DIY UTV: Part I - The Frame

I always wanted to build a tubular frame vehicle. To see if I could do it or not. I’ve been involved in building many tubular frames but never really built one by myself. For years I have played with this thought in my head until I finally figured out what I wanted to do (I may have been influenced by the Honda Civic that I now had lying around for parts – the donor vehicle is actually for something else that is also partly visible in the video on the other side of my garage).

The thought that came to mind was a 4-wheel-driven UTV-like vehicle. It is going to be a Honda powered BMW driven 30inch wheeled tubular framed...well...tractor! Why not something more sporty? Well I have enough experience to say with great confidence that the more performance you pursue, the more money you must spend (believe me...I know!!) and this was always going to be a budget build.

Started with a CAD model and some basic vehicle calculations. Then I quite quickly moved to the garage and started building. Plan was to build the frame on the plywood base (that would make up the vehicle floor eventually as well). Precision has not really been the top priority, maybe only in strategic places (suspension points etc). Having fun and figuring out creative ways how to put together the frame in a true DIY manner has been the main goal.

The first video is about building the frame. All-in-all roughly 40h of workshop time. Approximately 75m of tubing. Using cheap materials and cutting, bending all the tubes on my own. Made a nifty little tool to help to draw the cutting lines on the tube ends. Biggest challenge was to keep the garage as clean as possible in the process of cutting all the tubes and grinding them to shape. It's a very dirty job! I used 3 different wall thickness on the S355 grade tubes for different parts of the frame. Suspension and safety related parts are made from either 30x2,5 or 30x2,0mm tubes and other parts of the frame are made from 30x1,5mm. Overall, I am very happy with the end result!

I haven’t set any deadlines for the project, since I don’t want this to become a burden. But hopefully the next episodes will follow soon and the series will end with a test drive video in the near future.

More on the concept and technical solutions in the next episodes...

Thanks a lot @DonnDIY and your 4x4 Off-Road UTV build for inspiration! :)

Background music:
First Light (Atch)
Nouvelle lune (AWN)
Fluffy (Smithe the Mister)
The Clock (RYYZN)
Clocks (Smith the Mister)
Over You (Atch)
Echoes (Atch)
Swing Rabbit Swing (Amaria)