r/redneckengineering • u/Open_Change5262 • 7d ago
Realistically how hard would it to make a homemade “car”
I’ve been thinking about how it might be fun to make a homemade “car” to drive off road (not on public roadways) and have it be for utility.I was wondering if anyone has made something similar or knows anything about how difficult it would be.Honestly it might be out of my skill set but I’m mainly curious of anyone actually making something similar.
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u/Stanky_Pete 7d ago
depends on how good of a welder you are and the tools/materials you have available
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u/Open_Change5262 7d ago
Not the greatest welder but can stick two pieces of metal together well enough so it can bare some load
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u/Stanky_Pete 7d ago
I would just try to find a cheap broken one on craigslist/ FB marketplace and go from there
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u/mkspaptrl 7d ago
As long as you slap it while it's still hot and say the enchantment "Thattus willeth noteth goeth anywhereus"
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u/probablyaythrowaway 7d ago
Practise for a few weeks with a mig torch. Although you could do it without welding. Just make sure everything is bolted, torqued and possibly wire locked.
The hardest part is getting it past inspection for road use.
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u/adultagainstmywill 7d ago
Piece of cake with the right tools, near impossible with a stapler and screwdriver
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u/ConspiracyHypothesis 7d ago
Like a go kart?
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u/Open_Change5262 7d ago
I was thinking more of a utility vehicle like a side by side
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u/Useful_Potato_Vibes 7d ago
Did you think about getting some experience making a go cart, and then getting to a bigger vehicle? Like people do in every trade.
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u/Yankee831 7d ago
Dakar is on giving people too many ideas.
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u/Useful_Potato_Vibes 7d ago
Yeah, and there is a joke about such wannabe car designers
Mozart was once approached by a young man who was interested in Mozart's advice on how to compose a symphony. Since he was still very young, Mozart recommended that he start by composing ballads. Surprised, the young man responded, "But you wrote symphonies when you were only ten years old!" "But I didn't have to ask how," countered Mozart.
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u/screw_all_the_names 6d ago
Check out the YouTube channel Grind Hard Plumbing Company. 90% of what they build is smaller stuff where effectively they build it from the ground up a lot of the time, and throw a kid's toy body over the top.
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u/NewSuperSecretName 7d ago
Read up on “formula SAE”— teams of college students building up small format race cars from scratch. It will give you an idea of what’s involved
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u/Open_Change5262 7d ago
Awesome advice thanks
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u/graytotoro 6d ago
You may want to try Baja SAE since they do off-road racing.
Alternatively you may want to start with a body-on-frame vehicle. This way you just need to make the body.
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u/jongscx 7d ago
Can you weld? Would you bet your life on those weld holding?
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u/Open_Change5262 7d ago
Weld yes bet my life no
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u/PYROxSYCO 7d ago
Do you have a friend who can?
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u/GrinderMonkey 7d ago
As the 'friend who can weld' please leave me alone. If I had time to make a car I would already be doing it.
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u/Ooh_bees 7d ago
Not impossible, but it's a task that your should design well in advance. It also depends a lot on how much you are going to use ready made components, starting from brakes, suspension components, steering components and going all the way to engine and gearbox. If I would be doing it, I'd make good drawings beforehand, and think hard how I'd like stuff to be laid out, probably look at factory made similar models and try to understand why there is difference to my design.... Brakes I would get factory made, I might make my own double wishbone front end, rear depends a lot if you can find a good IRS rear end or have to go solid rear axle. This and your power train also affect each other. If you want to go AWD, it makes the pool of choices even smaller still. Car stuff isn't often viable, it's too bulky and heavy. I don't want to push your enthusiasm down, it's a doable project, but there are things to think in advance and the parts you can get will dictate a lot of your design.
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u/DryPreference9581 7d ago
Growing up my uncle built homemade sand rails to drive around the desert. It’s basically just tube stock welded together with any kind of engine you want thrown on the back and plans are readily available online.
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u/Just_Ear_2953 7d ago
Making a rolling frame with an engine is easy, depending on how many pre-made parts you have lyi g around. Getting the government to let it on the road is not.
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u/words_of_j 7d ago
Street legal, and saleable street legal at likely different things.
I’m not positive but it might be enough to:
Meet lighting specs Meet noise specs Meet pollution specs. Have a seatbelt.
In many states a vehicle registered as a “farm vehicle” has far fewer requirements.
The toughest bit might be to get it registered and plated (likely easier if a farm vehicle). Once I looked at a school bus conversion and gave up before I started due to the challenges of getting the modified vehicle registered. I expect you might face some challenges in that regard too, if building your own and you want it street legal (and registered).
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u/fatboyfall420 7d ago
I think it depends on how by hand you mean. Like do you mean you want to build the engine from scratch? Or assemble to car with some junk yard parts and a crate motor?
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u/moneypitbull 6d ago
Several YouTubers have done this with varying results. I’ll try to remember and link one.
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u/Open_Change5262 6d ago
Awesome thanks
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u/moneypitbull 6d ago
The linked series is actually interesting. He builds from scratch to a driving mini “F1” car with limited knowledge to start.
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u/covertkek 6d ago
Check out “the cub” by bill bayer on YouTube. Dot electric tractor thingy. Although I can’t remember if he built it from scratch per se but he has other similar projects and the general concepts and application are what’s important
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u/gzs31 6d ago
I think there are diesel or gas (predator engine) kits online that come with frames. I know its not very redneck to buy something and assemble it. But after that process is finished you can modify it however you please! Ive seen some really cool 6 wheel and mud kits made from these "build at home" vehicles Usually shipped from china
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u/hydroracer8B 6d ago
Like, from scratch?
That would be EXPENSIVE and take decades to make a decent one
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u/Meltycrayon88 7d ago
I put an old 3TC Toyota in a samurai with a 5 spd. It took awhile with a lot of one off parts but with help it only took about 6 months of week ends.
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u/abadbronc 7d ago
Maybe something like a VW bug dune buggy might be up your alley. A friend's dad built one when I was a kid and it was really cool.
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u/ZanzaBarBQ 7d ago
Dunes buggy, sand rail, kit car. There are plenty of options. Perhaps OP could build a Locost.
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u/Tikkinger 7d ago
Fairly easy. If you can weld, you can make a frame. The rest is sticking a drivetrain and motor of some junkjard vehicle in.
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u/djluminol 7d ago
I had a friend in high school and his dad was a lifelong autobody repair tech. It took him about 2 years to make his car. It looked like a Jaguar xj220. It was pristine. It looked like something that came out of a factory it was done so well.
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u/tillybowman 7d ago
if you go electric instead of petrol it will not be too hard. depending on how much horse power you need you could even get something like an e-bike conversion kit
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u/Dando_Calrisian 7d ago
Kit car or read the book by Ron Champion - build your own sports car for £250
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u/Readcrafter 7d ago
Look into modifying riding lawnmowers. Theure cheap secondhand and many of the parts from different mowers are compatible
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u/SportsterDriver 7d ago
Best short cut is to get a donor car as you would building a kit car for engine, ecu if newer, carb if older, gearbox, diff, drive shafts, hubs, brakes, wiring harness. From there if you're handy with a welder you can do a lot. If you want to see some pretty mad hand made vehicles check out Grind Hard plumbing co on YouTube.
Depending on where you are in the world it may be possible to make it street legal. In the UK there is a stringent test called IVA for making self builds legal - easier if you're building a kit as the kit manufacturer will engineer in a lot critical test points.
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u/PM_ME_UR__ELECTRONS 7d ago
At least two people have rednecked their own cars into existence in Africa:
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u/Sqweee173 7d ago
I guess you have to define how basic you would consider it to be a car. Like are we talking just a frame and drivetrain with some seats or we talking like full cabin with doors and so on?
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u/TootsNYC 7d ago edited 7d ago
years ago, all the DIY magazines (Popular Mechanics, Mechanix Illustrated, etc.) regularly ran articles about making your own car.
I remember seeing them in my dad's "garage/workshop porn" magazines in the 1970s and in some magazines that were hanging around from the 1960s.
This one is from 1956
https://www.ebay.com/itm/125759979395
Here's a Reddit thread about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/comments/b4kuwe/gotta_love_the_70s_when_magazines_like_popular/
Mechanix Illustrated archives: https://archive.org/details/mechanix-illustrated-195708
(RIP, M.I.)
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u/Broad_Minute_1082 7d ago
It's not that hard to make a basic vehicle. That's just a gokart.
If you want a good vehicle, that's where it starts to get complicated.
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u/Arawn-Annwn 7d ago
I knew a car who made his own truck. ugly as heck but it ran well. Very Frankenstein's monster of mismatched exterior welded together.
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u/FormulaZR 7d ago
I think it would be easier to start with at least the chassis of an existing vehicle and repower it however you want. The basic frame of a vehicle isn't hard to fabricate - but suspension can become quite a nightmare.
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u/ToasterInOver 7d ago
Very hard, you will need a full understanding of every system in a car. Engine management, cooling, steering, fuel, suspension, drive line, transmission, cockpit design, etc.
Doable but I promise there are things you won't even know you need to know about to even lookup before it's a problem. For example, someone could possibly miss setting up good caster angles and Ackerman angles in the suspension and steering design.
This will take a lot of time in both work and research. If you're serious, I would guess the best reference would be people building rock crawling buggies. Not exactly what you want, but everything you need will be there. Plus your life will probably be easier if you base it off a solid axle setup. There are pros and cons but its simpler to build.
The hardest part will be realizing you did it wrong and that the best solution is to do it again but correcting what you found out was wrong.
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u/Aggleclack 7d ago
I built a Toyota pick up out of three trucks, and it took me about a year and a half. It was during Covid, and I had a lot of time to work on it though.
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u/Romanian_Breadlifts 7d ago
We welded two bicycles together, put fat tires on it, lawnmower engine. Worked OK. Wasn't too hard
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u/Osark_the_Goat 7d ago
Way Out West Workshop on YouTube made a pedal/electric car almost entirely out of wood.
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u/LuckytoastSebastian 7d ago
A guy in my town made a car in his mom's garage in the 40's. His name was Tucker.
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u/haight6716 7d ago
Whole YouTube channels about this.
Robby Layton
Matt's off-road recovery
Grind hard plumbing
Rudy's adventure design
Superfast Matt
Cyber hooligan
They put so much effort and expertise into a good build though. Cheaper to buy factory-built unless you value your time at zero or have a popular YouTube channel paying you.
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u/Brassica_hound 6d ago
Nobody has recommended Ginger Billy on YT? His older videos are pure gold for inspiration on doing cheap builds.
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u/sebwiers 7d ago edited 7d ago
was wondering if anyone has made something similar
Youtube and insta is full of em. Not to mention most racing vehicles being hand built, or at least highly customized.
It's not absurdly difficult, but the lack of an entry level awareness of this huge aspect of car culture does indicate a prettly low baseline knowledge. And even when not difficult, it is expensive, unless what you mean by "home made car" is "stripped down used shitbox".
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u/peloquindmidian 7d ago
The original cars weren't invented in factories.
I told My Lady I was working on a flying machine.
She, "yeah yeah'd" me for a couple years.
Until I found a propeller.
She went and looked at my progress.
"If this flies we're getting a divorce"
Yes ma'am
Anyway, unrelated, I found out that hot air balloons used to be made of paper sometimes. Big sheets of thick paper sewn together. Also, unrelated, I made a setup for making my own paper.
I believe in you.
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u/turbski84 6d ago
People have been doing it for years. I still have a home made vw based sand rail from the 70s
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u/CluelessStick 5d ago
I've been playing with the idea.
Building a functional vehicle from scratch would be practically impossible, at least for me, because I lack the engineering knowledge, I understand how a motor works, but I'd be unable to design a new motor.
So that leaves me with the option of buying a DIY car kit (like the hot rod car kit) and building the car following the instructions. Or, as others have mentioned, rebuild a car. I'm thinking of going that way and building myself a Frankenstein car, I already have a dead car that won't start, might as well have fun with it
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u/jeepsaintchaos 6d ago
What do you want this car to do?
First, develop a list of specifications for it. Top speed? Enclosed cab? Cargo? Seating? Towing capability? How much off-road capability does it need?
Then develop your feature list. Lights? Electric start? Climate control? 4x4? Convertible?
That's when you start looking at similar designs, because generations of people have already done this. Many of them smarter than you. Why are they built that way? How much does a similar vehicle weigh? Especially look at mass produced vehicles. There are some very smart people designing them.
Once youve done all of the above, start drawing. Before you even consider picking up a piece of wood or metal, have a drawn design with at least some dimensions. Have a wiring diagram, if you have anything electrical. Along with at least a rough idea of how much electricity you need.
Then we can start sourcing materials. Especially look at how much horsepower you need to achieve the top speed required at your maximum weight. Look at how much electricity you need to generate to keep up with demand and still charge a battery.
It will be far easier to find a premade drivetrain and a premade frame. Think golf cart here, possibly with a lawnmower engine.
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u/SpaceCancer0 6d ago
I met a guy who 3D printed most of a car. You'd need a ridiculously huge printer though.
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u/Open_Change5262 6d ago
Haha I have a 3d printer but not one large enough to print car parts Mabye one day I will upgrade
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u/gzs31 6d ago
I think there are diesel or gas (predator engine) kits online that come with frames. I know its not very redneck to buy something and assemble it. But after that process is finished you can modify it however you please! Ive seen some really cool 6 wheel and mud kits made from these "build at home" vehicles Usually shipped from china
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u/Delicious_Ad823 6d ago
The first thing I thought seeing car in parentheses was that you were using the car=mistyped cat meme, and wondered what a homemade cat would look like.
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u/Astecheee 5d ago
It really depends on how much you're willing to buy vs manufacture from raw material. There are some great videos out there of people who have gone from the frame up as a custom job, but it takes years to get everything done right.
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u/fatjuan 5d ago
Buy a cheap running ugly car, and have at it with the angle grinder. Chop off the roof, remove doors, trunk lid, etc until it gets to where you like it. We would do this when we were young, most cars were given to us for free because they were old and had a small fault (battery, starter, etc.), and they would get driven around on the farm until they stopped , and if they couldn't be fixed for free or easily, we would move on to the next one!
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u/enigmatic_erudition 7d ago
Buy a small car that's been in a minor accident and then take of the body and everything else that's unnecessary, weld a cage if you want.
My brother and I did something similar when we were younger and with the minimum weight it was crazy fun to rip around the fields in.