The suburban Hustler

[SeanD]

So, I came across an Argo 8x8 for the first time a year or so ago on Craigslist where the guy just happened to be trading for something I was searching. I had never seen anything like it before and I wanted one. Well, I found this Hustler 6x6 on there a couple months ago advertised in the wrong section (score!) for cheap. My daughter and I went and bought it one afternoon while my wife was cooking dinner ("We're going out for a minute..."). I won't bore you with the same old pictures -the dirty old 6x6 full of leaves and rust and old bolts. It was that.

I've learned over the years of building and customizing things to "build it to sell it" when I'm done playing with it, so I have to keep things "marketable" so that they can be profitable. Anyhow, since I live in an ever-shrinking oasis of farmland in the middle of suburbia, I'm going to build this hustler to appeal to the six-figure suburbanite. I've been inspired by the big flashy speedboats up by the lake with their matching trailers, and also by the shiny new Jeeps with every bolt-on available at 4WheelParts. Yay for Suburbia!

Here are some pics of note:

Day one:



Day two:


After starting to pull the axles out I found THREE of the them had rusted-on sprockets. I fought for three more days with two cans of PB blaster, a Map gas torch, and an air chisel. On day four I switched to the cut off wheel and solved my problem. But I got a new air chisel out of it!

Then I went to HF and got the $99 shop press (I love buying tools out of... Necessity...?) so I could press all that junk off the axles. I beveled the edges of the axle halves, laid them in a piece of angle iron, and welded them back up. I made a couple passes over all the axles with the flap disc just to give the sprockets some space and to make sure that rusty garbage didn't happen again.



Then I ordered THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY! dollars worth of bearings from Richard and his relics monopoly. MAN! In all honesty- those bearings are the same price at Tractor Supply, so I can't cry. I was extremely happy to be able to get all the stuff in one place from behind a computer screen.

Aaaaaand then it was on to sandblasting...
$120 for the frame, and then $65 worth of Northern Tool's blasting cabinet gloves and Black Diamond medium for the shop's cabinet so that I could do the rest at the shop for... free?

THEN, FINALLY, my almost favorite part.
Paaaaaaaintingggggg!!

The frame got some gray epoxy primer just for the mock-up phase (bedliner will come later to hide the rust pitting), and all the small parts got black epoxy primer.
My end game is glossy 3-gray camo outside with a big red star -yes, like Russia, and no, I'm not Russian- with gloss gray inside of the tub like a racecar.

Suburbia, remember??

[SeanD]

After spending nearly $150 yesterday at Ace Hardware on what seemed like MOST of the 3/8" nuts and bolts available, TODAY began my FAVORITE part of a build. Putting shiny parts and new parts together! It's the same feeling as being 12 with a new Lego set.



It was nice to get the parts off my shop table and onto the pile of steel on the floor. By 6pm I had all 6 tires on. How about these swanky new wheels and tires, HUH?!? I found a closeout on ebay and the wheels were about $50 each, as were the tires. These are "Dirt Devil" 25x10x12.

Anyhow, axles are SO much easier with new paint and bearings!



I went ahead and plopped the new 670 twin from Harbor Freight onto the plate in the back. As soon as the new Comet clutch gets here I can line it up and drill the holes to bolt it down. I've read about height issues with this motor so I got some fat rubber mounts for a generator to use here. I don't know why, but there were two almost identical base plates stacked under the engine when I bought the Hustler. I guess some PO had an extra plate but no extra rubber bushings??? Who knows. I used just one.

Loose:


I've not dived into the dirty old T20 yet. I'm afraid it's going to need a rebuild, but if I ignore it it's not real, right?? I'll post in another thread as well, but one of the reverse lever diamond plate things pushes way down into the case and then flops around and deflects the movement more than it actually shifts into reverse. Ignore it, ignore it...

[Dozerlarry]

I like the way you do business my man. Really a classy looking job you've done there.

[ARGOJIM]

Nice, what wheel are they? Haven't been able to find any aluminum 5 lugs.

[dirtdobber]

Looking good. That looks like the machine I had my eye on in Northwest Georgia. I'm interested in the tires - how well they fit and the clearance around the tub when you get it all back together. I'm tire shopping for mine right now.

[john swenson]

beautiful job and nice shop to work in !! if your going to sell it , don't get it too dirty...... look forward to the '' finished '' pics. johnboy va.

[Andyman]

Looks like a great helper you have there. A+

[SeanD]

Looking good. That looks like the machine I had my eye on in Northwest Georgia. I'm interested in the tires - how well they fit and the clearance around the tub when you get it all back together. I'm tire shopping for mine right now.

Yes, that's the one! It wasn't actually in NW Georgia, though- that's the funny thing. It was right around the corner from me.

Fingers crossed on the tires...!

[SeanD]

Nice, what wheel are they? Haven't been able to find any aluminum 5 lugs.

I searched this:
5x4.5 12x8 | eBay

They are called Vision Buckshot something or other. 12x8.

[SeanD]

Looks like a great helper you have there. A+

Sometimes! I have stiff competition in the form of mermaids and princesses.

[Dan67]

Wish you would have asked us before you bought bearings. Just remember when its time for new bearings, Buffalo Bearings 1-800-669-8019. Allot of members get bearings from them and they are extremely helpful. Just tell'm you are from 6x6world. If you need replacement flanges, they got those too.. For bolts its hard to beat Tractor Supply when you can buy by the pound.

[Kris W]

Congrats on the new machine my friend, I love the way you are going at it ! That is what i would do if my $ and place to work would allow it... On a more personal note, i love seeing pics of guys working with their daughters helping, i have 3 daughters, no sons... & id bet my girls are more helpful during any sort of a build than any one of my mate's boys !

[dirtdobber]

Sean I encourage you to enjoy that helper every chance you get. My youngest "helper" turned 20 today, and he hasn't been interested in helping in a long time. I guess he got interested in girls instead!!

[SeanD]

Yeah, I hear ya! I also have a son that's almost a year. He already crawls into the shop trying to "help". Hopefully he'll be a wrencher as well!

Thanks for all the compliments, guys! I was a little concerned that I'd be shunned for preferring form over function on this build and not JUST getting it muddy.

[SeanD]

It's Saturday night so it's time for the weekend update.

Yesterday afternoon I left work early and went at the hustler with the grinder and the welder. I was focused on getting rid of the shaky-shaky controls and all the old parts associated with them. I wanted all the new parts to be bigger, stiffer, adjustable, and not look like a farmer built them in the field for his broken tractor... like Hustler made them. My old parts had been rusted, broken, bent, and booger welded back together more than once.

I built the linkage rods out of thick walled 3/4" pipe, welded some grade 8 bolts into the ends of them, spent a few minutes at the bench grinder, and threaded some heims joints on the ends. Done.





I built the control stick axis bars out of the factory bars because the walls were a bit thicker than the pipe I had, but I cut them down a bit and welded nuts onto the ends of them. Where Hustler made the bolts just poke into the bar ends and let the controls flop around with all that gap, I wanted the bolts to actually thread into the bars so that the tolerances were much tighter and then I could adjust in some resistance to how the control bars feel. So, grade 8 bolts in from the end brackets (which I gusseted), through a pair of nylock nuts, then threaded into the nuts on the ends of the pipe, and those are done.


I wanted something a bit different for the control sticks. I didn't like the pinkie throttle that Hustler used, and as a motorcycle guy I felt that a proper handlebar twist throttle was necessary. I chose 1" pipe because, well, bigger bars are better. I like the smooth look of bars and grips being the same size. Aside from wanting them scooted into the center at the bottom (like was advised to do) and then cheating back in front of the driver, I also wanted them to have hard angles, flow together, and sit flat on the top. So then chop saw, bench grinder, angle magnet, level, tack weld, chop saw, bench grinder, masking tape, 2x4, tack weld, etc. etc.
I finished them up today with solid welding and grinding all the way around (after I broke one off the axis bars... derrrr) and I slipped on the throttle and grips just for the mock up. Yes. They are red metal flake. Haaaaha.



I think they look very good and solid. The feel is perfect. No side-to side movement at all, and they push and pull quite smoothly. Done!

She showed up for one minute. Just long enough to try out the handle bars. The seats are just *sitting* there. Why she's barefoot in a basement shop full of metal grit and shavings I have no idea...


I started to make a battery box later in the afternoon, knowing that I should instead be working on a customer's Road King side case lid that came off and slid across the street. I found some brackets in the box of metal scrap parts that would fit around my battery really well, so I cut, welded, bent, welded, and THEN I realized that the box was about a quarter inch too small, and that the battery only fit in if you pushed it. BUT, that meant that it didn't come out either. Soo I cut it open and welded in a flat bar to size it up, but by the time I had finished it, I figured that it did, in fact, look like a farmer built it in the field for his broken tractor. So I put it down and started from scratch, bending some simple bends of flat bar to holster the battery next to the frame between the first and second axles. I wend to weld it together when I got the "Daddy, when are you going to be done, 'cause Mommy and I want to go get something to eat." Soon. So soon. I slammed some clamps on it, weld this, weld that, something isn't working, bad ground, Ahhhh forget it. And then I just stood up and started to sweep up all my metal filings mess. Game over for the weekend. Come to find out, I went out and looked at the Hustler body sitting in the building behind the house (because I saw that somebody left the light on), and THEN (this is a common theme today) I realized that there is a center tunnel in the bottom of the floor, so this battery won't fit in this tray in that spot ANYWAY. Well boo. I should have just worked on guy's case lid.