My first Hustler!

[Duck89]

Congrats on the Sasquatch find! Maybe you should give Matt Moneymaker a call and tell him there is a Bigfoot hanging around your place and he is welcome to come investigate, that you haven't heard it yet but expect it to be SCREAMING soon! Hate to hear about the acid spill, and hope for a speedy fix for your new toy. Uship - you gotta love it!

Thanks for the compliments everyone! Brushcutter- That's pretty funny! Although, I do have say that I think I will eventually be annoying my neighbors with my SCREAMING BIGFOOT! hahaha

I hit the inside and the outside of the hustler with a pressure washer, mainly to get rid of the baking soda I put down for the battery acid. By doing so, it loosened up a bit of the grime inside and I was able to get a little better glimpse of what condition the metal is in around the right front. It doesn't seem too pretty right now, but I will have to wait until I get the frame out to get a better idea. I removed the 4 remaining chains and will be doing a bit more work this week on it. I plan to have the frame out by/on sunday. Here are some pictures:

[brushcutter]

Congrats on the Sasquatch find! Maybe you should give Matt Moneymaker a call and tell him there is a Bigfoot hanging around your place and he is welcome to come investigate, that you haven't heard it yet but expect it to be SCREAMING soon! Hate to hear about the acid spill, and hope for a speedy fix for your new toy. Uship - you gotta love it!

[Noel Woods]

Nice body on that Hustler, not the first time I've used the term! Welcome to the Hustler alumni too.

[fmints]

Welcome to the "BIGFOOT ALUMNI"!!!!! Great find also!!! I can't wait to see how it looks when your are all done. Let us all know if you have any questions concerning this wonderful machine!!

[coosaridgerider]

Need any help or pictures I have plenty of my 980 and some parts.

[coosaridgerider]

Nice find,congrats. It looks pretty good and a good price too. These 980s deep tubs are getting very hard to come by and I'm sure you will have it up and going in no time.

[Duck89]

Thanks guys! I can't wait to take this thing out!

[jpswift1]

Welcome to the Hustler Club, Martin! I'm sure you'll have it looking like a million bucks in no time. Congrats!!!

[amphibious drew]

Good find! I am sure you will be happy with it.

[Duck89]

My first Hustler arrived today! It's a 980 tall tub. I almost thought the entire process behind my acquiring this machine seemed too good to be true, but luckily for me, it wasn't. Here is the story:

In my online search for six wheelers and/or six wheeler parts, I stumbled across an ad on the Louisiana Sportsman classified section with a picture of a Hustler 980, a description of the machine and an asking price of $1,000 which seemed like a pretty good deal to me. There was only one problem - the ad expired January of 2011. I thought to myself, man, I bet this thing is already gone. In the description under the photo, the seller gave his number and stated that he only does texting because he is deaf. For the heck of it, I decided to shoot him a text and, long story short, he still had it! Two years had passed since the ad expired and he still had it! I knew I had to jump on this opprotunity, so I text back and forth with him for a couple of days and he agreed to let it go for $800. He claimed that he had not used it in a year and the transmission was 'broken.' After seeing that I could get this for $800, I posted an ad on uhip.com to see how much it would cost to have it shipped up here. I ended up selecting a bid of $700 to have this shipper bring it up from Louisiana..a total distance of 1,400 miles.

It arrived today and I was very pleased with my purchase overall. The body is in really good shape, although the flash from the camera does not do it justice. Despite the oxidation and three boxes-worth of baking soda, it actually looks a lot better in person than it does on here. In some of the pictures, it looks a lot worse than it is, although it does need a lot of work for sure. The only thing I was not very happy about was the fact that the large car battery the owner had mounted in it must have cracked during shipping and there was acid all over the inside of it. I poured three boxed of baking soda in it to neutralize it and will have to rinse it out tomorrow. I think the acid made the right front area of the frame a little crispy, but won't know for sure until I get it all rinsed off and cleaned.

As far as the transmission goes, stating that it needs work would be an understatement. There are a lot of teeth broken off in a lot of different places Thankfully, I have the aid of the great minds on this forum and some local members to help me get the T-20 fixed up and back together.

I plan on doing a complete tear down on this machine and bringing it back to running order for use on the trails. I will post pictures and updates as I proceed and will more than likely have a question or two along the way