11 Oct Victor the AdventureBug Circumnavigates the globe
Just received a note from our friends at Adventurebug. Chris and Elayne have been circumnavigating the globe in their one of a kind home made buggy, Victor. This note provides some insight into their vehicle and adventures so far.
We constructed the Buggy in 2006 with a small budget our objective was to keep the construction simple using an 091 gearbox Porsche drive flanges and 4x 730i Bmw cv’s which we retrieved from a scrapyard junker which had 380ks and they are still going ok????
Our front torsion leaves we have bent into propellers and still swapped them to the opposite side and then bent them the other way i am not sure we could do this again hahaha?? Bilstein shocks are 8” front and 10” rear and now completely stuffed and are currently ineffectual.
Our power plant is a Ford/ Mazda Diesel 3ltr which I purchased on ebay for Aud 220.00. I fitted new rings mainshaft bearings std.and that was that it and is still running fine.Morrie Williams from the Victorian off Road Association helped manufacture the adaptor plate and lots of other
good parts which have worked well. Dean Williams his son re built up the original 091 with
Albins gears sets which has worked for the last 90ks but the mainshaft bearings failed plus the 4th gear according to Rancho was flaking. We have traveled through 43 Countries crossing the Pamirs in Tajikistan at 4680 mts and crossing into Norther Afghanistan which we believe is a first for a 2wd Buggy.We also covered most of Mongolia having to obtain special permits to travel close to the Chinese boarder. The Buggy made a big impression in Iran and Syria where we were shadowed by some secret police. We have driven into a minefield, met a local Militia group in the mountains in Tajikistan, been tracked by a Drone in the Negev Desert in Israel and shot at in Portugal and Alaska. We also managed to skirt the Algerian Boarder across the Western Sahara across the Atlas Mountains We arrived in Nova Scotia heading to Newfoundland crossing the Labrador hwy across Canada up the Dempster to Inuvik, the Dalton Hwy to Deadhorse the top of the world Hwy,the Denali Hwy, Cassiar Hwy and many more off road treks. 
We have slept in our roof top tent for over 2.5 years and have temp ranges from +45 to =20c and our Australian tent is still in good condition.
We have another 250,000 ks still to cover and hope to zig zag most Continents in our homemade buggy.
Cheers
Chris & Elayne ……Victor the Buggy.
