Looks like you have a nice amount of travel.

It does...it's fantastic. Probably the best $500 I could have spent on it. I need to get out and measure the actual travel, but that's about an 18" rise and the other three are still flat-footed, so to speak.

So...someone tell me all the reasons why a 3.8 V6 with a 4-speed auto from an '03 Grand Prix is a bad idea? I can get the whole car crazy cheap and my love for that engine is standing at odds with all the obvious reasons I can think of as to why it's a bad idea.

I say, crazy cheap is good enough for me. go for it!

Right...which is the biggest temptation...my concern really is the axles. The track on the '03 Grand Prix is 8" wider than the GK34, but the axles are only like 12" long...if that...they're little stubby things. You can see the spread on the transmission here. Had I been content with the 4~ish inches of travel of my stock suspension I'd probably be okay with, but I have no idea how to make that transmission work with my suspension travel without making the track 75" wide.

But 200hp/tq is rather appealing...

I'm looking around at buggies built with the 3.8 and they all some to be mounted longitudinally...apparently the FWD transmission is not popular with the buggies.

That was going to be my next question, what are your options with setting up the tranny on the 3.8 to what you want and also is the FWD tranny a good idea? The last question is "I don't know the answer, but why would it not be?"

The FWD tranny would have been good for a 72" track...or wider. Wide, long travel buggy. I did a little looking around and keeping it a 62~65" track width, which is about as narrow as I could stand to go, would only give you about 6" of travel.

In the end, though, the engine and transmission weight 900lbs. I had to abandon it over the weight, regardless of the other technical issues.

I have found a '91, good running 5-speed G10 Metro, though...that's the way I'm going.

Good idea. 6" travel not that much.

Picked this up yesterday.



If you pour gas down the throttle it fires right up. If you've ever wondered "will a Geo Metro fit on an 8x10 trailer" well I can tell you it does. Kind of. If you can roll it up square then it's good. Two flat tires meant I couldn't get it up there all nice and straight so the rails buggered up the body and the door, but oh well.

Need to replace the headgasket on a Nissan Frontier and then it's on to this thing!

how many miles on the engine?

84,000? 184,000? 284,000? very hard to say lol

There's also some yellow paint marker scribbles on the block so it might not be original.

I plan to throw it in as is. I got a lead on a block in Amarillo that I'd like to pick up to rebuild.

Let's go with 84k lol

So not much has happened in...wow...a YEAR. I drove the buggy a lot just the way it was last year all the way until October. In October I broke a trailing arm! I also stole the tank and fuel pump off it to run that Geo for a basic automotive class I was teaching last winter.

I've been looking for a used trailing arm without any luck. I'm going to end up either buying some new ones from Roketa or building some custom ones. In the mean time, though:





It's hard to see exactly how tweaked it is without comparing to the other side, but it is toed in and a lot of camber.



Previous repair, which was intended to be temporary, failed after I put the longer shocks in.





Shock mount is failing also.



I broke the sawzall out and cut the whole trailing arm off the pivot, made some sleeves, and re-arranged the thing so that it was sitting with just a touch of camber but tracking straight. That's how much gap was was left in that section after adjusting the other three to straighten the wheel out. I'm not pleased with that. I'm going to have to move up my plans of replacing or building new trailing arms.



Sleeved, welded, and painted.



I also added an extra brace under the shock mount to prevent the same kind of failure from happening again. I'm going to have to do this on the other side, too.





And after. I'm pretty pleased with the repair for now. It should get me on along just fne while I get prepped for the G10 swap.

I'd try to redesign the arm to do away or make it where you don't need near as much of a wheel spacer. Spacers put a lot of stress on parts like that. On a arm suspension it taxes the bearings hanging the wheel out but on trailing arms it is also leveraging the tube work.

The spacer isn't going to hurt anything...well not in the back, anyway. With the space the wheel is running roughly the same offset as the original tires. They're a high offset wheel vs the original wheels...these things are et46 whereas the stock ones were et0. Using spacers to alter the geometry can cause some undesireable stress, but these aren't changing much.

The tall tires, though...they're levering against the trailing arm all the time. I'm really surprised the left has bent.

I do plan on making new arms, though. I want trailing arms that are a couple inches longer and made from heavier tubing...and no bends. That part's the real kicker. I don't know how I'm going to get to the wheel face without any bends but it's a goal.

Good news! I hammered on the trailing arm pretty good and it held up great!

...however...

Not the first time, either, so it's time to fix it all the way. I'm pulling the Chinese hubs out and adapting some front hubs from my Geo Metro....BUT! I want to get rid of these crumby ball joints and replace everything with heim fittings...I think. The bushings at the other end of the arms are shot and are not replaceable (they were brass bearings). A ciouple years ago I replaced all the bushings on the driver's side with some I made from hockey pucks and it works great, but the other side is still shot. I'm considering replacing them all with heims, but I don't know if that's the most appropriate solution.

So I guess those are the two points where I need advice:

Should I replace all three joints with heims or just the ones at the hub?

What size should I be looking at? This buggy wet and ready to roll weighs about 1200lbs, but is butt heavy.

new goodies in!