was missing when i got it. I was going to remake them myself but trying to get the ends the right shape would be a pain so i'll just buy those. The other stuff i'll repair, i like cutting and welding it's fun to me.

Every time i see this pilot I think of what a POS Bugpacker is

Did he sale it under false advertising ?

We're not gonna get into it, it's water under the bridge. It's mine know and i'm gonna save the little bastard from the scrap heap. Actually think that'll be it's name, Little Bastard or maybe Bastard Child. Hehe

he sold it for what it wasn't a "rebuildable pilot "

http://www.minibuggy.net/forum/sale/802 ... pilot.html

judge for yourself





AGREED Jay, just can't believe more of those guys didnt stand up for whats right, they all must stroke each other and split the money



anyways, "your a good egg Noonan"

Sorry Jay I was just curious. Anything I can do to help I will. Any way dig in and have fun and please keep posting pics. I took a basket case and turned into a fun machine. It took me a couple of years but run good now. Some even called it a devil pilot because they could not keep it runing and I said so what It's mine know and it will run when I,am done. So no matter what stay positive. I like red headed step child or L B C will do. Get it running and the D C P ( mine) and the L B C will ride.

I don't fault Bug on alot of this stuff, the trans he couldn't have known about, all that rust above the roof you couldn't see unless you took the roof off. He bought it, put it under a tarp and never touched it. We had our words but we're good now.

I like MBN, there's a ton of good guys on that site. I mentioned that i needed some machining done and i had a bunch of guys offer to help me. I ended up going to RickS' house and he machined some tubing for me for free to hold some bearings. I've also called him on multiple occasions to pick his brain ( he's a very intelligent engineer). Doug Heim is getting some water jet stuff done for me at some good prices. I've met K-Fab and the Protodie guys on a ride, very cool guys. Dave who's Odypilots on MBN, i don't know if he's the same on here, he's a really nice guy too. The MBN crowd isn't bad, there's a few post whoring douche bags but what forum doesn't have those.

Back to the Pilot, man i've been so busy i keep forgetting to call my tubing place to get a price on tubing. I gotta make a note to myself to do that tomorrow. I'm really itching to get into this thing.

Call it scrap heap!

I would want to dip that frame, then get some rust protection on the inside of the tubes as well


Crusty

Rust Never Sleeps

I like the Shunned Pilot

Oddly enough the bottom seems quite solid. I was using a small brad nail hammer to check much of the tubing and it's all fine below the mid tube. All of the bad stuff is up high, not exactly sure how that happened though. I was contemplating getting the frame blasted but i'm not sure how much cash i want to throw at this project. I have a small sand blaster at home i can use to blast the small spots, so i may use that to clean up the areas i want, fix everything then get the whole thing blasted and powdercoated. That's a long way off though.