PVC part construction:
The PVC part construction is almost exactly as it is mentioned on the joyrider manual. But keep in mind to increase the diameter of the indicated PVC parts by at least 2cm to avoid the trouble of having to reinforce the construction later as happened to me. You can stop following the plans as soon have you reached the point where you pointed to place the hand movement stick. Its useless as the motion will came from the motors in the end.
The PVC Pipes I bought was rated 16ATM and I advice you to use this type also. They are a little expensive than the ones indicated in the joyrider manual but they bend less under stress.
The companies I contacted to buy the PVC pipes were selling them in big length pieces of 6 meters and I had to cut them in 3 meters pieces in place to carry them back to home on the roof of my car. Its not recommended to cut them in smaller pieces when purchase them because you may find yourself with smaller pieces that needed for the frames. I have calculated a new cut list that leaves no much wasted pipes around and safely let me cut the pieces I wanted without the danger of having to go back for more pipes. The numbers are in mm and the grey area is the wasted part of each pipe if you cut it in 3 meters long pipes. The number in front of each set is the external diameter of each pipe size and are a little bigger than the indicated in the joyrider manual because otherwise the will not hold all the weight of you and the equipment (bucket seat, pitch motor mounts, lcd screen).
I had to cut them in the desired length pieces down to the basement to avoid bringing home all the small pieces that leaves the sawing.
(the photos in this section are a low resolution cause they are taken almost a year before I finished the project, ...old camera etc)
After bolting the base pieces toggether, I had to attach the roll casters on each side of the base. I haven't found the one that the joyrider manual indicated and used a little smaller ones but still with double set of ball bearings.
After mounting them on the base I used a nippers to bend the caster forks in 90 degrees position. You won't find a better holder than this!
Here is the roll gimbal holded by the base in balance.
You can place a normal office chair with its legs sewed off for start but its better to use a car bucket seat along with its sliders to be able to slide the chair front or back and set in precise the center of gravity more easily than the indicated way mentioned on the plans.
Here is the cockpit part that is ready to attach on the roll gimbal.
The pitch casters are attached on the sides of the cockpit with the use if pipe holding brackets.
This procedure of building the base construction of joyrider took me around 5 days during my summer vacations (2006)...