it may sound a bit topgear ish but as i live next to the sea and a good slipway i was thinking of making an amphibious car.
something very simple and light like an old fiat uno with an outboard.
what do you experts think. keep it simple please. i presume i'll have to add bouyancy etc and seal all doors and keep the driving engine dry ish.
it doesnt have to be able to go straight from road to sea i dont mind a 15 min tinkle with spanners or some kind of external bouyancy frame attached to the car.
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Make it from a punt--------o
job done
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Tee hee bb, but you're quite right actually.
A WW2 amphibious Jeep was in fact a steel punt with waterproofed jeep mechanicals. It had I seem to remember a propeller under the back end but was steered using the front wheels in the normal manner.
My father's admiralty car pool had one when I was a child. I wanted us to have it but he didn't like it. It was a bit stark and didn't float any more. I believe it was quite hard to keep them watertight. But I thought it was really stylish in matt grey.
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i would opt for a deisel, less chance of any water getting on the ignition and fouling things up!!!!
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i think it needs to be something very light like an old panda etc. so that much bouyancy isnt needed. maybe a couple of canoe shaped bags either side attached to the sills somehow and one at the back and front to alter the trim by adding or removing air, or balance the car using barrels although it would look pretty ugly.
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I think you'll have a problem sealing any car when you think about all the holes for wiring, gear lever, throttle cable, door drain holes etc.
Have you considered buying a boat and trailer?
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i already have 2 boats , its just that i fancied doing something out of the norm to get the children involved and to keep their interest from waining.
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"admiralty car pool"
Lud I have a mental image.
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how about the other way round have a boat that you can drive on land be easier i think
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Interesteing project, keep us informed?
Would agree with diesel idea suggested earlier. Small car, will need lots of work with fibreglass I suspect to seal all holes; may need a few trial and error runs too.
How do you propose steering and powering it?
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a few weeks ago on discovery channel jesse james and the monster garage crew built a bettle car to go on water they put a v8 and a prop in the back and welded up all underneth and filled the sealed bottom with expanding foam for it to float could you adapt this idea??
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2 part closed cell foam could be used for bouyancy.
i was thinking of using an outboard for power as it would save a lot of time on the fabrication , just need to find a way of steering it.
i could look for an old 205 deisel but they still fetch silly money and i was hoping to get the car very cheaply like 100-200 pounds so i'll have to keep an eye out for something
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Might be worth googling 'amphibious car' and getting something from there. They used to say that VW Beetles would float but the only time I watched someone try it went down like a stone!
Of course, there was the famous 1970's Amphicar and I believe there is still one being produced by someone somewhere. Good luck, sounds like good fun!
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I think it will steer just with the ordinary front wheels, especially if plain steel not spoked - twin rudders. As they are at the front there should be quite a good leverage effect, if a bit unstable at high speed.
Apart from sealing the bodywork don't forget that ordinary transmission components are not designed for submersion. Apart from breather pipes, you may have to think about the sucking effect on things like hot wheelbearings when they are cooled suddenly.
Wasn't the old VW supposed to be so well sealed that it would float anyway?
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i was thinking of putting the outboard in a built up well in the rear seat area so i can install cable steering for it. does anybody think its possible to build a floatation frame so the very light stripped down car can drive onto the frame. a little more complicated would be to have the front wheels drive a built in roller in the frame that would then turn a prop on the back of a frame.
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There is a kit advertised for one in kit car magazine i will try and digit out & send details. I seem to remember it being expensive
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Here's another idea for propulsion - bolt-on paddles on the driving wheels. If the handbrake operates on the driving wheels, separate the linkage so that you can partially brake the two wheels independently, and then steer/power like a tracked vehicle.
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now the paddles on the wheels is a good idea. will do some drawings later and have a think. more ides please.
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There is a kit advertised for one in kit car magazine i will try and digit out & send details. I seem to remember it being expensive
This one? www.timdutton.com/
Doyle
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yes thats the one based on a suzuki SJ Or similar start at about 8K!
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But if you get them to put it together for you it costs FIVE TIMES as much.
Hard to avoid the conclusion that they don't really want to sell completed vehicles!
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Tim Dutton? A man with "kitcar" enscribed across his internal organs. Some appallingly agricultural designs and yet his offerings from the 1970s can still cut it with the modern stuff.
Amphibians here:
www.amphijeep.biz/
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excellant link micky and not a word on the dutton sierra ;-)
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">dutton sierra<"
You know of this thing!!
I certainly appreciate the Dutton concept, the thought of turning up at a sprint with a seedy, unwashed Dutton Phaeton complete with monster bhp and several ££££s of suspension/tyres is very appealing. Very much owner-engineered. But spending 10k on a car which is never worth more than 2k because of the badge is a bit of a painful concept.
I quite fancy a Dutton Sierra body on Defender workings, with Rover V8 power of course.
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yep you cant beat a street sleeper
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As others have said, I would start with something that floats and add road mechanicals rather than start with a car. A FIAT? In the sea? Won't that dissolve with the speed of an Alka-Selzer?
Be careful with paddles on the driven wheels. You need to get the depth right and don't make the paddles too big; enormous forces can be generated.
Good luck and don't forget the emergency rations, lifebelts, distress flares and waterproof mobile on your maiden voyage.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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I'd like to hear the call when you try to get it insured. TPFT - I think the P stands for piracy, not sure about the rest....
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Fire shouldnt be too much of a concern. Take some buckets with you though !
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and you wont need theft unless you have a village idiot
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after loadsa magners in the pub yesterday myself and a few grease monkeys having all consumed silly amounts of alchol reckon its worth a look at old eposides of scrap heap challenge some one vagelly remembers a task was to build a amphibious car . also we remembered a vw bettle made of wood going down a canal in amsterdam ...... but we were drunk by then good luck love to see when done
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the more i think about it the more difficult it becomes to keep and engine and gearbox dry unless the car is raised from the water about 2ft.
will do a lot more thinking and research.
any ideas reallty welcome
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If you are considering outboard or similar for power in the water; then a diesel wont mind getting a "bit" wet.
Possibly need to lengthen breather hoses and seal air intake; "snorkel type" as on military landrovers etc to keep water away from gearbox oil and getting inside engine.
Seal dipstick tube too, consider a plug rather than dipstick for water use?
Most likely problems after immersion in water is brakes (obviously) and wheel bearings, drive joints, etc. Consider underwater grease as a possibility?
Don't give up though!
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can anyone reccomend a suitable car for banger money.
the car doesnt have to be able to drive miles as its just a toy for a laugth.
i use marine grease on my boat trailers and its fantastic stuff with no wash out at all.
i could use closed cell 2 part foam for bouyancy as 1ltr gives 22kg of bouyancy.
sealing doors should be easy with grp etc. under engine could be a tray to keep out most of the water.
any more ideas
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Does it ned to be road legal? Or could you trailer it to water/private ground?
If so, chat to local scrap yard; they often have good condition cars in that are just too expensive to keep going and 1 would suit your needs and be at best possible price!
Might even find scrapyard owner gets interested and offers help. Ones in my area love to help with out of the ordinary ideas.
Other than that any car at the right price would be the way I would choose the car! Then sort the problems as they arise.
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it doesnt really need to be mot or taxed. it would be good if it was but i wouldnt think the mot would be renewed after the work was done to convert it.
i have a boat trailer that will take 700kg so if i was ti strip out the mechanicals like gear box and engine it would be easier but it wouild be nice to drive into the water at least the first few times.
any thought on making a cradle that the car could be driven onto and then floated with all the floatation taken by the cradle
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I would persevere with making the car float rather than a seperate cradle.
Keep the cabin watertight; but a good big sunroof/escape hatch would be a good idea? Seal the doors; seal all the holes you can find etc. Strip out al dead weight not needed; carpets soundproofing etc, windows too if possible?
If too nose heavy, then floatation aids under the front wings, possibly strapped onto front ? etc etc.
I think you will need a good winch on your 1st attempt just in case you have to abandon car/boat but the idea can surely be made to work?
A hatchback with the hatch removed sounds feasible way of mounting outboard and maintaining control etc .
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that was one reason i was thinking old uno or panda as they wiegh next to nothing and didnt fiat do a uno deisel or is my brain addled.
i have life jackets etc for the other boat.
i like the idea of bolt on paddles for the front wheels as id get propulsion and steering. but id also want a second prop source like outboard just in case.
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definitely uno was available in diesle; but not many about now?
But any small car, fiesta, 205, would do same job and not weigh much.
Got to be worth trip to scrappie? see what they got etc?
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will have a look in yellow pages for a local scrappie and on ebay
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They used to say that VW Beetles would float but the only time I watched someone try it went down like a stone!
I had a dim memory of them doing that on Blue Peter in the '80's. They tried to drive an old Beetle across the Channel. The door seals were said to be good enough to keep water out without modification.
I remember they filled every available body cavity with expanding squirty foam, including the whole of the front 'boot'.
Voila, I have just found this brief description, scroll down to 'VW Water Beetle':
www.amphibiousvehicle.net/amphi/U_Z.html
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Good link, it misses out the 1 based on a triumph herald (used to be in totnes motor museum iirc) which was commercially available back then ?
Apart from that it cetainly seems to cover most attempts.
Lets hope the Op makes it on there too
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have you seen the amphibious tank they used in ww2, it had a canvas skirt that was fitted round the tank and kept it boyant called the duck i think, loads of soldiers drowned unfortunately cause the sea was a bit rough in june 44
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The Duck was a truck milkyjoe, a much bigger amphibious Jeep kind of thing whose proper designation was DUKW.
Those amphibianised tanks that drowned so many men were just that, tanks with canvas flotation add-ons.
None of these vehicles is particularly seaworthy, but those were the worst.
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Prompted by the physics of a floating car;
If you have 1 tonne (i.e. 1000 kgs) mass of lead and 1 tonne mass of straw, if you were to use a **very** accurate weighing scale, what would you find the weights (in air) to be;
a) the weight of the straw is more than the weight of the lead
b) the weight of the lead and the weight of the straw is the same
c) the weight of the lead is greater than the weight of the straw
Number_Cruncher
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The straw would weigh less than the lead because of its much greater volume, thus displacing more air and trying to 'float' in it.
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surely 1 tonne is 1 tonne, so the weight will be same. displacement will not be relevant because it has already been weighed. Bit more relevant in the water though!
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wnet looking at a few cheap cars today and all to big and heavy.
i'll keep a look out for something like fiesta deisel or similar size.
ive got a spare 10hp outboard that i'll service to make sure it's ok.
located a source for closed cell 2part foam.
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surely 1 tonne is 1 tonne so the weight will be same. displacement will not be relevant because it has already been weighed. Bit more relevant in the water though!
Don't forget that air is a fluid with mass of its own. Like water, only lighter.
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Yes Lud, you are spot on.
I was careful to say that each item had a *mass* of 1 tonne, and then went on to ask what each *weighed*. For the man in the street, mass and weight mean the same, but this is not true in science and engineering.
The straw displaces much more air than the lead, and is therefore more buoyant. The effect, when each item was weighed would be for the straw to weigh less than the lead.
As mass is the only SI base unit that traces its standard back to an artefact, a metal block, it turns out that the buoyancy correction for steel is negligible. As soon as you move away from this density, if you want to make the most accurate measurements of mass, you need to make a buoyancy correction. (I'm talking about the level of accuracy used by bodies who control National and International standards, like NPL and BIPM, not by the grocer weighing your spuds!)
Number_Cruncher
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