Motor for hustler?

[boncrshr]

Use 3M strip calk (about $12 for a 60ft box) to seal the flanges against the body. Its the best seal possible and that is what they use at the Recreatives (Max) factory. I would recomend heading down to your local Autozone and pick up a tube of marine grease for about $3-4. With that set up you will be as water tight as you could possibly be.

Great info there JP.....dum dum...who'd a thunk it? What's nice about that as well is that if you ever have to take them out, re-sealing will be easier without having to scrape and clean the sealing surfaces so much. I'll pick up a couple of tubes of marine grease.....

Once I get the rolling stock together, my next round of questions will start.....but all of the info has been very helpful, so thanks everybody. It is kinda hard building something when you have very little experience driving it, or just knowing the best way to do something so that you eliminate problems before they happen. I absolutely hate forced marches...if I'm walking by choice that's one thing..but when you are out hunting, it's either cold or hot, either way I will have waders on...so hopefully everything will work as well as I hope it will.

[jerseybigfoot]

When I was checking out what to put in mine, the Kohler had more torque and the HP was rated differently. From what I recall the Kohler/ Honda price for equal torque was about the same.

[boncrshr]

Hey Jersey..you are right about Honda figuring HP a little different, and the Kohler 21 has a little more torque than the Honda 20 (2-4 ft/lbs I think)...but, it was significantly more money....so that will always give me an excuse to upgrade later.

BTW, Honda 20hp will arrive tomorrow, then I'm off to my buddy's house to weld the motor mounts on Saturday. My target date to at least be rolling is 9/1/07.

[boncrshr]

Well,

We got a little work done yesterday. Went to my buddy's house and we welded the axle studs into the new axles, and made a motor mounting plate from a sheet of 1/2" aluminum he had laying around.

Big thanks to Jersey on the belt tightness tip...I feel good about everything lining up right and being the proper tightness. There wasn't a whole lot of room left, if you were putting a bigger motor than the Honda 20hp in there, you would probably have to move the trans forward. Oil changes might be interesting. The plan is to bolt the motor directly to the plate, and then sandwich the plate with some polyurethane sway bar bushings. We had to drill them out a little for the bolts to go through. But they did not compress at all with the weight of the motor on there.

[boncrshr]

I posted 7 more pics of the rebuild so far at the end of this photo album.

Hustler pictures from outdoors photos on webshots

It is going a little slower than I wanted, but I feel like I am getting really close. After seeing the tires on the 980, I have a pretty bad case of tire envy, but it does not look like there is a whole lot of room on the body. What are the largest tires and rims I should be able to fit on this body? My machine looks so much shorter next to the other stock machine....the tires I have on it are 22x12x8.

You can see the keyed axles and the tie-down straps for the T-20 in the pics. The Honda looks good in there IMO.

I have not taken the time to strip the paint yet, as I am on a time schedule.....that may be a good post-hunting season project, or I may buy a new body if the machine works as well as I hope.

[jpswift1]

I have seen a Hustler that is just like your and someone managed to fit 25x12x9 Goodyear Rawhide III tires on it. They barely fit, but they did clear the fender well. These are the factory tires that they use on Argos.
I see you have 2 Hustlers in your garage in this picture. What is the story with the other one The tires look like Goodyear Rawhide III on the one, but I dont know what the other one has. Both look GREAT! That Honda engine is going to be an excellent motor. Im sure it will have gobs of power. You sure have a nice machine there!!! I cant wait to see it all done.

[boncrshr]

Thanks for the compliment...yesterday was the culmination of 2 years of slow parts gathering. The other Hustler is my hunting partners and is the one I am trying to sell. It has the stock size tires on it.

My tires are Kenda Bearclaws.....they look pretty wide though, I am hoping that extra footprint may offset the height some?

BTW, that was the first time I had assembled axles in a machine and it was not too hard. The 3M strip caulk worked awesome and seems to be perfect for this application.

[boncrshr]

Hey JP,

Where should I start looking to find some 9"rims??

[jpswift1]

Im glad it worked out well for you. I actually had very good luck with my Hustler axles as well when I was restoring it too. It certainly seems like there are a lot of Hustlers down your way in Texas. I know they were one of the few companies that actually built their machines in the South/Southeastern part of the country. They were in Jonesboro, Arkansas for the 15 years or so that they were in business. In my opinion after working on many different models of 6 wheelers, Hustlers seem to be some of the best built machines out there.
As far as the rims are concerned, keep your eyes out on ebay for Argo parts, sometimes people sell their 9" rims with the 25" Rawhide III's on them. I will send you a message if I come across any.
By the way, let us know how that Honda engine works out for you. I bet that thing will run forever! I always considered a Honda 4 stroke, but I never knew anyone that ran one in their machine. Great job on the restoration so far, it looks excellent!!!

[jpswift1]

Before you decide to get those 25" tires on there, see how those Kenda Bearclaws perform. They look like they would be absolutely unstopable in the mud. Here is a link to the cheapest 25" Rawhide III's I could find. I order all my 6x6 tires from here and I have had great luck with this company.

Goodyear Tires - Runa Muck & Rawhide