Trail
Buggy to be RaffledTrail
Buggy to be Raffled
Updates will be
added periodically at the bottom of this page.
Written by: Zach Gunter & Lisa Osterkamp, June 8, 2006
Most of them are mechanics. One owns a fabrication shop, one a garage and one is a college student. On Tuesday nights you’ll find these guys at "the shop", talking about their lives, their jobs and, most of all: jeeping. They are the Rocky Top Trail Riders from Gallatin, Tennessee. The club was started early in 2000 with 5 members. Today there are 18 club members.
Every October the group can be found at the Dixie Run, held at the Upper Tellico OHV Area in North Carolina. The Dixie Run is one of the biggest rides in the Southeast. This family oriented event has live music, kids events and, of course, good jeeping. But the Dixie Run has another purpose as well. It is the main fundraiser for the Southern Four Wheel Drive Association. The Association uses the proceeds to keep land and trails open for riders. A key component of the fund-raising is the yearly raffle. According to Gregg Griffith, the event coordinator, approximately $50,000 worth of gear and apparel was donated by vendors for last year’s raffle.
In
honor of the Dixie Run’s 20th anniversary, the Rocky Top Trail Riders
are building a buggy to donate to the fundraiser. "We are going to try
to build a turn-key tube buggy," says club member Brent Mann. "We
want to build something where the winner will be able to hop in, start it up
and drive off”. With only 10 months to complete the project, the RTTR
members have been hard at work. Although anyone is welcome to show up and help,
club members have specific jobs to do on this build. Brent Mann is doing most
of the welding and tube bending with the assistance of Gary Cook, Eric Basham
and Ira Pickering. Carl Mckee is rebuilding the transmission while Sam Mckee
and Bill Morris rebuild the axles.
Handling
the engine rebuild are Kellie Carver and Walt Gunter. Father and son team Rick
and Ira Pickering will handle the electrical work. “We’re having
to do this in our spare time”, says Mann. ”Everyone in the club
has jobs and we’re working around everyone’s schedule, trying to
get it done. Last year we donated a tube chassis, this year we’re trying
to step it up.”
“So far, we’ve got a pretty good start on it, as far as working
with some vendors to get some parts donated” says Mann. A generous donation
of tubing from JB Harrison Welding got the project off to a good start. The
chassis is being constructed of HREW 1 ½ inch 120-wall tubing. A Protools
Hydraulic tube bender, and a Protools hole Saw are being used to bend and notch
the tubing. A Millarmatic 210 and a Hobart Ironman 210 are being used to glue
the frame together. The Millarmatic was donated by Volunteer Welding Supply
of Nashville, TN to supplement Brent’s Hobart welder at TrailWorks. “Having
multiple welders is going to help speed up the process a lot”, says Bill
Morris.
The
drive train consists of a Cromoly front axle shaft, Dana 20 and Dana 60 axles,
Yukon ring and pinion gears, twin stick shifters, a Turbohydromatic 350 transmission
and a Chevy small block engine. These parts are a combination of donations from
vendors and RTTR club members. Vendors donating parts are Alloy Axle USA, Tellico
4x4.Com, and TrailWorks. Club members Sam Mckee and Bill Morris donated the
axles.
Most off-road enthusiasts dream of building their own vehicle, but the cost can be very steep. The chance to win a trail ready vehicle is enticing and at a dollar per raffle ticket, everyone has a chance to win. Even without the winning ticket, the raffle allows off-road enthusiasts to continue enjoying the trails. Proceeds are used for trail maintance and land use advocacy. The frame, shown at the D.A. Young ride at Windrock, generated a lot of excitement and interest in the raffle.
Coffee Club Pictures, a Nashville film company, is following the club’s efforts for a reality show documenting the trials and triumphs of building a vehicle from scratch. With limited time to build, finishing before the event will be a challenge. But as club member Walter Gunter says, "We like the hard stuff. It has to be a challenge."
For information and registration on the Dixie Run, click here.
July 4, 2006
QuickTime Video 1: Introduction to the project and raffle (click left mouse to view or click right mouse to save to your disk)
QuickTime Video 2: Introduction to the trail buggy (click left mouse to view or click right mouse to save to your disk)
Bill
and Brent working on the steering box.
Bill
working on the axle
Brent
and Bill installing the propane tanks.
Ira,
Kellie and Brent sizing the steering wheel.
Kellie
Carver inspecting the seats.
Kellie,
Walt and Sam working on the engine.
Sam
working on the chassis.
Sam
getting ready to tear down the engine.
Sam
grinding the axles.
Walt,
Kellie, and Same working on the engine teardown.
July 13, 2006
By: Lisa Osterkamp & Zach Gunter
The Rocky Top Trail Riders have been hard at work on the buggy. “So far the project is going pretty good” says Brent Mann. “We’re starting to pick up speed as we go along. We’re getting more and more donations involved in it, which is helping us out a lot.”
Club member Bill Morris adds, “We’ve received our suspension links from Rock Crawler. We’ve also received our coilovers from Rancho.” Fastenal has provided a variety of much-needed hardware for the project, and BFG has also stepped in to help. “They sent us a nice set of 37 inch crawlers and that’s gonna be a big plus on our rig,” says Morris.
The axles, a Dana 20 and a Dana 60, have been given a complete overhaul. With an idea of where the axels were going, the guys did a mock up to determine the final wheel base measurements. The engine, donated by James Carver (father of RTTR member Kellie Carver), is also getting a makeover. “We’re going to take it completely down … see what kind of parts we’re going to need to refresh it” says Walt Gunter.
The interior will include such features as racing seats, five point harness seatbelts and an expanded metal floor. The seats were donated by Bill Morris. “I went on ebay. We got just black seats because the vehicle is going to be black and silver. It’ll look good” says Morris. The RCI seatbelt harness, donated by Jim’s Off Road, are a great safety feature. The latch & link system with 3 inch belts is SFI 16.1 approved and similar to those used by NASCAR racers. The expanded metal floor will increase driver visibility. Club member Rick Pickering says, “…one of the worst parts about driving one of these vehicles … is you can’t see anything. And this one, you’ll be able to see everything.”
As propane will be used to power the buggy, a mount had to be fabricated to hold the tanks. “We just started out with a flat piece of metal, cut it out with a plasma cutter, ground the edges down smooth, and had to make where we could get two tanks on it” says Mann. The tanks will be mounted vertically behind the seats, allowing the driver to easily change tanks. With each tank holding six to eight gallons, an all day trail ride should be no problem.
In addition to fabricating fuel tank mounts, the guys have been working on a multitude of other mounts as well. The process has been very labor intensive as each of the mounts is being made from scratch. Although it is a time consuming project, having the mounts ready will help keep things on track as the project continues.
Every project presents its own challenges and this one is no exception. According to Pickering, “The measure of a craftsman is not what goes wrong…it’s how well you take care of the problem.” So far, the guys from RTTR have met their challenges with resourcefulness, creativity and good, old-fashioned know how.
July 14, 2006
Brent
making a bracket.
Bill
welding a bracket.
Measuring
the buggy height
Hanging
the axle in place.
Rick
cutting mesh
September 9, 2006
The trail buggy, by the Rocky Top Trail Riders, as it was shown during Southern
Four Wheel Drive Association's 3rd Quarter Meeting in Tracy City, Tennessee
on September 9, 2006. It's looking great
!!!
Rocky Top Trail Riders web site: www.rockytoptrailriders.com
