Texas Manx Club

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:18 pm

hey has anybody done a relocation of there battery to the front instead of in the back? i was thinking of doing this to redistribute the weight since i would prefer to have the gas tank in the back. i dont want to loose that weight on the front, so i thought that might work.

by **carlos del carpio** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:22 pm

i'm planning a 'rear seat delete' option and the gas tank is there, along with other goodies.... the battery's gonna be in front, but I don't know if it's gonna be up where the tank would be,or on the pan itself... hmm....

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:25 pm

see thats exactly what i was thinking. i dont think i want it by the passengers feet even in a bttery box. i took the old batt tray off and i think it might be mountable on top of the front bullkhead. plus with the smaller gel type batterys that put out some really good cranking power you wouldnt need a giant battery anyways.

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:42 pm

That sounds cool! I looked a Buggy on the Samba where a guy did that! Looks like a good deal to me! Does anyone know the cons to doing this?

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:45 pm

i think the only thing you would to change is have a much longer set of cables made , but that wouldnt be a problem. plus i think it would protect it from the elemnts better and clean up that side of the buggy. would make jump starting it a pain though. hmmm maybe a remote location jump nub like our bmw's

by **David O'** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:48 pm

If you move the battery up front, make up the battery cable out of 00 welding cable, it will keep the voltage from dropping too low!

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:50 pm

oh yea we can go the welding supply shop faron and have them custom make one in whatever lenght we need... then just slide it down the center tunnel and make a nice clean set-up

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:56 pm

This sounds like a great idea......Thats great Spun Aluminum gas tank here we go!

by **David O'** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:56 pm

yep! That works! However, if you ever get the cable to become cut into, or shorted out,,,,,,,,,,,,,you are looking at a complete melt down!!!!!! ( I always prefere the cables run to the outside of the tunnels, for that reason! Or you can run it along the top side of the buggy body, and that way it can't short out at all!

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:57 pm

hmmm you have a good point. and if it shorted to the body you might get a nice um how should we say jolt?

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:57 pm

One more reason we need to SEE a buggy up close & personal!

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:59 pm

yea mine has a set off tubes glassed into the undersides for my wiring that would work even better, thanks dave

by **MURZ** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 10:59 pm

Gas in front, battery in back. Keep it simple. Your starter won't like those long battery cables.

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:09 pm

yea i was gonna ask you how you did that long gas neck on your tank. it looked like it was much farther back than the gas lid on the hood. plus the boobs down here want an arm and a leg to clean my tank, and the nice replacement tanks are crazy too

by **MURZ** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:13 pm

I used a 90 degree plumbing fitting and a gates #21418 hose. Here is the general idea: the first pic is what I wound up with

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:15 pm

where did you get the tank? my tank and most of the ones i have seen have that ugly periscope filler neck in the left front corner of like yours in the right rear?

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:20 pm

Will that hold up to the corroding effects of gasoline?

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:29 pm

good question.

by **MURZ** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:31 pm

The tank is a 68-up Beetle. The hose is a radiator hose and everyone advised me agianst using it EXCEPT the guys who had used radiator hose with no problems for years. I will replace it once a year for good measure though.
MURZ

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:33 pm

so you didnt use that copper pipe setup you had in one of your pics?

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:33 pm

Thats great, because Ryan will be able to ask you in a year if it is a good or a bad idea, he will still be at the same point on his buggy in a year!

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:34 pm

ya know what i will help you put your new slippers on for free.

by **MURZ** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:35 pm

No copper pipe, except for the 90 degree fitting on the original fuel fill of the 68-up tank.

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:41 pm

did you put that 90 on it, and how much and where did you get the tank? somwhere like mid america or something like it?

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:41 pm

We need to shut up on the shoes deal. Look how nice his buggy is, he can step all over us with those shoes when he drives up in this buggy. All when you pull in your Jeep, and I pull up im my MINI. Neither of them is a finished buggy!

by **buggyryan** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:42 pm

isnt it past your bedtime? i can tell he is a longhorn fan he will like me....

by **MURZ** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:46 pm

I got the tank at CARQUEST because I work there but check out these local guys for yours: http://www.aircooledparts.com/. David O' is the owner I think.

by **Faron** » 27 Mon Mar, 2006 11:47 pm

Bedtime.....Sleep......I can do plenty of that when I croke!

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:10 am

thanks murz, i am already dealing with dave on my pan so when i go to pick it up i will check it out. i would still rather have the pretty spun aluminum tank in the back, but i want this buggy as streetable and safe as possible.

by **Faron** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:24 am

I want mine to be streetable as well. Are you saying that the tank in the back could be dangerous?

by **carlos del carpio** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:38 am

a buggy on the street is dangerous...

a buggy with A GAS TANK is dangerous...

have fun! :lol:

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:40 am

no not that. i was just told by i believe the guy you had do your pan, that our buggys are already light in the nose, and if you removed the gas tank and didnt put some kind of weight back up there it would be lifting all the time going around corners and stuff like that. i want it to hold in a corner and not do that. that was why i was thinking about the spun tank in the rear and putting the fairly heavy battey up front. gas weighs just over 6lbs a gallon so that would be 60 to 75 pounds you would need to put back up front to keep it like it should .

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:41 am

yea carlos you got that right ....faron on the street in a buggy with a gas tank is dangerous...lol just kiddin faron. dont get all upset

by **Faron** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:42 am

Yea, but you & I talked about putting a Weight from a weight set up there. What happened to that idea?

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 12:45 am

nothing just bouncing ideas around since i am going stir crazy here at work.....would be like relocating a battery in a v-8 car for better weight distribution, except for this would just be a weight swap. whatever would work best

by **carlos del carpio** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 1:03 am

putting a weight up front isn't gonna help much..whether the gas tank is up front or not, doesn't make a difference, it's ALWAYS gonna be rear heavy due to the engine... your battery/weight/ gas tank thingy would work/balance if it's engine-less....

besides, you and your big rear (ha, just kidding) is going to pretty much center the weight.. it takes a LOT of effort to pick up a wheel on a corner..if it is lifting, you're exceeding the vehicle's limit!

Which is why my pan is steel, not aluminum..weight, baby! :lol:

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 8:44 pm

so you are saying that it doesnt matter if the gas tank is up front or not for driveability? the gentleman i talked to was at the vosa show in front of dave and busters last year or year before i cant remeber. he said it would be even twitchier than usual with out that weight in the front. heck if that is the case i will chunk the tank and mount me a pretty spun aluminum tank in the back.

by **David O'** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 10:26 pm

If you remove the tank and put it in the back, the weight bias will not change as much as when the gas tank is in the front. Empty gas tanks don't weight that much, but a full tank does. If the front of the car being twitchy is your problem, I would check the alignment and or the tire size and the shocks that you are using.
Buggies are light in the front, but they have always been that way. It depends on how hard you want to hit the corners at. I don't think that the placement of the gas tank is going to affect the handling of the car that much....if it did, all cars would act funny when the tank is empty and handle better when the tank is full.
Sounds to me like someone is doing a bunch of bench racing, and gagging a nats, and swallowing camels.
I have a friend who has a kit car, and the gas tank is in the back with the motor, and the thing will cause you to be flug against the seat belts, when you corner.....and it will hang a corner at 45 mph (hard right or left) with no over or understeer, and absolutely scare the pshaw out of you.
It has nothing up front except the front beam. Suspension and alignment, ackerman, and roll center, these are the things that you need to be looking at! :roll:

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 10:58 pm

gotcha , i was just thinking too it would proly be better also to have more weight on the rear wheels for traction...gagging a nats and swallowing a camel ...lol what the heck are those. that sounds good i wont really know how she is gonna handle till we get that pan done and then see down the road how she acts.

by **MURZ** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 11:22 pm

David, I really believe the closer you keep a car to a 50/50 weight ratio the better you are. With 60 lbs of gas in my car up front and a teeeny UL1 lawnmower battery out back I have to be helping that ratio. Reverse the two and I take 50 lbs off of the front and add 50 to the rear. On a 1100 lb car that can make a difference . Granted I am not an engineer or anything but I know from experience doing something as simple as removing the front steel bumper,replacing it witha fiberglass one, on my 3500lb Chevelle and moving the battery to the rear made a HUGE difference in the way the car handled.

NOTE: I really should not be talking about handling on a car with 135's up front and 295's out in back. :roll:

MURZ

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 11:27 pm

see that was what i was wondering, cause i do want to do a fair amount of drag racing at the local strip. on the drag cars i ahve helped to build and had in the past i would agree with murz the more weight you move around it make sit launch and react differently. but i defer to your expanse of knowledge on this guys cause like he said this thing is oonly gonna weigh 1000 or so pounds with my but in it. and it is so short a wheelbase already so maybe it wont make a difference.

by **buggyryan** » 28 Tue Mar, 2006 11:28 pm

murz have you run yours down the track? just wondering what it runs with that king kong engine you have

by **David O'** » 29 Wed Mar, 2006 1:33 am

50 50 ratio is good for street. I was only pointing out that you can get caught up in a small detail to the point that you miss the whole picture.
If you want a VW powered and suspended vehicle to get down the track fast, block the shocks to about 1/2" movement at the rear, and let it rip.
I'm sure that there is one of you guys out there that knows that you can get a straight axle (like in a chevy) to actually not sink when the car leaves. Not so in a VW, but you can weight transfer the weight of the vehicle by stopping the rear end of the car from sinking when you take off. The half inch is good for the track only, it will not work on the street!

by **carlos del carpio** » 29 Wed Mar, 2006 11:33 am

I guess what I'm saying if you remove the gas tank entirely, full or empty, from the front or from the rear, you're still gonna be rear heavy...

Now that I think about it, are the posts becoming rather wayward? It started out being about batteries, then shoes, and now gas tanks? Are we to keep this up (which is OK with me), or start new posts/topics? (which is OK with me)??

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