Relocating fuel tank and battery to the rear

[great white]

Can anyone think of a reason NOT to move the fuel tank on my 8x8 to the rear. Move the battery also?

I’d like to try and even out the weight distribution as we all know the argo is very nose heavy in the water and any bounce or unexpected “jump” results in the nose diving for the ground first.

Would moving weight to the rear maybe negatively effect the skid steer properties?

I’d also like to use the front “under seat” space to build a storage compartment. Theres lots of room in the Argo, but not much dedicated space to hold smaller things like straps, tools, jumper cables, etc. Right now that either has to roll around on the floor or I have to strap in a tool box or something similar. Tools boxes (etc) means I loose cargo space anyways, albiet it makes it easy to shift and r configure if needed. Would be nice to have built in space for that type of stuff, the things that we carry around on a more permanent basis.

Obviously I would loose some absolute cargo carrying space with the rear mounted tank. But I dont use my argo for hauling lots of stuff or hauling hunting kills out of the bush. Its mainly just people I haul around, which I’ll still be able to do just fine as I plan to put a bench seat over the rear mounted fuel tank.

After so many decades of building such nose heavy vehicles, I can’t believe ODG doesn't have a reason for NOT evening out the weight distribution in them. Unless its just about leaving the biggest cargo space open in the back they possibly can.

The Max's, Attex's, hustler's, etc seem to do fine with more weight in the rear. They actually appear to handle a little better/more predictable than an Argo with it's heavy front weight bias. While I don't have one of those "rear engine jobbies", the only negative seems to be reduced passenger/cargo space. They are all 6x6's though, and my argo is an 8x8. Might be a difference in handling there with more rear weight bias.

Of maybe I should just move the battery and leave the fuel tank where it is? The tank is 16" wide and the curve of the rear body means it would have to be slid forward quite a bit, resulting in a very wide rear bench. IF I just move the battery I can make a standard 12" wide seat right up against the back. That would allow me to "upsize" the battery (helpful with the winch and accessory lights I plan to install), create a storage compartment under the seat and still save a lot of passenger/cargo space.

Thoughts?

[great white]

Thought about it some more and I think I’m just going to “upsize” the main battery, move it to the rear of the Argo and make a bench seat across the back to incorporate the battery and some storage. The very rear area of the back is mostly “dead space” for me anyways because of the upward sweep from the floor to the top.

That will move some weight and give me some of the utility (ie:storage) I’m looking for. I plan on putting a fold down rear entry step on the Argo in conjunction with a rear csrgo rack system, so I can incorporate a “step here” area right in the middle of the cross bench and have a nice. Safe step down into the back of the Argo. Hmmm, maybe move the battery forward of the seat and have two steps down to the flat aluminum floor I have in the back....

It will also make it easy to still get to the hull drains by simply lifting the seat and reaching down instead of having to contort my poor ol’ bod to get in and under a fuel tank when I need to pull or install the plugs.

I do have to remake all the seats anyways. The front has no back and the bottom is just a short piece of plywood over the fuel tank with a floppy foam pad and the two rear benches I had to toss out as the plywood bases were rotted and the foam was soaked and rotted as well.

For the rear cross bench/storage area, I’ll weld up a frame to the argo frame to support it all and we’re good to go!

I’ll put a little though in to it and probably use the seat fame to tie in the rest of the argo for storage rack mounts, winch mount, out oard mount etc. Basically, build it strong enough and triangulated to carry the imposed loads down into the original Argo frame.

This isnt a “racer”, but I would like it to be decently fun. At the same time, I want to retain some versatilty without making it a straight up workhorse. Some color and nice finishes will be added as this isnt a hunter, its a play toy.

I was thinking 8 wheel steering, but I’m pretty sure I’ve backed off that idea. I think the immediate plan is to swap in the vf750f engine and eventually a springer conversion. That should make it more fun and enjoyable to use. The rest is just accessories and refinements to make it more useful.

Kind of a jack of all trades rig I guess.

[great white]

Working on the rear seat today:



Thats the beginning of the frame work that will support the seat, hold the battery and give me some storage space.

[Craig_B]

That looks almost identical to what the previous owner of my Argo constructed.

The battery was pooched so I removed it. Might have been a better idea to have replaced the battery.
Might have helped with the stability in the water.
I wonder though how would a larger battery affect the charging system?

[allwheeldrive]

Good idea, I did the same thing with my coot. Put everything heavy behind the rear axle helps a lot for weight distribution like you said.

[great white]

Well i went looking for seat foam today to build the new front and rear seats.

Yeah, they want an awful lot of money for just “foam”. Lets not forget that “foam” is essentially just air caught in some oil.

A piece dense enough to actually work as seats and large enough to just do the front and rear seat lower portions is $100! Plus 15% tax!

Ridiculous! And that’s the least expensive place!

Yeah, pretty sure I can figure out something else that doesn't cost a left nut for just a block of square foam.

So I head off to my favorite junkyard. Turns out rear seat bottoms are more of a PITA to them than they are anything else (essentially, no scrap value).

I dig around and find a long row of Ford Fusions. Rear seat bottoms are nearly 4” thick at the thin point and 6” at the thickest point.

60 bucks cash and I’m walking out with 4 seats.



They’re about 4” too wide for the argo and about 3-4” deeper than needed:







But I wasn't planning to use them “as is”. Thats just not how I do things, it has to look like it shoukd be there from the factory or I do ‘t want it. *It was highly unlikely that I was going to find a car seat that just drops in to the Argo like it was meant to be there, so I was planning of modifying something from the beginning.

I can shave 2” off each side and they will drop in between the body sides.

4” off the back edge and they will be just deep enough to be comfy. The back edge is the thiniest and has big cutouts for the car seat belts anyways.

A little work shaving and shaping at the cuts and they’ll look factory made when under the new seat upholstery. I’ll keep the “semi-bucket” look of the Fushion seat contours, just for asthetics as much as anything else. Will look much nicer than just a flat foam bench.

Two will also work for seat backs, once I trim them down to something that looks a bit more “Argo” and a lot less “redneck”.

Some fabricated steel frames will bridge the gap between Ford and Argo to make it all work together. If I have room, I may even try to build a bit of a spring mount into the frames. I’ll have to see how high they are with just the foam before deciding on that one.

The finishing piece will be some stitched up leather seat covers. I’ve got two full hides of leather seat upholstery left over from another project. I bought two full hides on clearance at the leather shop a long time ago and the planned project never happened. So I’ve been dragging these hides around for about 5 years now, looking for something I can use them for.

The leather cover thats on the one Fusion seat will serve as a template for me to stich the new covers from.

The leather I have is dark gray and a light beige/gray, so I’ll do it dark gray with light gray inserts. I would have preferred black seats, but those two gray hides are several hundreds of dollars just laying around and a couple black upholstery hides are going to be just stupid expensive.

So, the Argo gets two tone gray seats to go with the orange plastic body.

Like it or not!

*

At least the top will be black...lol!

[great white]

I wonder though how would a larger battery affect the charging system?

Not a problem. Argo will be getting an alternator installation.

[great white]

First fitting:



Not bad! Pretty good actually, considering all I’ve done is whack a raw chuck of the rear and sides! Some shaping and fitting will make it look closer to something that could have been factory option.

It looks to be a bit too thick, but after plopping my fat butt on it, it gets the “old arse society” seal of approval!

Lol!

It needs more shaping and fitting, but this is going to work out nicely.

[ARGOJIM]

Pretty nifty so far.

The only thing I might suggest is something you do not want and that would be move the seat up like the current Argo rear seat, I don't know if CraigB has had any rear passengers to attest to this ,but, growing up in the rear of an 8 wheeler I learned real quick you do not want to be in either of those rear corners. Be sure to add handrails for the littl'ns.

[great white]

Pretty nifty so far.

The only thing I might suggest is something you do not want and that would be move the seat up like the current Argo rear seat, I don't know if CraigB has had any rear passengers to attest to this ,but, growing up in the rear of an 8 wheeler I learned real quick you do not want to be in either of those rear corners. Be sure to add handrails for the littl'ns.

Seat is where it is. No kids to worry about, but it will get places to hold on in the back. It’s used to ferry ground search teams from search point to search point sometimes, thats about it.

[great white]

Did some work on the rear floor:



The front part is spaced up 1” to clear the chain tensioners and fastened by the two cam lock fasteners you see at the back. The very rear piece is just sitting there to give it a flat floor and the hinged doors on either side are for access to the drain plugs.

Battery will sit in the center between the doors.

Its coming together...

[Craig_B]

Looking good!

[JoeMeg]

Very nice! Thanks for posting pic's.

[great white]

Seats are finished to the "rough in" stage:







Took it out for a burn and the seats do their job well! Almost all of the banging and jarring is gone out of the ride.

I opened it up and got to max speed whipping across uneven ground. I hit a big hole (hidden under the snow) and unintentionally got some fairly serious air (at least it was for an Argo! LOL!). Now I'm not going to say it was fun, but where it would have hurt me quite a lot before, now it was just a big bounce and merely uncomfortable to be tossed.

You do sit a fair bit higher than before and You're best to stay off the center raised portion of the seat, but it's 10x better than it used to be.

I'll just make the sticks a little taller and slide them to the RH side a little more and it will be near bang on.