More Bottom Drawer Buggy Episodes
Xtreme 4x4 Builds
Want more content like this?
Join the PowerNation Email NewsletterParts Used In This Episode
Blue Torch FabWorks
Everything to make a custom 4-link, including laser cut lower shock bracket that fit on the steering knucle, frame side triangulation maounts , tubing adapters, rod ends, jamb nuts, and link tubing.
Flowmaster
The infamous Off-Road Muffler.
Performance Off-Road Systems
4-Wheel Steer Kit that comes with an orbital valve for hydraulic steering and a lockable electrical joystick for the rear steer that can be mounted anywhere.
Episode Transcript
Beg borrow or steal today, our team finishes up their bottom drawer buggy, an all tube custom chassis built for mostly used parts plus the wildest ride on all fours championship off road racing. It's time for Xtreme 4x4.
Here at Xtreme 4x4, we listen to what you the viewers want to see. And since so many of you guys have been screaming for more budget bills like our cheap Jeep. This is what we came up with our on the cheap bottom drawer buggy.
So far we've only spent just over $6000 on this all too buggy and we save money in the areas that we could by using parts from other projects such as the axles, the engine and the transfer case.
So with a pile of used cars, we grabbed just over 100 ft of tubing off the steel rack and bent up our own custom two seater chassis.
I think it looks like the picture.
So it go whoop, whoop.
And while we're at it, we rebuilt the motor with fresh rings and bearings, topped it off with a new propane injection kit,
then rebuilt the turbo 400 trans
and we're back today with some more used parts and some new ones to finish this buggy up and get it out on the trail. It's all gonna start with this radiator that we got from the horsepower shop and this brake booster and pedal assembly we stole from trucks.
If you remember, we designed our chassis to have the radiator in the rear.
So with it mounted in place, we can go to the open tubes that come from the front and hook it up to the RD with some rubber hose
and we'll keep it cool with an electric fan from summit.
Our turbo 400 used to sit in between the frame rails of the truck that is now the suburban Gorilla and thanks to Nova conversions output shaft and their adapter plate, we were able to bolt up the data 300 from the cheap Jeep just like that.
Now, all I got to do is make them shift.
Thanks to the guys at trucks
using some eight inch plate, I will cut and bend a solid mount for the shifter,
then weld it securely to the floor bars.
All you gotta do is hook up the shifter cable.
You can't forget the shifter knob.
Ian got it for five bucks. You can't say no to that.
Now, we obviously have to have brakes for our buggy and we lucked out because the guys down at trucks actually picked up this used brake pedal and master assembly for a project that they didn't use and only paid like 10 bucks.
Now, we could go ahead and just weld this thing right to the tubing of our buggy and we'd have functional brakes, but just because we're building on the cheap, doesn't mean we gotta cobble it up like that. So we're gonna take this apart and build our own mountain.
I'm all right
with the booster separated from the bracket. This becomes the template for our mount
and we'll cut out on the banter
and then drill the mounting hole.
The pedal pivot mount can then be taken apart. Keep track of all the parts you want. Keep
and with a little tube,
the eight inch plate mount and some time
a cool custom pedal mount is created,
but the
engine in place, we can start concentrating on the exhaust. There's not a lot of room back here and we've already added the radiator in the propane tank. So we're going to have to do something a little bit different. Something that's a little unconventional. Put it in a place where you wouldn't normally think, which just so happens to be right in front of the engine.
I think, I mean
to put it right about
how do I put it right side up
here.
Maybe I have a tail pipe come out here somewhere.
All I got to do is figure out how the exhaust tubing is going to go, cut some bends and weld it up.
Now, the next step is to put the wiring harness in the buggy. But the nice thing is because the entire thing is so simple. We can take you through it step by step.
The large zero gauge battery cable will attach to the starter terminal
as well as a heavy 10 gauge wire to feed our fuse panel.
I made a panel for four switches and one start button
out of some aluminum
12 volt power from each fuse is sent to one side of the switch
and a jumper to power the led
one toggle switch will power our he I distributor. The terminals marked 12 volts.
One toggle will power the propane solenoid as well as the gauges. It doesn't matter what side of the solenoid receives power.
One toggle switch will power the cooling fan on the radiator
and one on the trans cooler.
The relays are wired as follows. Power from the fuse block goes to terminal 30.
Terminal number 86 is a ground
power from the switch goes to terminal number 85 and finally terminal number 87 will power the fan
use one relay for each fan.
Never power two fans off one relay. It will burn out
the push button start switch is powered from the fuse block to the s terminal on the starter solenoid.
Now, this is not a requirement, but it's a good idea to have a master on and off switch to kill all the power in the buggy just in case something happens. So let's see if everything works.
It works
job well done.
Later on, the buggy is buttoned up for a gentle romp through the woods, but up next door, smash and head over heels. Action from the core series when Xtreme 4x4 continues
time. Now for an Xtreme 4x4 tech tip,
if you have a piece of square or rectangular structural tubing like this and you want to bend it for something cosmetic like a dash plate or a floorboard and you want to have a bender, you can simply cut grooves in it or curve cuts with your co saw, your chop saw and all you have to do is bend it to the desired angle. Weld this up, grind it smooth. Bob's your uncle.
Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 where we live by the old adage that a bad day off road is a heck of a lot better than a good day in the office. Well, today we're headed to the track at TV,
to California where pro truck racing is nothing like this.
Four by fours are built for a tranquil drive in the woods
core trucks though, don't do tranquil. It's like 30 minutes of fury created in 1997. This series is not for the weak or wimpy. It's all about his wheel digging mud, throwing dirt throwing and just getting with it.
There's no, oh man, you hit me. My five ro was messed up. This racing is hey, rubbing is racing. You got to get as close as you got to get to get around. The guy. This is the off road racing at its best. It is absolutely hardcore racing
at a time when the world needs heroes. One can be found on pit row every race, weekend. Carl
reser has been the guy that I've kind of always looked up to and said
that's who I want to be. Like, he is awesome. He's friendly, he's personal. He's a family man and most of all, he's a great driver with
44 career victories and titles in the four and two wheel drive classes. Rocking Carl
Retter is considered one of the best. If I look back,
you know, I thought winning a race or two in a season,
you know, was phenomenal for me. It's, it's absolutely just a dream. I mean, we're real excited where this program has come,
coming into the second to last race weekend. Carl was confident his pro four team wouldn't let him down.
The guys are just awesome. They put as much dedication in this team
as you can imagine. You have to love racing. You have to be dedicated
and you have to want to win. That's what this team is all about. It's Mike
Kabba job to keep this pro four in the title hunt
against the field of newer and lighter trucks. They have four wins this season and sits second in the point dedication and perseverance always seems to breed success. His chariot to success is his finely tuned workhorse.
As Carl Red as enters pro four truck, I guess you would call it an Xtreme 4x4. It's probably the oldest truck out here in this series right now. It's eight years old. It's a truck that most elders are copied off of. It works great goes fast, goes around corners like nothing. You would believe.
It's a Chevrolet powered. It's 800 plus horsepower. It has like 18 inches of wheel travel in the front 19 in the back, a driving style that combines his Motocross and trophy truck routes.
Had to make sure the machines stayed in one piece when you're going over these jumps at 100 miles an hour and your front wheels touch the ground and everything's locked up. You got parts laying all over the track and you're not going to want to race like that. This truck uses a new process. 249 transfer case of parts. It's been highly modified.
It has an underdrive unit in it
that
the
rear
end. So we get more gear race
right to rear
to some. This machine is just a rad race truck for Carl. He is number 17
and number 17 is Carl. I actually feel like I'm one with a truck where I'm not really thinking about shifting and turning and braking. It all, just kind of, it just all kind of blends together as you know, you really feel the truck. You don't really think too much. It just all starts coming second nature after a while
needing wins to overtake Johnny Reeves in the pro four point standings. Mike
Kabba has faith. His man can pull it off. You can give him a truck that is close to being ready to go. He'll bring it home. It usually brings a win home. He adapts about everything you can give him to drive. King. Carl's title hopes took a hit when he finished second behind Greece in both main events. Two seconds aren't bad. You know, it's good. Trucks are very fast. We know we're on our game. So next time we come out here, we just got to have a little better luck. We'll be back in the winner circle soon enough
living the dream. That man is living the dream. Yeah. And if you think racing core is your dream, you're gonna get to see it up close and personal here later in the season on extreme because we're building
well, one of those that just went by,
not the logo of the truck
after the break. It's back to work before the bottom drawer buggy hits the trail. Stay tuned.
Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 where we are well underway, turning a ton of used parts and a few new ones into our budget minded bottom door buggy.
So far today, we've spent 100 and $95 on some plumbing wiring and exhaust giving us a running total of 6031 blocks.
It's time now to build a custom four
lane,
big tire.
We plan on
this buggy front and rear from the very beginning. And when you take on a project like that, the parts list can get a little bit overwhelming from the tabs, the brackets, the tubing adapters, the tubing itself, but one called the blue torch fabs and they hooked us up with everything
from their laser cut lower shock mount brackets that we do. The outer scene
frame side, triangulation mounts,
tubing adapters, rod ends and jam nuts and even the leak tubing if you need it,
everything you need to build your own custom flooring.
Now, the whole point of this entire buggy build was to build it on a budget, realistic budget, you know, you have to spend money. And when we did spend money, we tried to spend a little bit here and save a little bit there.
And the benefit of having steering axles on both ends of the buggy is we can have four wheel steering for that. You need a pretty complicated control system.
So we called up the guys at performance off-road systems
and they gave us one of their four wheel steer kits as a typical orbital valve legacy with all full hydraulic steering, the couplers and the adapters. But for the rear, it uses an electrical joystick to control the direction of the rear axle
benefits to. This are pretty simple. You can lock that joystick out. You don't always have to have four wheel steering. So if you want to just have two wheel steering on the front, you can disconnect that and you can drive a little bit faster. The other benefit is you can mount this manifold anywhere you want. Just has two coils that control the shuttle valve inside,
so we can mount this up on the belly pan underneath the dash wherever we want, it's designed to survive in harsh conditions.
It's a pretty high end system and it's well worth the money.
I'm gonna save money for our steering ramps. We just went down to our local TSC and picked up 22 inch by eight inch working ramps. Now, these are not very expensive. They're only like 70 bucks a pop and they're not ideal for long term use, but they'll probably last the life of this buggy. If they don't burn out, we're only out like 70 bucks.
We
used the 10 B
front
ale and a date of 50 in the rear because we had a line around from other projects
and we know that they're probably not going to last forever, but they'll do for now.
And all these tabs and brackets that we just weed on for all the suspension can be cut off and put on a different
ale if we want to upgrade later.
But lockers, we can't reuse them on a different axle. So what we're going to do is well up the gears inside so we can always have a fully locked
ale.
The spider gears in the carrier are what allow the wheels to turn individually
by welding the spiders to each other. The rear end will be lopped always.
I
Yes,
the
now all we have to do is give the buggy a good once over, finish up the front four length mount our steering cylinders as well as our controls,
air up the shocks. Then this thing is ready to hit the trail.
Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 in the payoff of our bottom drawer buggy.
Priority number one
budget,
over half of the parts on this truck were picked up for next to nothing
junkyard stuff laying around the shop, favors from friends. Anything to keep the costs down.
We
did splurge for a trick propane injection kit and rear wheel steer.
Ok.
So.
Oh yeah, come,
we'll give you the grand total in a minute. But right now let's hit the trail
right away. You notice that the size of the buggy really pays off, didn't even hit the shape,
small body and full width axles.
You can squeeze in and out of anywhere it wants to go.
The propane injection pays off when the vehicle is off. Camber. There's no spittering or spluttering like a carburetor
with no fuel slashing out of the fuel cell.
Our 46 inch Mickey Thompson
Baha Claws were intentionally mounted and reversed to improve off road traction.
Having a four L
front and rear
allows articulation of our buggy independently.
The rear steer lets you do tight turns
and when you're leaned over, helps you get back on track with ease.
Rear steer is cool
if you want to know why else this show is called Extreme. Check out our camera guy.
So you're dying to know what we spent, right?
If it was 3789 bucks, we be in jail for that
8973 is a little bit closer.
About 9837. No,
the grand total for our custom to propane injected rear
steer R is just under eight grand.
And for that, we've got a great looking
performing all purpose trail buggy.
So
we decided to tear it apart and build something else.
Show Full Transcript
Here at Xtreme 4x4, we listen to what you the viewers want to see. And since so many of you guys have been screaming for more budget bills like our cheap Jeep. This is what we came up with our on the cheap bottom drawer buggy.
So far we've only spent just over $6000 on this all too buggy and we save money in the areas that we could by using parts from other projects such as the axles, the engine and the transfer case.
So with a pile of used cars, we grabbed just over 100 ft of tubing off the steel rack and bent up our own custom two seater chassis.
I think it looks like the picture.
So it go whoop, whoop.
And while we're at it, we rebuilt the motor with fresh rings and bearings, topped it off with a new propane injection kit,
then rebuilt the turbo 400 trans
and we're back today with some more used parts and some new ones to finish this buggy up and get it out on the trail. It's all gonna start with this radiator that we got from the horsepower shop and this brake booster and pedal assembly we stole from trucks.
If you remember, we designed our chassis to have the radiator in the rear.
So with it mounted in place, we can go to the open tubes that come from the front and hook it up to the RD with some rubber hose
and we'll keep it cool with an electric fan from summit.
Our turbo 400 used to sit in between the frame rails of the truck that is now the suburban Gorilla and thanks to Nova conversions output shaft and their adapter plate, we were able to bolt up the data 300 from the cheap Jeep just like that.
Now, all I got to do is make them shift.
Thanks to the guys at trucks
using some eight inch plate, I will cut and bend a solid mount for the shifter,
then weld it securely to the floor bars.
All you gotta do is hook up the shifter cable.
You can't forget the shifter knob.
Ian got it for five bucks. You can't say no to that.
Now, we obviously have to have brakes for our buggy and we lucked out because the guys down at trucks actually picked up this used brake pedal and master assembly for a project that they didn't use and only paid like 10 bucks.
Now, we could go ahead and just weld this thing right to the tubing of our buggy and we'd have functional brakes, but just because we're building on the cheap, doesn't mean we gotta cobble it up like that. So we're gonna take this apart and build our own mountain.
I'm all right
with the booster separated from the bracket. This becomes the template for our mount
and we'll cut out on the banter
and then drill the mounting hole.
The pedal pivot mount can then be taken apart. Keep track of all the parts you want. Keep
and with a little tube,
the eight inch plate mount and some time
a cool custom pedal mount is created,
but the
engine in place, we can start concentrating on the exhaust. There's not a lot of room back here and we've already added the radiator in the propane tank. So we're going to have to do something a little bit different. Something that's a little unconventional. Put it in a place where you wouldn't normally think, which just so happens to be right in front of the engine.
I think, I mean
to put it right about
how do I put it right side up
here.
Maybe I have a tail pipe come out here somewhere.
All I got to do is figure out how the exhaust tubing is going to go, cut some bends and weld it up.
Now, the next step is to put the wiring harness in the buggy. But the nice thing is because the entire thing is so simple. We can take you through it step by step.
The large zero gauge battery cable will attach to the starter terminal
as well as a heavy 10 gauge wire to feed our fuse panel.
I made a panel for four switches and one start button
out of some aluminum
12 volt power from each fuse is sent to one side of the switch
and a jumper to power the led
one toggle switch will power our he I distributor. The terminals marked 12 volts.
One toggle will power the propane solenoid as well as the gauges. It doesn't matter what side of the solenoid receives power.
One toggle switch will power the cooling fan on the radiator
and one on the trans cooler.
The relays are wired as follows. Power from the fuse block goes to terminal 30.
Terminal number 86 is a ground
power from the switch goes to terminal number 85 and finally terminal number 87 will power the fan
use one relay for each fan.
Never power two fans off one relay. It will burn out
the push button start switch is powered from the fuse block to the s terminal on the starter solenoid.
Now, this is not a requirement, but it's a good idea to have a master on and off switch to kill all the power in the buggy just in case something happens. So let's see if everything works.
It works
job well done.
Later on, the buggy is buttoned up for a gentle romp through the woods, but up next door, smash and head over heels. Action from the core series when Xtreme 4x4 continues
time. Now for an Xtreme 4x4 tech tip,
if you have a piece of square or rectangular structural tubing like this and you want to bend it for something cosmetic like a dash plate or a floorboard and you want to have a bender, you can simply cut grooves in it or curve cuts with your co saw, your chop saw and all you have to do is bend it to the desired angle. Weld this up, grind it smooth. Bob's your uncle.
Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 where we live by the old adage that a bad day off road is a heck of a lot better than a good day in the office. Well, today we're headed to the track at TV,
to California where pro truck racing is nothing like this.
Four by fours are built for a tranquil drive in the woods
core trucks though, don't do tranquil. It's like 30 minutes of fury created in 1997. This series is not for the weak or wimpy. It's all about his wheel digging mud, throwing dirt throwing and just getting with it.
There's no, oh man, you hit me. My five ro was messed up. This racing is hey, rubbing is racing. You got to get as close as you got to get to get around. The guy. This is the off road racing at its best. It is absolutely hardcore racing
at a time when the world needs heroes. One can be found on pit row every race, weekend. Carl
reser has been the guy that I've kind of always looked up to and said
that's who I want to be. Like, he is awesome. He's friendly, he's personal. He's a family man and most of all, he's a great driver with
44 career victories and titles in the four and two wheel drive classes. Rocking Carl
Retter is considered one of the best. If I look back,
you know, I thought winning a race or two in a season,
you know, was phenomenal for me. It's, it's absolutely just a dream. I mean, we're real excited where this program has come,
coming into the second to last race weekend. Carl was confident his pro four team wouldn't let him down.
The guys are just awesome. They put as much dedication in this team
as you can imagine. You have to love racing. You have to be dedicated
and you have to want to win. That's what this team is all about. It's Mike
Kabba job to keep this pro four in the title hunt
against the field of newer and lighter trucks. They have four wins this season and sits second in the point dedication and perseverance always seems to breed success. His chariot to success is his finely tuned workhorse.
As Carl Red as enters pro four truck, I guess you would call it an Xtreme 4x4. It's probably the oldest truck out here in this series right now. It's eight years old. It's a truck that most elders are copied off of. It works great goes fast, goes around corners like nothing. You would believe.
It's a Chevrolet powered. It's 800 plus horsepower. It has like 18 inches of wheel travel in the front 19 in the back, a driving style that combines his Motocross and trophy truck routes.
Had to make sure the machines stayed in one piece when you're going over these jumps at 100 miles an hour and your front wheels touch the ground and everything's locked up. You got parts laying all over the track and you're not going to want to race like that. This truck uses a new process. 249 transfer case of parts. It's been highly modified.
It has an underdrive unit in it
that
the
rear
end. So we get more gear race
right to rear
to some. This machine is just a rad race truck for Carl. He is number 17
and number 17 is Carl. I actually feel like I'm one with a truck where I'm not really thinking about shifting and turning and braking. It all, just kind of, it just all kind of blends together as you know, you really feel the truck. You don't really think too much. It just all starts coming second nature after a while
needing wins to overtake Johnny Reeves in the pro four point standings. Mike
Kabba has faith. His man can pull it off. You can give him a truck that is close to being ready to go. He'll bring it home. It usually brings a win home. He adapts about everything you can give him to drive. King. Carl's title hopes took a hit when he finished second behind Greece in both main events. Two seconds aren't bad. You know, it's good. Trucks are very fast. We know we're on our game. So next time we come out here, we just got to have a little better luck. We'll be back in the winner circle soon enough
living the dream. That man is living the dream. Yeah. And if you think racing core is your dream, you're gonna get to see it up close and personal here later in the season on extreme because we're building
well, one of those that just went by,
not the logo of the truck
after the break. It's back to work before the bottom drawer buggy hits the trail. Stay tuned.
Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 where we are well underway, turning a ton of used parts and a few new ones into our budget minded bottom door buggy.
So far today, we've spent 100 and $95 on some plumbing wiring and exhaust giving us a running total of 6031 blocks.
It's time now to build a custom four
lane,
big tire.
We plan on
this buggy front and rear from the very beginning. And when you take on a project like that, the parts list can get a little bit overwhelming from the tabs, the brackets, the tubing adapters, the tubing itself, but one called the blue torch fabs and they hooked us up with everything
from their laser cut lower shock mount brackets that we do. The outer scene
frame side, triangulation mounts,
tubing adapters, rod ends and jam nuts and even the leak tubing if you need it,
everything you need to build your own custom flooring.
Now, the whole point of this entire buggy build was to build it on a budget, realistic budget, you know, you have to spend money. And when we did spend money, we tried to spend a little bit here and save a little bit there.
And the benefit of having steering axles on both ends of the buggy is we can have four wheel steering for that. You need a pretty complicated control system.
So we called up the guys at performance off-road systems
and they gave us one of their four wheel steer kits as a typical orbital valve legacy with all full hydraulic steering, the couplers and the adapters. But for the rear, it uses an electrical joystick to control the direction of the rear axle
benefits to. This are pretty simple. You can lock that joystick out. You don't always have to have four wheel steering. So if you want to just have two wheel steering on the front, you can disconnect that and you can drive a little bit faster. The other benefit is you can mount this manifold anywhere you want. Just has two coils that control the shuttle valve inside,
so we can mount this up on the belly pan underneath the dash wherever we want, it's designed to survive in harsh conditions.
It's a pretty high end system and it's well worth the money.
I'm gonna save money for our steering ramps. We just went down to our local TSC and picked up 22 inch by eight inch working ramps. Now, these are not very expensive. They're only like 70 bucks a pop and they're not ideal for long term use, but they'll probably last the life of this buggy. If they don't burn out, we're only out like 70 bucks.
We
used the 10 B
front
ale and a date of 50 in the rear because we had a line around from other projects
and we know that they're probably not going to last forever, but they'll do for now.
And all these tabs and brackets that we just weed on for all the suspension can be cut off and put on a different
ale if we want to upgrade later.
But lockers, we can't reuse them on a different axle. So what we're going to do is well up the gears inside so we can always have a fully locked
ale.
The spider gears in the carrier are what allow the wheels to turn individually
by welding the spiders to each other. The rear end will be lopped always.
I
Yes,
the
now all we have to do is give the buggy a good once over, finish up the front four length mount our steering cylinders as well as our controls,
air up the shocks. Then this thing is ready to hit the trail.
Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 in the payoff of our bottom drawer buggy.
Priority number one
budget,
over half of the parts on this truck were picked up for next to nothing
junkyard stuff laying around the shop, favors from friends. Anything to keep the costs down.
We
did splurge for a trick propane injection kit and rear wheel steer.
Ok.
So.
Oh yeah, come,
we'll give you the grand total in a minute. But right now let's hit the trail
right away. You notice that the size of the buggy really pays off, didn't even hit the shape,
small body and full width axles.
You can squeeze in and out of anywhere it wants to go.
The propane injection pays off when the vehicle is off. Camber. There's no spittering or spluttering like a carburetor
with no fuel slashing out of the fuel cell.
Our 46 inch Mickey Thompson
Baha Claws were intentionally mounted and reversed to improve off road traction.
Having a four L
front and rear
allows articulation of our buggy independently.
The rear steer lets you do tight turns
and when you're leaned over, helps you get back on track with ease.
Rear steer is cool
if you want to know why else this show is called Extreme. Check out our camera guy.
So you're dying to know what we spent, right?
If it was 3789 bucks, we be in jail for that
8973 is a little bit closer.
About 9837. No,
the grand total for our custom to propane injected rear
steer R is just under eight grand.
And for that, we've got a great looking
performing all purpose trail buggy.
So
we decided to tear it apart and build something else.