Raptor and rail better than golf cart?

[blue oval]

Yes!

Mostly everybody I ride with switched over to SXS's and I refuse to over pay for a rubber band car that is obsolete in 5 years. I was determined to find a trailer AND car for the same price and get the whole family out.

2005 Keystone Raptor 3319 fifth wheel and a 2005 Sand Trix sand rail

 

[blue oval]

There is a lot to learn about these cars, but there is a ton of information if you know where to look. For those that don't know, a car like this is built off the suspension design from a Volkswagen bug. The chassis in my rail literally has the frame horns from a bug built in to locate the transaxle and trailing arm pivots. A lot of the technical information I've researched has come from Volkswagen sources.

The front and rear suspension are a trailing arm design, and although limited, they are quite capable. Compared to a stock bug or Class 11 car, the suspension components on my rail are "upgraded". In the front the beam is 10 inches wider (the two parallel tubes, not whoop scissors), and the trailing arms are 2 1/2" longer and uses coilovers instead of torsion bars. The rear trailing arms are called a 3x3 (3 inches longer and 3 inches wider) and also uses coilovers instead of torsion bars.

The front end doesn't have a ton of travel, but it is so light it skips over the top of bumps. You can pretty much grab the beam and pull the front end off the ground. The front is limited by steering tie rods, trailing arm length, and shock setup. I have an 8" stroke shock now, but its common to use a 10" shock.

The rear end is limited by ground clearance at bump and CV angles. I have a 3 rib bus transaxle with Type 2 CV joints, so a pretty limited setup. The Type 2 CVs get around 17 degrees of angle before they start to bind. The normal upgrade for this is the 930 CV joints with around 25 degrees.

 

[blue oval]

Since I've owned the rail I've done a few things to maintain it with minimal upgrades.

• Replaced all fuel line with AN braided hose, AN fittings, and fuel filter before and after fuel pump because the bad gas destroyed a lot of the old stuff
• Replaced rear brake lines with braided lines after discovering the original rubber hose was being stretched at full droop
• Installed front brakes after discovering aforementioned rear brake line broke and had a wild ride down a hill in Barstow
• Installed dual brake reservoirs with balance bar
• Replaced rear trailing arm inner bushings after noticing the driver side was missing the ID metal sleeve, causing the trailing arm to wander
• Installed 3 inch belt harness with sub belt
• Replaced rear wheels with better offset and less dents
• Drilled and safety wired all CV joint bolts after they kept trying to leave the chat
• Replaced easily clogged air filter and oiled foam cover for a Donaldson enclosure with paper filter
• Installed Baja Designs sqaudron pros on the A-pillar
• Installed USB connector with voltmeter since I only have a water temp gauge
• 

 

[blue oval]

Mojave train tracks




Mojave water well





Mojave Trestles




Mojave Ranch



Mojave sand bowl



Rattlesnake Canyon trailhead



Giant rock


Finger Rock



Anderson Dry Lake

 

[Exploder_M]

Way better setup than a golfcart in my eyes. Seems like you did a lot of good maintenance and upgrades to make it reliable in the long term

 

[WW_RANGER_X]

Did you do the water crossings in this thing?

 

[blue oval]

Did you do the water crossings in this thing?

I don't think we crossed when I took that picture, but I've done it in the past. They have filled it in with gravel so its not as deep as it used to get.

 

[dwphoto]

Dude! Thing is sweet Thanks for the info, that was all news to me. And ya how was the water crossing haha. It hasn’t been that deep recently since rail road filled it with gravel.

 

[blue oval]

The water crossings aren't bad, just go slow, stick to one side, and hold your feet up. It's the multiple stream crossings at speed in Afton canyon in an open-bodied vehicle that will make for a cold ride.

 

[UCD BAJA]

This is awesome, way better than a SXS and more bang for your buck!!

 

[RothShocks]

Hand Built anything will always be better than a sxs and usually way safer.

 

[blue oval]

So after owning the car for a couple of seasons it developed some cracks at some tube junctions and sheered the horizontal dash bar on the driver's side. I had somebody grind out and fill the cracks and add some gussets to the dash bar.

 

[blue oval]

The car was pretty rough in the rzr burn and you really had to death grip the steering wheel to keep it from ripping out of your hands. Something wasn't right on the front end and I started pulling stuff apart to figure out what was going on. It took a little while but what I discovered was the front upper trailing arm was wider than the lower trailing arm at the link pin mount. Because of this the front end was binding through the travel. (The upper trailing arm is more narrow than the lower, and you add a bunch of shims to make up for this offset and set your camber - IDK its some weird German engineering crap).

 

[blue oval]

So with not really knowing what to do about the front end, finding more stress cracks, and a wife who didn't want to sit at camp with a 2 year old, I lost motivation and let the car sit for a season. I finally resolved to "don't get it right just get it running" and started working on it again shortly before the clean up.

 

[blue oval]

After taking things apart and lots of measuring I figured out why the offset between the upper and lower trailing arms was so off. The pinch tube where the link pin goes through the upper trailing arm was much wider than the lower arm. The trailing arms look to be custom made so who knows where they got their measurements from. The previous owner tried to make things work by using a thinner beam bushing seal on the upper arms and not using link pin shims, but it was still out of spec. In the end, I took enough material off the upper to make it the same width as the lower, and just added 5mm worth of link pin shins to make up the offset. Sometimes the best solution is the easiest one, just kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner.

 

[blue oval]

Here is what I had to do to get the car ready for the clean up

• Replaced the link pin bushings in the spindle
• Replaced the beam tube seals that go between the trailing arm and beam (upper was plastic and lower was rubber before, you need to use aluminum if you're using coilovers)
• Replaced the beam bushings and reamed them to fit
• New hardware for the beam through rods and link pins
• Replace wheel bearing
• Replace the rear trailing arm spring plate pivot with Wicked Creations double sheer, heim pivot
• Alignment front and rear
• Rebuild rear coil overs
• Change up the valving in the coilovers front and rear
• Weld up a couple of cracks
• Painted front and rear suspension parts with steel it

I'm dull and I find it amusing that I drove out the torsion/trailing arm bushing with an explorer torsion bar.