Manx Club

Although most of you have probably seen most of this on FB, I was asked to move my build to the new forum. To sum it up, Craig and I have built a buggy together a little over 5 years ago. Our love of buggies was one of our first conversations we ever had. Since then, we have had the luck of finding a couple of Authenticated Manx Bodies as well as a couple of Tow'ds.(A Tow'd was something we never thought we would ever see here in Upstate NY) Anyways, Craig is in the process of a complete ground up build of his Manx so I took on the challenge of building my Tow'd. He is building the engine as that is his specialty and only assisting when needed. ie: strength to help lift etc. If you want to follow my build, I will post up the pictures as I can.

Up to this point, my subalbum gallery has all of the "deconstruction" including but not limited to, tub, electrical, front end, rear axle, drums etc removal all done by "Yours truly"

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This is where I currently am at... thanks to that little nut that fell down the pushrod tube.... Craig went from "You dont need to split the case" to "Will you let me build a mild stroker engine?" in the blink of an eye..... All the pictures that led up to this are currently in the gallery. The build will continue here as I go though. Hoping to have this ready for MOTB if I dont get it done in time for Manx Over the Falls.

You go girl! nothing like a family project! keep us posted on your progress.

Absolutely! Thinking I am going to keep the build pics and posts here instead of FB.. however some of the personal final touches wont be revealed until all is said and done.

Love the pictures. You and Craig need to get matching overalls (name tag included). Have Vincent send you a picture of theirs.

The thing about the engine, is, you will never have a wondering feeling in the back of your mind about the condition of your power plant. I believe that is one of the reasons Bud re-built the engine in his so he could trust it to drive the trip to MOTF this year.

I was thinking last week how fun a Tow'd would be at MOTB. I think Mine will make it there too, but no time for it this year, but maybe MOTB '16.

Believe me when I say... I was wanting him to redo the engine from day one. Since we drove it hard when he got it running, knowing it was recently rebuilt... he figured for now we would have just clean it up to look better and when the other projects were complete go back and do a full rebuild... I am ECSTATIC that we are doing the build, but it always makes it nicer now that he actually wants to do it as well since I said OK for the mild stroker engine. I have that little nut saved aside to keep as a good luck charm now! Our other buggy has a "knock on wood" very strong stock engine that he built from scratch. No one can belive its a stock 1600. This little Tow'd should really haul with the rebuild and the dual carbs...

Eric at Island Cruiser's has a rental Tow'd that has dual carbs on a stock engine and that thing is quick!

I have always wanted to build a no-machine stroker engine with a stock cam to get that mountain of torque it will have for a large tire buggy. Just has not happened yet.

That is great you're doing the engine now. If you were to install the usable but worn engine with plans on "doing it later", I think we all succumb to it's working now and I'll keep waiting (there's always something else to do) maybe next month, but it's working, no hurry etc. So how about some build technical specifications?
1. Original Meyers Tow'd tub and frame, or other
2. Engine plans
3. Transmission plans
4. Brakes
5. Wheels & Tires
6. Color
Anything else you want to share, I know form Lori Ann's Tow'd there's a level of excitement with the final unveiling. It was almost to the same level of her driving it around since. I hope we are able to attend MOTB 2015 to see the finished product.

I removed the EMPI 2 barrel progressive carb off and put the dual single barrel Dellorto FRD34B's back on Lori Ann's DP1600 and it made a big difference.

The matching overalls... probably NOT going to happen...

1. Yes this is an original Tow'd, although the tag indicates that it should have been powder blue.... it appears based on another forum that there were a bunch of tubs that were swapped out from the ABS and they all were competition orange... It was also a nice surprise to find the original inspection sticker under the spine.

As for engine plans, the strategy is to go with a mild stroker - 74mm so everything just drops in with no machining required. Also adding dual baby webbers. The transmission is being swapped out to IRS. Brakes, well they are remaining as is for now. Eventually will get discs.

As for wheels - well I loved the look of the wide 5 slotted mags that came on the front of the Tow'd. They are 14 x 5. My mission to find matching rears worked out unexpectedly well. I did some "pre-shopping" prior to heading out to Ohio to meet Bruce and Winnie at the All Air-cooled gathering. Thanks to Craigslist, I found a matching pair of steel wide 5 slotted mag rims. They ended up being too wide for what I wanted, but a couple of "Good ole' boys" actually drove the pair into the "Big City" and met us at our hotel to deliver them even. That was a 1 1/2 hour drive for them one way for a pair of wheels that cost $50. I was thrilled! Thanks to co-workers that are racers here, I was able to find a somewhat local wheel repair specialist that was able to narrow them down to 15 x 8's for me. On a side note, they also made me my offset smoothies for my Manx. All of these get picked up next Monday. Here is what they look like both before when I got them as well as once they were cut and partially blasted.

The biggest question to date is color.. I havent really mentioned that yet. Well I can tell you what family it will be in, but I wont know exactly till I get my peripherals back from TJ Kustoms.... one of the personalizations that I have chosen to do is hydro-dip a few things....the color of the Tow'd will get coordinated with the bright turquoise in this print.