Project: ArgoCeptor!

[SARgo1]

been banging on the Argo lately. Gotten it stuck in several spots.

I’ve got a 2500 lb winch on it, so you would think getting stuck isn’t a big problem.

Well, my winch sucks. Even trying to drag 400-600 lbs piece of log across level ground would stall it. It will stall out pulling the Argo up any slight incline, stalls immediately if theres anything in front of the tires.

Its a Champion and they have a technical line. So I call and all the guy can say is “the installation must be wrong”.

Well, I’m a retired aircraft technician and flight engineer, so I know a thing or two about wiring. I know I did it right, overkill in fact.

So I throw on my Keeper Trakker 3000 lb winch. It proceeds to drag the entire Argo up a tree. Yeah, its not the installation.

Since my warranty period is over (winch spent most of that time sitting in a box on a shelf) I start pulling it apart. First is the clutch side. Everything looks clean and in good shape. Then I pull the motor apart. Everything looks ok in there too. Then, when putting the magnet case back over the armature, I notice that the magnets are offset to one end of the case. If I reassemble the motor as it came from the oem, the magnets wouldn’t cover about a 1/3 of the armature.

I check the pics I took and line the labels up the same way they came off. Yep, thats bow it was put together. Well, theres no way the motor is going to make the torque it should like that. I flip the motor case around and now the magnets cover the armature like they should.

I pull the Argo out of the garage and hook up the log it couldn’t even move the day before. Now, it pulls the log across a sandy/rocky surface and up a grade (digging a trench all the way) with ease. Theres no indication its under load other than a change in the sound pitch. It doesn’t stall, labor or even slow with the load on it now.

Seems like “quality control” is an oxymoron these days....

[joemeg]

 Nice work on the top!

[SARgo1]

Well, finally got tired enough of being rained on, snowed on and snow/rain inside the argo that I made a top for it:




Thats an outdoor rated, water “resistant” fabric. Sort of like “sunbrella”, but a little lighter and a membrane adhered to the under-side of it.

Thats a good start.  Next will be the sides. Sides will zipper on to the roof and have large clear plastic windows.

But for now, the top by itself is a 100% improvement....

[SARgo1]

Well, I "repaired" a wheel that was consistently going flat. It was rust on the bead surface and a round with a flap wheel and some paint sorted it out.

But, it made me think about something I've had in the back of my mind for a while now: bead locks.



Welding isn't an issue as I recently picked up a 250 amp tig:





Between the tig and mig, no issues putting them together.

But, there's 8 wheels on the argo, which means 16 rings to cut  out and weld. If you want to be really picky about it, it's actually 32 circles to cut. One for each ring and another cut inside the plate to make the inner ring:



Waaaaay too much work to do that with angle grinders or jig saws. Checking prices on having them cut out just gets really foolish, really fast.Finding anything "ready made" just doesn't happen for the tiny rims on the Argo.

So, rather than spending lots of money and only getting a set of argo bead lock rims, I bought one of these instead:



Chinese plasma cutter, 50 amp. Supposedly good to 1/2", but I won't be cutting much more than 3/16" mild steel. Reviews on the machine are mostly good, with a few "Chinese junk" or "worked for a week" comments. I won't be using it much, but when I do it should be for fairly long periods (ie:cutting

So set up a circle cutter, buy some steel and go at it. I might end up spending a little more than I woudl have if I'd had a local shop cut them out, but now I'll have a plasma cutter I can use again and again.

Will probably come in handy as I'm going to have 16 left over 3/16" round circle plates.....

[SARgo1]

Well crap.

Was out running around yesterday and realized the lh side wasn’t pulling like the rh side.

Leaned over and looked at the tires and the lh front tire was not spinning like the other 3 with throttle.

Get home and discover the woodruff key had worked its way back out of the gear and axle.

Guess I’ve got to get it back up in the air, pull it apart and slip a collar onto the shaft to keep the key from working its way back out again. Luckily, I have several extra axle collars in my parts bins...

[Dw89xj]

This is fantastic. One of the coolest things I have seen to date, congratulations on the build it looks great.

[ascaw]

Those LED's look like they will light up the night.    Good to see you are still moving forward on your project.  Looks like you will be ready for most anything.

[SARgo1]

Been a while since doing anything to the argo. Got some tig welding done and more wiring.

Welded up a guard/splash shield:



It’s not crooked, it’s the angle the pic was taken at that makes it look “off”. Now when I’m crashing through the bush, the winch has some protection. The diamond plate also serves as a splash shield on water entry. Water won’t really hurt the winch, but no need subjecting it to more than needed. The shield will also help prevent water from rushing in through the grill opening. Any that does make it in will be easily handled by the bilge pumps. I have one pump set on “auto” and it turns itself on via a float switch. Theres a second pump on the other side of the engine and that is tied to the manual switch on the bilge pump control panel. “Auto” only arms the float switch pump, manual I have rigged to run both pumps. Reason being; the float switch pump deals with whatever small amounts finding its way past the axle seals, but when it’s obvious something has gone very wrong and theres a large leak, I hit “manual” and both pumps start chucking water out as fast as they can. My reasoning is if I’ve got a big problem (like punching a hole in the tub), two pumps going at 2500 lpm might give me enough time to make it back to shore. I’ve got a big deep cycle battery in the back (group 24, agm), so the pumps can run for a good long time before running the battery down.

Then I went at making an exhaust shield:



I just tig-ed a piece of 1/8 flat stock to the existing 1/4 flat stock that already formed the lower cap. No moreleaning over the side and burning my legs.

Then, made the housing for the switches, installed the speedometer and wired it all up:



The honda rubicon switches on the lh bar don’t work right now, except for the “up/down” shift buttons, which I repurposed to work the winch “in/out”. Works nicely and its right at hand when I need to winch while trying to drive out of a “stuck”. The rh bar has the “thumb throttle” from the rubicon. Works ok, maybe a little better than the twist grip. But I do need to make a lever for the front of it so you can run the throttle either by pushing on the thumb throttle of pulling on the lever. The thumb throttle can get a little tiring on the thumb and it would be nice to be able to let go from time to time to rest the thumb. The rest of the switches will eventually get wired up to their intended purpose, which will free up some dash switches for more functions.

Also tidied up the engine bay wiring and added a fuse panel:




Nice and neat and the fuse panel still has 6 slots open for future “add ons”.

Theres lots of other small things that have been added/finished. Tomorrow I’m going to take it out for a burn. Time to get a little payback from it. Then I need to work on things like the side and rear search light, the tail/brake lights and stitch up some seat covers.

Still a long way to go, but making progress...

[garretttpe]

 , the idea's that people on here come up with are pretty amazing

[Six6ix]

This is awesome! Nice work on it, buddy. I've been reading about it and saw you also put some ATV attachments. I must say you did an impressive job on it.

[SARgo1]

Any updates to your build?   

Not really. Argo has been shuffled to the back-burner for the most part. Between the new house, the Corvette, the Mustang, building a snow cab for the tractor, a seemingly endless "honey-do" list and generally getting things ready for winter, there's lots of other projects on the go that have a higher priority than the Argo.

Mostly just frigging around with it here and there:

[ascaw]

Any updates to your build?   

[SARgo1]

So  two things I’m planning to do to the Kohler M18:

1. Add a remote oil filter
2. add an oil heat exchanger

The Kohler is a little unusual for a small engine in that it has a full pressure oil system. Thats a nice feature,  it even though you could have bought it with a filter and cooler, mine does not have them.

The filter is desirable because, well, it’s an oil filter. Any time you add a filter to a system, its a good thing.

The oil cooler/exchanger I have two purposes for. The first is obviously cooling engine oil, but the second is to use the oil cooler to dump heated air into the cabin area. Simple enough to build with a fan and some ducting.

The filter isn’t a problem, I’ve got a remote filter kit thats been ha ging around for a couple years now. The cooler isn’t a problem either as I’ve got a couple different sized coolers lying around from various projects.

The engine itself has a block off plate where the factory oil filter woukd bolt on. The adapter is prety hard to come by, only popping up on places like ebay infrequently and expensive when they do. So plan is to grab a 1/2” block of aluminum and machine my own adapter plate. Thats a pretty easy little piece to spin out.

[SARgo1]

Decided to just ‘glass back in the center piece rather than make the hood “buldge”:



The buldge was for the vf750f engine and now that I’ll orobably be running the Kohler for the next couple years, it didn’t make sense to bother with it for now.

It’s coming along ok. Still lots more work to do before it will be ready for paint.

Of all the things I have to do, bodywork has to be the most sespised for me. Sooo much dust....everywhere.

[SARgo1]

Not my best fiberglass work, but for the first lay-up, it’s a decent enough start:





The basic shape is at least there. Now it’s layering in some reinforcing layers and building up the outside to where I can shape it properly.

Not sure what color to paint it when done. I’m thinking orange like the argo, or maybe a flat black. Dunno, thats a long way off. Lots of time to think about it....