Tweet
I like steel. I like the whole concept of taking big chunks of metal and bending, cutting, welding, and painting them into a final form that I can bolt to something else and then "run into stuff" without fear of damaging that "something else".
I've been working on the 980 for a couple months now, and although I would have LOVED to have called it done a long time ago, I can't bring myself to stay out of the garage, and away from the small pile of seemingly useless steel that has yet to be formed into something beneficial to the Hustler cause. Through the power of electricity, pickled hard boiled eggs and a few dozen IPAs, I'm just about able to call the bumper project on the 980 *done*.
I've posted a few pictures as I've made clumsy steps toward an undetermined goal of what the bumpers on this thing should look like. I like the utilitarian concept of a simple tube bolted to the front of the machine, so I wanted to keep that look, but modify it a bit. When I got the machine, i was diappointed that I only needed to put little effort into deflecting the bumpers by picking up the machine by hand, or putting a little weight on it. The stock Hustler front and rear brush guards (at least on my machine) are held to the body with about 1/8" thick, 4"x3.5" plates. The HDPE doesn't really seem incredibly strong in this area, and I think with a little too much force, it could possibly pull that plate right through the plastic. (I think Racerone3 had to fix this on his machine).
So, most of you following this machine's progress here have probably already seen a couple pictures of the front winch bumper, and the rear bumper, which I tied into the trailer hitch for a bit more support. Throughout all this effort, I was fooling myself that I wouldn't progress to another level of ridiculousness and simply tie the bumpers together.
So? I did it. The front and rear bumper are now tied together using a 1 1/4" OD tube on each side that goes from the rear bumper to the front bumper on the inside of the body. This posting is a bit premature, since I don't have them acutally bolted on. They're all welded up, and the paint is drying. OK, it's been drying for a couple days now, and I need to finish the steel belly band up before I take the top of the tub off one more time. I'll snap more photos of the finished product once I get the top of the tub back off and the stuff's all bolted on, but here's a quick shot of how I did it. It's really pretty simple, and it was about $35 in materials ( not counting the IPAs
). Hopefully, I'll get some respectable pictures of the whole thing up tomorrow....
~m
I've been working on the 980 for a couple months now, and although I would have LOVED to have called it done a long time ago, I can't bring myself to stay out of the garage, and away from the small pile of seemingly useless steel that has yet to be formed into something beneficial to the Hustler cause. Through the power of electricity, pickled hard boiled eggs and a few dozen IPAs, I'm just about able to call the bumper project on the 980 *done*.
I've posted a few pictures as I've made clumsy steps toward an undetermined goal of what the bumpers on this thing should look like. I like the utilitarian concept of a simple tube bolted to the front of the machine, so I wanted to keep that look, but modify it a bit. When I got the machine, i was diappointed that I only needed to put little effort into deflecting the bumpers by picking up the machine by hand, or putting a little weight on it. The stock Hustler front and rear brush guards (at least on my machine) are held to the body with about 1/8" thick, 4"x3.5" plates. The HDPE doesn't really seem incredibly strong in this area, and I think with a little too much force, it could possibly pull that plate right through the plastic. (I think Racerone3 had to fix this on his machine).
So, most of you following this machine's progress here have probably already seen a couple pictures of the front winch bumper, and the rear bumper, which I tied into the trailer hitch for a bit more support. Throughout all this effort, I was fooling myself that I wouldn't progress to another level of ridiculousness and simply tie the bumpers together.
So? I did it. The front and rear bumper are now tied together using a 1 1/4" OD tube on each side that goes from the rear bumper to the front bumper on the inside of the body. This posting is a bit premature, since I don't have them acutally bolted on. They're all welded up, and the paint is drying. OK, it's been drying for a couple days now, and I need to finish the steel belly band up before I take the top of the tub off one more time. I'll snap more photos of the finished product once I get the top of the tub back off and the stuff's all bolted on, but here's a quick shot of how I did it. It's really pretty simple, and it was about $35 in materials ( not counting the IPAs
). Hopefully, I'll get some respectable pictures of the whole thing up tomorrow....~m
That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard... You truly are a poet.
Comment