Next I bought a 1980 Honda Civic with a 1.3 litre engine and automatic transmission. I pulled the transmission apart and welded the spider & side gears in the differential of the transmission to lock the axles together and reassembled the transmission.
I set the engine/transmission, axles, rad, etc. in position on stands with the engine turned 90 degrees so the engine sits just forward of the rear axle with the transmission ahead of it.
When I narrowed the axles I took more out of the right rear and left front so the pinions would be aligned to the right.
For my next step I built a frame around all this with 2" square tubing and bolted the axles directly to the frame with U-bolts.
Drive shafts were easy to make. I just found some pipe which fit tightly over the Honda axles, made a couple rings. Tapped them over the axles then ground them down till they fit into the Chevy yolks, slid them in and welded them solid.
For the steering I used the Honda steering colunm complete with ignition switch and a VW bug steering box.
The feature which makes this buggy unique is that by using a front wheel drive transaxle the torque is multiplied through the differential in the transmission before it goes to the axles creating extra low gearing. We chained this buggy to a tree and while sitting on dry pavement it will actually spin all four 33" tires at a rate of about 3MPH. Top end is about 30MPH at about 6500rpm (honest that old Civic motor screams)
I would like to hear from any body that has built something similar or something really different.
Pete
North Bay, Ontario Canada