69 Bus Cow catcher

Hey Gang I'm interested in a Cow catcher for 69 Bus.
I travel the baja a lot and have almost been killed by running into a
cow at night on those ohhh so curvry and rolling hills. Some guy in a
van passed me because I was so slow and he took out the cow within
seconds. Humm like jumping in front of a bullet!
Anyway I'd like a way to pass some of the energy that the cow
generates to the frame and protect my legs.

Does this make sense? and/or has anyone seen something like this?
Thanx

wrote:
> Hey Gang I'm interested in a Cow catcher for 69 Bus.
> I travel the baja a lot and have almost been killed by running into a
> cow at night on those ohhh so curvry and rolling hills. Some guy in a
> van passed me because I was so slow and he took out the cow within
> seconds. Humm like jumping in front of a bullet!
> Anyway I'd like a way to pass some of the energy that the cow
> generates to the frame and protect my legs.
>
> Does this make sense? and/or has anyone seen something like this?
> Thanx
>

At first I thought you were kidding:-)

Whatever you build is going to be massive in terms of steel.
Maybe a VEE shape that would deflect her/him to either side.
What you gotta watch is that the device doesn't wind up deflecting the
beast *upward*, even a little, because then it will promptly go thru
the windshield and wind up in your lap...

Speedy Jim
http://www.nls.net/mp/volks/

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/183212.jpg

enjoy
Mark Detro
Englewood, FL

66' panel
71' westy
73' baja

Just drive slower and get really good lights.............There really
isn't a whole lot of VW there to deal with the MASS of a fully grown
cow..............The link below is pretty funny, but would be totally
useless in the event you hit anything larger than, say,..............a
Poodle.


>http://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/183212.jpg




Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply

MUADIB®

http://www.angelfire.com/retro/sster...IN%20PAGE.html

one small step for man,.....
One giant leap for attorneys.

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hey Gang I'm interested in a Cow catcher for 69 Bus.
> I travel the baja a lot and have almost been killed by running into a
> cow at night on those ohhh so curvry and rolling hills. Some guy in a
> van passed me because I was so slow and he took out the cow within
> seconds. Humm like jumping in front of a bullet!
> Anyway I'd like a way to pass some of the energy that the cow
> generates to the frame and protect my legs.
>
> Does this make sense? and/or has anyone seen something like this?
> Thanx
>

I'm not sure what you could anchor a cow catcher to on a VW bus that
wouldn't be totally destroyed by the impact. Between the cow and the bus
you're talking about a lot of mass.

....Hmm....

You can attempt to do one of two things with that much energy; absorb it or
deflect it. Deflection doesn't sound hopeful to me. First of all, an
impact between a cow and a bus that has an angled deflector on the front is
probably going to deflect the bus rather than the cow. Second, there's no
guarantee that you're going to hit the cow correctly for the deflector to
work. If it's angled, it has to have a point or apex of some kind, and if
you hit the cow on the point instead of the angled surface, you now have the
cow *plus* the cow catcher collapsing onto your legs (you could make the
point sharp enough to cut the cow in two....making your bus look like
something out of a Mad Max movie <g>).

Perhaps some sort of energy absorbing structure, designed to collapse and
sacrifice itself in an impact. The front ends of modern cars do this by
design. You still have the problem of what to anchor it to that's stouter
than the structure itself--so it's the structure that collapses and not the
bus. Also keeping in mind that if you do hit a cow and whatever you've
built doesn't do it's job, it's all gonna end up in your lap.

Wild idea:

Build yourself a mounting system on the front of the bus that's as stout as
you can make it. Anchor it underneath, as well as on either side just in
front of the doors. Get two chunks of plate, maybe 3/16" thick, 24" high
and curved to match the front of the bus. Mount one to the anchor points,
just like you were trying to armor-plate the lower front of the bus. Now
get some expanded steel, and cut it into 12" wide strips, but curved to
match the steel plates so you can weld them on in horizontal rows sticking
straight out forward. Finally, weld the second plate to the outer edges of
the expanded steel to form the front face of the "bumper". Now you have a
structure that kind of resembles corrugated cardboard, with the expanded
steel sandwiched between the plates. The expanded steel will collapse on
impact (just like the steeling column safeties on the bugs), absorbing the
energy. The outer plates will keep it all together so it doesn't deform too
badly and send something sharp through the front of the bus.

I'd still be willing to bet that when the numbers were crunched, it would
still be the front of the bus that failed, but with the 'cowcatcher' curved
to conform to the shape of the bus, it just might spread the energy of the
impact over enough area to keep your legs from becoming too familiar with
the cow. Maybe.

Even wilder idea: Get a minivan side airbag unit and mount it just above
the front bumper. On second thought. get several of them. They're designed
to absorb the energy of a human, not a cow.

Now we're *really* getting silly idea: Outward-exploding panels like they
use on some armored military vehicles to counter a shell hit. Cleanup would
be unpleasant...

Ok, one more and I'm done. What you'd really rather do, of course, is not
hit the cow at all. So get yourself an infrared video camera and point it
forward. Hook it to a video screen from one of those mobile DVD players.
Set it up so that when there's no heat source ahead, the screen is basically
dark, and you won't see anything at night. When there's a warm body out
there, you'll get a visible splash of red on the screen. If you really want
to get sophisticated, hook it up to a laptop computer that's programmed to
sound an alert when it sees too much heat. I'm not sure how much extra
warning you could get, but I bet the infrared setup could "see" a lot
farther than your headlights.

Cheers,
Walt

Not Kidding! Really

I was thinking that if you had something that attached to the front
frame; an extension or extrusionthat would go to a crossbar in the
front.

I GOT IT ! It won't stop the damage to the van and I thought that if
it were done right you could transfer most of the impact to the frame.

It wouldn't be the first time I was accused of thinking outside the
box!

You may be able to build a protection device to withstand the impact from a
cow, but in my opinion a little impractical. The weight & size would be too
much for the Kombi.

"Down under" we have "roo" bars to help deflect the 'Kangaroos' from the
vehicles on our country roads.

But a direct hit on a large roo will still damaged the kombi. However it
would possibly save the driver by spreading the load across the front of the
vehicle. Here is an example of a "roo" bar with a spare wheel mounted on it,
one of my Club member's camper.



Grahame

from Australia



> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hey Gang I'm interested in a Cow catcher for 69 Bus.
> I travel the baja a lot and have almost been killed by running into a
> cow at night on those ohhh so curvry and rolling hills. Some guy in a
> van passed me because I was so slow and he took out the cow within
> seconds. Humm like jumping in front of a bullet!
> Anyway I'd like a way to pass some of the energy that the cow
> generates to the frame and protect my legs.
>
> Does this make sense? and/or has anyone seen something like this?
> Thanx
>

Maybe you could just add a gas grill to the front and ...... nevermind.
Andy

"WJ" > wrote in message
...
>
> > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>> Hey Gang I'm interested in a Cow catcher for 69 Bus.
>> I travel the baja a lot and have almost been killed by running into a
>> cow at night on those ohhh so curvry and rolling hills. Some guy in a
>> van passed me because I was so slow and he took out the cow within
>> seconds. Humm like jumping in front of a bullet!
>> Anyway I'd like a way to pass some of the energy that the cow
>> generates to the frame and protect my legs.
>>
>> Does this make sense? and/or has anyone seen something like this?
>> Thanx
>>
>
> I'm not sure what you could anchor a cow catcher to on a VW bus that
> wouldn't be totally destroyed by the impact. Between the cow and the bus
> you're talking about a lot of mass.
>
> ...Hmm....
>
> You can attempt to do one of two things with that much energy; absorb it
> or deflect it. Deflection doesn't sound hopeful to me. First of all, an
> impact between a cow and a bus that has an angled deflector on the front
> is probably going to deflect the bus rather than the cow. Second, there's
> no guarantee that you're going to hit the cow correctly for the deflector
> to work. If it's angled, it has to have a point or apex of some kind, and
> if you hit the cow on the point instead of the angled surface, you now
> have the cow *plus* the cow catcher collapsing onto your legs (you could
> make the point sharp enough to cut the cow in two....making your bus look
> like something out of a Mad Max movie <g>).
>
> Perhaps some sort of energy absorbing structure, designed to collapse and
> sacrifice itself in an impact. The front ends of modern cars do this by
> design. You still have the problem of what to anchor it to that's stouter
> than the structure itself--so it's the structure that collapses and not
> the bus. Also keeping in mind that if you do hit a cow and whatever
> you've built doesn't do it's job, it's all gonna end up in your lap.
>
> Wild idea:
>
> Build yourself a mounting system on the front of the bus that's as stout
> as you can make it. Anchor it underneath, as well as on either side just
> in front of the doors. Get two chunks of plate, maybe 3/16" thick, 24"
> high and curved to match the front of the bus. Mount one to the anchor
> points, just like you were trying to armor-plate the lower front of the
> bus. Now get some expanded steel, and cut it into 12" wide strips, but
> curved to match the steel plates so you can weld them on in horizontal
> rows sticking straight out forward. Finally, weld the second plate to the
> outer edges of the expanded steel to form the front face of the "bumper".
> Now you have a structure that kind of resembles corrugated cardboard, with
> the expanded steel sandwiched between the plates. The expanded steel will
> collapse on impact (just like the steeling column safeties on the bugs),
> absorbing the energy. The outer plates will keep it all together so it
> doesn't deform too badly and send something sharp through the front of the
> bus.
>
> I'd still be willing to bet that when the numbers were crunched, it would
> still be the front of the bus that failed, but with the 'cowcatcher'
> curved to conform to the shape of the bus, it just might spread the energy
> of the impact over enough area to keep your legs from becoming too
> familiar with the cow. Maybe.
>
> Even wilder idea: Get a minivan side airbag unit and mount it just above
> the front bumper. On second thought. get several of them. They're
> designed to absorb the energy of a human, not a cow.
>
> Now we're *really* getting silly idea: Outward-exploding panels like they
> use on some armored military vehicles to counter a shell hit. Cleanup
> would be unpleasant...
>
> Ok, one more and I'm done. What you'd really rather do, of course, is not
> hit the cow at all. So get yourself an infrared video camera and point it
> forward. Hook it to a video screen from one of those mobile DVD players.
> Set it up so that when there's no heat source ahead, the screen is
> basically dark, and you won't see anything at night. When there's a warm
> body out there, you'll get a visible splash of red on the screen. If you
> really want to get sophisticated, hook it up to a laptop computer that's
> programmed to sound an alert when it sees too much heat. I'm not sure how
> much extra warning you could get, but I bet the infrared setup could "see"
> a lot farther than your headlights.
>
> Cheers,
> Walt
>

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Hey Gang I'm interested in a Cow catcher for 69 Bus.
> I travel the baja a lot and have almost been killed by running into a
> cow at night on those ohhh so curvry and rolling hills. Some guy in a
> van passed me because I was so slow and he took out the cow within
> seconds. Humm like jumping in front of a bullet!
> Anyway I'd like a way to pass some of the energy that the cow
> generates to the frame and protect my legs.
>
> Does this make sense? and/or has anyone seen something like this?
> Thanx
>

check out this site..... might give you some ideas.

http://www.baja.com/kombi/

Mac

"Busman" > wrote in message
news
> Maybe you could just add a gas grill to the front and ...... nevermind.
> Andy
>

Well, a .50 caliber chaingun pod on the roof would make it too top-heavy...