Maybe he is the bossOriginally Posted by Paquette
Maybe he is the boss
haha nope. though i do act like the boss sometimesreally i'm just another number on the payroll, but the owner is a nice guy and lets me work on my projects (off the clock of course) and lets me order whatever i need through the shop and i just pay him a little bit each week.
This is what friends are for! I'm very fortunate to have access to a tool & die facility myself and believe me it comes in mighty handy at times> Joe.
Ok its update time. Not a whole lot of progress making parts, though i did get my idler shafts finished. I used pieces of 1" thompson shaft and cut the sprockets off the old shafts to use on the new ones. Probably shouldn't have used thompson shaft as it was pain getting the set screw grooves into the hard case on the shaft but its what i had lying around. One of my main drive sprockets was a actually bent! explains why i was throwing chains all the time, so i replaced them with sprockets that have hubs and hardened teeth for extra strength.
I also made progress on the body work. Alot of you will disagree with me, but i'm painting the body again, even though my first paint job ended up in hours of stripping off rubber coating and paint.... but i refuse to have a red argo. Anyways i got some good primer for plastic and i really sanded it down good and i hope it sticks. I know it will never stick 100% as i mentioned earlier in this thread, but i dont mind touching it up. There was no touching up the rubber coat i used last time. It just kept peeling back. take that as a warning for anyone reading this thinking about using rubber coating on your body. DON'T!
aside from that i've been doing alot of purchasing this week. Finally got my new motor in! she's an 18 horse vanguard and im excited to hear her run soon! got alot of playing around to do running the ignition to the dash, moving the oil filter as it interferes with the brake rotors on the transmission. I also got the last of my bearings ordered. hopefully they will come in this week. Let me tell you, all new inner and outer bearings plus flanges gets expensive quick.... I also found nice 7 gallon gas tank thats flat like a pancake and will be fit underneath a custom floorboard i'm making for the back. Hopefully that comes in this week also. Other than that just getting all the little things together, new lights, wiring, nuts and bolts ect. Every last screw on this machine will be brand new. some might think i'm crazy putting this much money into an old machine when i could just buy a new one, but i really enjoy these projects, plus how many people out there have a brand new 70's argo? anyways enough rambling. lol. here's some pics. enjoy.
Removing the sprockets from the old idler shafts:
Grinding in the set screw grooves into case hardened shaft
The completed idler shafts:
Completed custom axle and hub:
The top primed and ready for paint:
The new motor:
Some misc parts:
Very nice in deed.
Regarding the engine. Can I ask what the new Vanguard set you back ? and why you didn't consider a 20 HP Honda engine ?
The vanguard set me back $1180. that included shipping. To be honest i'm a complete newbie when it comes to engines, so i went with what i knew would work. A friend of mine down the road put a vanguard in his 6x6 about 3 years ago and its still running strong, so i went the same route. I did start a thread in the engine section on what would be an ideal replacement motor, but didnt get a whole lot of good responses. Then i got the paycheck i was waiting for and the money was burning a hole in my pocket, so i called up richards relics about the motor. he told me he didnt currently have any deals on motors that size at the time and recommended i look around online for a better price. I ended up at brandnewengines.com which is where i bought the engine.
FYI, I'm selling my old 3 bolt wheel hubs in the classified section since i don't need them anymore just in case anyone is looking for a set.
Been a while since my last update, but i finally got a chance to get some work done this past weekend. Finally got the frame all finished up! i think it came out pretty good. More than twice the strength of the original folded sheet metal frame and not more than 20/30 lbs heavier. Hopefully i can get all the sprockets welded to the axles tonight and start putting her back together. Heres a pic:
Holy frame Batman! That looks great, or should I say grate?
Incredible work! Every time I open this thread, it gets better and better. Are you planning on painting or powder coating the frame?
Yea i gave it a couple coats of rustoleum. Started putting things together to see if its all gunna fit right. everything looks good, chains look tight and everythings lined up right, so im gunna weld the sprockets to the axles probably tonight. Hope i can get the frame and axles in by the weekend. I'll keep posting pics as i go.
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