The County College of Morris Parade Buggy

A group of engineering students and staff at County College of Morris (NJ) build a "Parade Buggy" to be used for promotional purposes in local events. The buggy is very roughly based on the styling of a 1902 Curved Dash Olsmobile. Wheels are 20" bicycle. Width is about 44" and length is about 72". Special thanks to Ian Colquhoun (Coordinator) and Steve Pagano (Lab Assistant) for their superb work on this project. Approximately eight CCM Mechanical Engineering students also contributed to the design and fabrication.

This project is intended to be a blend of "old and new". The buggy is presently self-propelled with a conventional gasoline engine, but we are setting up a "Bio-Diesel" powerplant to be used in the near future. The Bio-Diesel engine will use corn-oil (like Mazola) as a fuel. The engine is expected to be "Zero-Emissions". (plus it will smell like french-fries!)

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Here's the buggy in the staging area for the St. Patick's Day parade in Morristown, NJ, 2006

Marching in the St. Patick's Day parade in Morristown, NJ, 2006

Waiting to begin at the St. Patick's Day parade in Morristown, NJ, 2006

The buggy is roughly compete when this picture was taken. The powertrain is a conventional, gasoline-burning Techuseh OHV 5 HP engine at this point. The buggy will be used as a test bed for new-technology powertrains beginning with a the Bio-Diesel engine that we are now working on. We hope to make this buggy a fun and interesting blend of "old and new" technology.

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Here's the buggy as it began. We used 1" square steel tubing for most frame members. The 3 speed trans (+ reverse) and differential came from a riding lawmower. The trans was rotated 90 degrees to allow a horizontal shaft 5 HP gas engine to be connected via a short chain. The engine to trans ratio is basically 1:1. In this configerattion, the pull-start faced out the back which worked out conviently. The trans had a mechanical disc brake, which we used via a cable to the left pedal.

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The basic rolling buggy can be seen here. Note the single center pivot for the front axle. No suspension springs were used.

The basic frame for the "curved dash" underpinnings can be seen here. Note that we chose to run the steering from the center. A single U-joint was used to allow the steering to be tilted to the right (we just thought that right-side steering looked more "period correct"). The steering wheel is not on a flat plane relative to the driver, but this is no bother and adding an extra U-joint would have made things more complicated than we wanted.

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We began "mocking up" the front area with the "curved dash" at this point.

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Fitting the wooden body and sheet metal curved-dash area. The pedals, seat and steering is in place at this point.

We took the entire vehicle back apart to paint and seal all surfaces. The final finish was spray-can black laquer

Testing before adding the pick-up sides, pinstripes and "CCM Engineering" logos.

Testing with "two-up"

Another view, mostly finished"

Buggy along the parade route in Morristown

Buggy along the parade route in Morristown in front of Epsteins

Buggy along the parade route in Morristown near The Green

Buggy in 2007 St. Pat's parade in Morristown, NJ.

Short YouTube video clip of buggy at 2007 parade

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A High resolution picture of the buggy at the 2006 Morristown, NJ St. Patricks's Day Parade.

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