My 1970's argo 6x6 custom rebuild

[sieg]

Heres my first argo that i purchased a little over a year ago. It's a 70's model 6x6 i picked up for $1000 delivered to my door. Body was solid, no leaks. motor started right up and ran good, transmission seemed good. needed new tires so that was the 1st thing i got.

Soon after getting tires on i started replacing other little things here and there and learning about the machine. I've had it stripped apart a few times now and put back together





Shortly after putting it back together each time something else would break. Axles were bending, bearings were shot, My frame broke on one side, i took it all apart and welded it, put it all back together then it broke on the other side. I contemlated buying a newer machine, which i may still do, but i decided to completely rebuild everything in this one from scratch, upgrading it to make it more dependable. A whole new stronger frame, better bearings, bigger stronger axles, New motor, new everything. So i've jumped into the project with 2 feet. At this time i completely dissasembled the whole thing






About a month ago i bought about $1000 in materials and parts to get me started. The diference with this rebuild is that i'm not buying any of the parts to put this thing back together i'm making the whole thing from scratch.
Heres where i'm at so far. I will be updating with new pics as i go along.
The steel thats soon to be my new frame:

New axles and hubs:




luckily i have access to all the machines and welding equiptment i could ever need

[Paquette]

I have died and gone to heaven........Looking forward to seeing this project unfold. Nicely done.

[nightowl]

Wow! I wish I was you! I too will be keeping a close eye on this build. Please post often. Nice pics also!

[lewis]

Nice work! I enjoy watching these projects. Keep up the great work!

[8footedFloatGoat]

Resto

Your machine shop is a bit cramped looking... What did you use to paint the body? I have the same original orange colour and think it's funky, but have not found any paint that will stick to HDPE.

[sieg]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll be sure to keep you all updated as i go along.
And 8ftfloatgoat, there's no paint that sticks to the body. I've tried it all. My biggest mistake was using the spray on rubber coating which you see in the pic where the machine was all black. Took me alot of hours to strip it all off. There really is no permanant way to paint it. It's gunna come off when you scratch it. If you decide to paint it it will require constant touching up. Some paints do stick way better than others though. I used a good plastic primer. Can't remember the brand name at the moment, but anyways i laid it on 5 coats thick and it was pretty tough to scrape off, then i just used regular old camo spray paint on top. For the most part it stays on good, but if you catch a branch or something driving it will scratch it off, but with a quick camo pattern it's really easy to touch up small areas.
I also use my machine as a tank at paintball games, so having a red tank was not an option. I had to camo it up.
Heres a couple pics of my 6x6 as a paintball tank.

And a pic of a friend of mines 6x6 paintball tank:

[mike bar]

Paintball looks like a pretty serious sport in your neck of the woods.Great looking job on the tank mods.

[sieg]

Paintball looks like a pretty serious sport in your neck of the woods.Great looking job on the tank mods.

Yea we get a little crazy with the paintball tanks

[sieg]

Heres the newest update. I got the work finished on the wheels and hubs last night. The machine had the old style 3 bolt rims. I didnt want to spend the money on new rims as this project is already been quite costly, so i added 3 more holes so i have a 6 lug pattern. I made up a quick template to transfer the new holes into the old rims using a drill press.




I also finished up welding my new hubs. I screwed them in place with the lugs and fitted the back plate in, tack welded it in place, unscrewed everything and finish welded them all around.





Hopefully i can get on to the frame work next. That should be quite the project itself. I'll keep ya updated.

[Paquette]

Nicely done.

You better hope the boss doesn't find this sight lol

[mark m.]

Nicely done.

You better hope the boss doesn't find this sight lol

Maybe he is the boss

[sieg]

haha nope. though i do act like the boss sometimes really 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.

[JoeMeg]

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.

[sieg]

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:

[Paquette]

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 ?