Well after months of drooling I finally was able to get this purchaced from Brooks in Arizona! I paid more than I should have, but I do stick to my promises... When I first agreed to buy this I was under the impression from post on the board that this thing had been "polished" and gone thru from fron to rear top to bottom! I even noticed oil in the skid plate, and when I brought this up to Brooks he informed me he had just installed a new seal behind the driven clutch! When I finally came to pick it up I assumed he had "cleaned up" this mess and oil droppings, since he had told me he has cleaned up (I think he had waxed the paint job!!!)
I have a lot of work to do to get this thing race or even ride ready! Someone had bolted the fiberglass seat (old school dune buggy seat) straight to the 18 gauge (1/16th") floor pan! Brooks is very lucky he never wrecked this thing as this would have been catastrophic!!! I found Jay, who used to work for ATV Racing) out in Fountain Hills, AZ with the great help of Slickrick! He has the triple E and is installing a seat, and re-doing the skid plate! I also ordered a new set of Crow belts, since these Team Tech belts were dated 1997!!!
When I get home I will install a proper skid plate! The reason I remove the plate was because there was sooo much OIL trapped in there and even after we cleaned it and rode about 10 minutes there was fresh oil again! I wanted to make sure that a rock hadn't worked its way between the skid and case and cracked the case!!!
What we found was a strange to us plumbing system where they replaced the drain plug with a hose connection that went back up to the vent tube off the top... By reason of deduction I figured this was a homemade site glass to monitor the oil level! Ingenious I first thought!!! But then next question was why??? Has this seal leaked so long and been un repairable that someone just installed the site glass to monitor the known leak???
When I get home I will try to take the rear end apart and see if I can even get to the seals to replace them...
The next issue I came across was the left front hub has 4 wollered out wheel studs and a slight crack where the stud appears to have been IMPACTED on one to many times!!! Guys leave the impact gun for REMOVING stuff!!! So now my hunt begins for a replacement hub!!! I am hoping someone will regognize these and its an easy find!!! New bearings and seals will be ordered when I get home, and I will have the axles re-packed/serviced when I get home too...
I never realized all these months I was working my but oof to buy this car that I would have to take it home to work my butt off to get it in as good a shape I assumed it was already in...

According to the old California title this was owned by Stuart Peace of La Mesa,CA If anyone knows him Ask him to contact me!!!
Here are some pictures!

and pictures from when I picked it up...

that thing looks like it would be a blast to ride..congrats on the new toy

vroom vroom!!!

How the hell do you get in that thing? I would need a shoe horn!

Hmmmmm, lets see now if you were to paint the white area yellow........

It would be the Polaris Purple Pilot Eater!

Nice score Dave!

Rand

Nice looking buggy Dave, I'M with Randman, how do you get in it, thru the front?

Bob

yea the pic without the helmet shows the flap that allows my backside to slip right in!!! Its my new diet plan!!!

Congratulations, very nice and good for you.

Good for you DavO!
Jeeze the racing buggy bug HAS bitten ya hard!

Look forward to seeing some race vids.
Living your 2nd childhood is FUN what????

Congrats on the new toy,that really sucks it has unexpected problems

Redrill the existing hub.

Please explain? New larger studs? How would I spline the bigger holes?

Turn the hub 90 degrees(or less if there is something in the way on the back of the hubs),redrill the same bolt pattern,re-use the same studs(if they are not damaged).The "splines" are on the stud ,not in the hole.

Go one size larger on the spline part of the stud. Drill them to the appropriate size and drive in the new studs. (either press them, hammer them, or draw them in) Most aluminum hubs don't have splines in them from the factory (or even steel for that matter) the stud being driven in is what "cuts" the spline. You can get the size stud (spline size and thread size) you want from places like napa, moser, superior axle to name a few.

I talked to brooks over the weekend and he mentioned that you tightened the wheel bearings because you felt some play in them. Most of those stadium lites used tapered wheel bearings. Much different than a sealed ball bearing found in the odyssey and pilot. If you just cranked down on the adjusting nut and reinstalled the cotter pins then you will cause the bearings to fail and possibly damage the hub and spindle. The correct procedure for a tapered bearing adjustment would be to torque the spindle nut to 50ft/lb while rotating the hub, then back off the nut 1/4 turn. You should feel a little play when rocking the wheel top to bottom at this point. If you just crank the spindle nut down, then the bearing won't have any end play and will overheat and fall apart. Just check this before you take it out on your next ride.

Now be nice Turbo…please don’t make me out to be some bad guy and make it sound like this was some eBay purchase that you made sight unseen. Admittedly, my memory sucks but I think I recall a few things about the car and transaction.

The seat should be bolted to pieces of beefy flat stock that are welded to the frame. The seat and skid pinch the flat stock so it’s all solid…not just a seat sitting on a piece of aluminum.

I don’t ever recall posting anything about polishing the car from top to bottom…I did wax it when I had the wax out for the wife’s car. Anyone that knows me…knows I’m not one to slow down for puddles or to polish my dirt toys.

I don’t know who made the siteglass tubing, but it wasn’t me. The last leak oil leak from the trans that I saw was from behind the driven clutch and I had ridden after replacing that seal without any leaks. The axle seal leak was new…but you have to remember these are 20 years and even Slickrick had leaky seals after the first run. I even agreed to let you cut out the skidplate under the tranny for your piece of mind, not mine.

I also recall you coming to the house on one of your rides out here and falling in love with the car. I didn’t have to pressure you to buy it…you said you wanted first dibs if I ever decided to sell it. When Slickrick contacted me April and I heard the excitement in his voice about racing, etc…I decided it was time for someone else to enjoy her and bring her back on the trails. I called you and said I was thinking of selling and you were all over it…you had many opportunities to walk away during the period that I held it for you. You could have walked away in August when you returned to the house for another inspection…but you kept on working towards your goal. You could have walked away Saturday or Sunday during the two day inspection and test ride. Sunday before I left the house and you left to go riding…knowing you had reservations about the hub, ball joint boots, oil in the skid plate, I gave you a clear opportunity to walk when I said “If you leave to go riding, she’s yours. If she’s mine, she stays in the garage. I’m more than happy to push her inside and keep her.” Your reply… “She’s mine.” And you were off with a handshake.

You could have walked away yet again Sunday night when I returned home to find out “she was mine” once again because there was fresh oil in the skidplate. But instead we decided to cut the skid plate out and ensure the tranny wasn’t cracked. It wasn’t…just leaky seal. So we negotiated a price for you to replace the seals, tig front hub, and replace the ball joint seals (issues you noted) off the agreed upon price. It wasn’t as if I hide them and didn’t disclose them during the sale, rather you spent 4 days at my house inspecting and riding the machine before purchase. I hope you don’t feel as if I ripped you off. I'm also not sure how you can feel like you overpaid since you negotiated the price. I also never implied the car was race ready or anything like that...which is why it had belts from 1997...there are no sanctioning bodies to inspect them in the trails of MD or AZ which was my intended use.

I hope I didn’t make a poor judgment call to sell the car, just to get slammed on the board in front of our mutual friends. I just want to provide some details for those that are reading your posts, thinking I wronged you in some way.

I never said you wronged me... I think KingKX said it best when we called him and I was washing the thing to try to find where the oil leak was coming from... He thought You should have taken the time to clean this up... I went thru the same process I would do if I buy a car or truck even from a reputable dealer... The same process I do every time I take one of my toys out for a ride... I learned this years ago when I first started driving a truck, it is called a pre-trip inspection... It is mandatory for us to do it in the trucking industry for safety reasons, as is suggested to be done when riding an off road toy... King the play that was in the bearings on one side was now where 50 lbs and back 1/4 turn... I was able to move this nut with my fingers back and forth with only the cotter pin keeping the nut from falling off! I did not have access to a torque wrench since all my tools are at home, but Brooks and I backed off the nut so it rolled freely then applied the cotter pin...
I found out today (learning alot about this thing from a few old pace racers) that not only is an outer seal leaking around the outside of the hub, but there is also a seal on the inside that is leaking oil into the CV section, thus denigrating the cv grease in the axle... That's why it was very disappointing to see you had not washed the transmission area after you did the repairs to verify you had successfully stopped the leakage... I am getting a quote tomorrow on what it will cost to do this repair and am quite sure it won't be cheap...
Brooks I made a commitment to you several months ago to buy this thing, and I am the kind of guy that doesn't make promises I cant keep! When King Kx told me he did most of the work on this I assumed (incorrectly I guess) that everything had been gone thru... My Bad...
From Several who have seen this since it's been in my possession I did pay too much for this for the condition it is in... BUT I still kept my end of the bargain and bought it from you because I wanted it, but $7800.00 (originally $8000.00) for a project of this magnitude was quit the sticker shock considering the condition I assumed it was in by the care you had taken to "polish" the panels... Hell, look at the condition Ricks Briggs car is in, and the seller even helped to fix the seals...

here are some pictures from the shop it's in...
Again I aint mad at you brooks, I just assumed erroneously....

WOW NOT SURE WHAT SLAG MEANS BUT I HAD SOME QUESTIONS BECAUSE OF MY BLONDE HAIR???

Congratulations on the racer seals and hub should be a easy fix, re-drilling the hub should also be easy just take your time locating the new holes if in doubt take it to a local machine shop or send to Speedchaser the old holes will make the car liter surprised I don't already see lightening holes in the hubs already, no sure how lose the studs are in the holes could you clean them up JB weld them then put a stack of washers on the stud and snug the nut whilst JB dries?

Seals will make you familiar with your new car as you change them take plenty of pics I want to see that trans.

Your near future ride/race plans are?

near plans are to race here in Phoenix with Whiplash this weekend, then the 13th in California at Glen Helen!
This next week I will start looking for a place to store the toyhauler while I work, then I'll go home and get it and move it out here so I can have a "winter home" LOL

Any video yet?

If racing on a short track I would try to get that ride height down.

Rear looks a little high ,front looks way high in my opinion.