My name is Mike. I have a problem.....

[lewis]

So, does that mean that you need to get another one?

[hydromike]

ummmm....not sure yet. It may just mean that I need to convince her that it's not cool

That'd be hard, 'cuz it's wicked cool.

~m

[hydromike]

The new tires for the 980 arrived on Friday. I spent most of the weekend demounting the old Goodyear Terra tires that were filled with lots of water, rust, antifreeze and other foreign matter never intended for the interior of a tubeless tire. Saturday was spent sand blasting and priming/painting the tires. I mounted the new Kenda Executioner (27x12-12 size) this morning. I was a bit worried that the center and rear axles may rub a bit, but after comparing Racerone3's experience with his 27" Swamp Fox Plus tires, I was a bit confident that they'd work. I'm running about a pound or two of air in them right now, and with the current top speed of this machine, ride quality will never really be an issue. There's a lot more traciton in wet snow than the Terras, but that's about all I'm able to do up here in NY right now. All the water is in a solid form, and the mud is still about a foot under the snow. Hopefully, spring will spring soon, and we'll get some mud to test these new sneaks.



~m

[Mike]

Mike, that looks killer. It is going to be wild seeing multiple Bigfoots at Busco, all with ridiculous tires on them.

[hydromike]

I finished up the body band yesterday...




...and finished up the bilge pump install. I hate drilling holes in the body, especially for those big through-hull fittings. I tried to be a little more inconspicuous. This is a 1/2" right angle barbed PVC fitting I found at the hardware store, and it's jammed into the through-hull fitting, and JB welded together. It works!



~m

[mark m.]

Looks like you have it angled up just about right Mike. Now when someone is in the correct proximity behind you, you can flick the switch and pee at them. I will keep this in mind when I'm on the trail with you.

[JoeMeg]

Good thing you have an Aatv with a good bilge pump. Exactly which river are you living in the middle of there on google members map?lol.

Joe.

[hydromike]

Good thing you have an Aatv with a good bilge pump. Exactly which river are you living in the middle of there on google members map?lol.

Joe.

*HYDRO*mike, remember? . I just plunked my marker down in Lockport, and randomly hit the Erie Canal. No need to advertise exactly where home is. If you find yourself in Lockport, NY, you're in the right county....

~m

[hydromike]

It's hard to believe it was only two years ago that I got the 980 fixed up. It's been to Busco three times since then, and a few other rides around NY and Ohio. I've been pretty pleased with the original driveline overall, but I always wanted to upgrade the engine to something different. I picked up Kubota WG-750 engine out in Massachusetts last fall, with the ultimate goal that I'd fit it into the 980. I've been accumulating parts and doing very (very) little fabrication for the Newt the Bold project as of late, so I decided that I should probably try to tackle the engine swap while the WNY winter's in full swing.

As with most projects, I started taking it apart early last month to find out that I really needed to fix/clean/revamp several things in order to do the job at least half-right. I ended up going through both the drive and driven clutches with new bushings, clutch-cam buttons as needed and put a new, appropriate spring in the driven clutch. When I first built the Hustler, I threw on a driven clutch off of some other machine to get it mobile. I tried to remember what it was off of, or if I ever changed the spring to something more-well-suited to the 980. After taking the spring out, I'm pretty confident that it was the stock two-stroke spring out of an Attex machine. Oh well.... it worked for I needed it for.

I squeezed in a 65 Amp Delco alternator and fit her with a nice short 'glass-pack muffler that sounds pretty darn sweet. It's a very tight fit side-to-side but everything is really accessible (especially the let rear sprocket and the drive clutch, thank goodness).

[hydromike]

I finished up the swap in the 980 almost a month back, but didn't get a chance to test it out much since then. GeoJem and I took a short spin around the fields at the homestead over the weekend to see how it went with couple hours under the belt. The Kubota 750 runs reasonably cool and although we didn't really get a chance to really hammer on it, there's quite a bit of power off idle. I'm running the stock 44 (I think?) tooth primary sprockets on the center axle, and it's still a bit long-legged. I was able to get it up to about 195 degrees after really horsing it for a few minutes, but I think it'll be ok under normal driving situations. There's not much terrain up there, so we found a shallow ditch with about 3/4" of water. Look, Ma! No drain plugs!

My test pilot took command while I followed in the SSF.



(this is the first time YouTube's asked me to use their stabilization processing... It distorts the tires a little bit here and there making it almost look like the axles are all goofed... they're not... )

[jpswift1]

Judging by just the sound of the machine, it would be hard to distinguish whether this is the Swamp Fox or the Hustler......probably because it's the same engine, duh! Looks like you've got another machine in your fleet that can pull a small building down, nice work.

[fmints]

Man Mike, it really looks and sounds like the kubota is at home in the 980!! I especially like the part whem Geojem turned it around and gave it just a lil gas,,, she almost threw a rooster's tail!! What upgrades did you make to the clutches? Great work like always!!

[hydromike]

Man Mike, it really looks and sounds like the kubota is at home in the 980!! I especially like the part whem Geojem turned it around and gave it just a lil gas,,, she almost threw a rooster's tail!! What upgrades did you make to the clutches? Great work like always!!

Thanks Fred (and JP....) I actually just ripped the primary apart, cleaned it up well and replaced the rollers and cam spider with stuff that was in better shape. I put new cam sliders on the secondary and threw a red spring in it for kicks, after cleaning it up a lot as well. A green spring would've been just fine but as it turns out, I had a very tired two stroke spring in there since day one. It's just got a lot more "pull" to it now. The Kubota doesn't "thump" like a V-twin (more of a steady tractor-like pull), but I adore the little things. Check out the second video... I get a little more enthusiastic with it.

[Mike]

You've got a herd of swine to play in the mud with now. Your tractor pull description for the sound is right on. That was the first thing I thought of too. It sounded great.

[George]

Sounds/looks great Mike!