Had a significant sag in the tub right at the midpoint. I suspect it was either just age or a PO had strapped it down to a trailer across the middle at some point in it’s past.
But once I jacked it up in the center and bolted the upper body band rail to the lower 1/4” bottom plate, it straightened right out! It’s made even more “rigid” by the upper “grab rail”, which essentially makes the upper piece even stronger by it’s “ladder” type construction. Like a suspension bridge sort of deal-e-o.
So, sagging tub...BEGONE!
Lol!
Ps: the gap at the exhaust pipe isn’t even the entire length because the pipe has a slight “bow” in the middle. Can’t do a lot a about it, it’s just the way the pipe was formed.
Ya know, I’m kinda warming up to the old kohler magnum in place of the V4.
Along with finishing up the rest of the build, I’ve been fine tuning the magnum’s running.
It’s beginning to purr quite nicely. But more than that, since I don’t have the battery installed, I’ve been using the pull start. I gotta say, I’m finding the ability to pull start the engine quite a handy feature. I can see it being very handy out in the boonies and you somehow end up with a dead battery or starter/electrical problem.
Speed is something that certainly is not going to be anything to write home about, but I’m thinking I can drop a tooth or two on the idler shaft and pick up 5 or 10 mph....
Well, didn't have to wait long for a winch to go on sale.
Crappy tire had an in store clearance on a Champion 2500lb camo pattern winch:
Not too bad. At 150 bucks off, I couldn't help myself (well, I guess I did help myself, lol!).
The camo pattern? Meh, doesn't really do much for me. I would have been happy without it, but the price was too good to let that get in the way. Can of spray paint is only a couple bucks if it bugs me too much.
2500 is enough for my 1000 lb Argo. I tend to snatch and double up most times anyways. This one has a receiver mount, so I may find a way to use that so I can store it inside the Argo when not in use (IE: out of the elements) and I can also chose whether to mount it front or rear, depending on what my needs are at the time.
Sure, it's just a little "cheapy", but that's all I need for this rig anyways. It's only a "just in case" thing, I don't plan to be in many situations where it's going to mean getting back or not.
But offroad, well..... you just never know. And when you're out in the boonies, if you're not prepared as well as you can be, you just might not make it back that night.
More likely, I'll be hauling other guys out than using it myself......
Well, the "grunt work" is finally done. Chains are done, bearing and seals are done, power pack is back together, brakes installed and the drivers position is now swapped to the LH side vice the RH.
Took a while to get it sorted, but it turned out pretty good:
Of course, all the rusty bits will have to come back out and be prepped and painted.
Took quite a bit of frigging around to get the right hoses and routing to work, but it's done and looks pretty good.
took a little time to clean up the rear and cut the vibration mat:
Then, mocked up some of the controls:
The left stick has a Honda ATV (I think it's from a Foreman IIRC) and the right stick has a Honda thumb throttle (also from a Foreman IIRC).
The left control has some neat features, one of them being a shift up/down button. No need for that on the Argo, so I'm going to use them for In/Out control of the winch. Engine kill and start buttons are obvious, the headlight and high beam switches will work the two front mounted LED headlights.
Tomorrow, I'll make the RH control stick to match the LH and I have a custom dash fabrication in mind.......
It's not so much a roll cage, although it will provide some roll over protection, as it is a support for the top/sun cover I'll be installing. It will also be something to grab on to when entering/exiting the rig as well as a place to hang stuff. The windshield will "pin" to the front bar and loose the forward "struts that currently hold it upright.
Then, I ran across this pic:
I like that idea!
Honestly, It's not very opften I run with the windshield down, but it often can get hot behind that big pane of glass. This would let me crack it open to let cooling air flow through, yet maintain the protection that I often need from branches, snow, rain, guys kicking mud/dirt up in front of me, etc.
Without the windshield frame in it's current location, I would be able to weld another brace across the Argo, fill in the space below and have more area to put it more dash space for things like switches, gauges, radios (communications, not music), etc.
I'll have to think about it a bit more, but I'm already liking the idea a lot......
Well, I wanted a bit more full and finished look for the dash. To me, that means more than just an hour meter and some switches. So I picked up one of these off ebay (for cheap):
It will allow me to add a full gauge and a warning light for oil pressure. Speed I'll take off one of the sprockets somewhere, easily manipulated with more or less magnets if the gauge doesn't have enough adjustment.
RPM is a different story. Obviously, the Kohler doesn't spin up to 18,000 rpm! But, I'l see what I can do with some signal conditioning (IE: capacitors, resistors, etc) so that the needle only goes a full swing at somewhere around 5000-6000 rpm. Then, it's a simple matter of printing off a new overlay with the numbers in the right places.
Should look cool as well as update the looks in the cockpit a bit.
One thing that I to give up on is moving the shifter up to the dash and having it move up and down instead of side to side (as it does now). There's just doesn't seem to be enough room to get it in there with everything else I need on the dash.
I could toy with the possibility of mounting the cluster right in front of the sticks I guess. That's where I would have liked to mount it, but it's pretty tight for space there though......
Well, with the the dash design beginning to be formalized, I'm going to have to run wiring soon. So, time to start building the "power section":
New deep cycle AGM marine battery, bought for this purpose. The tray is just the floor with "stops" welded on either side. The hold down is just a steel strap bolted through the floor. The floor section is bolted down to the Argo frame. The "tray" will get a layer of rubber for a bit of abrasion and vibration damping, although an AGM is vibration resistant by design.
The power wire to the front is a 2/0 gauge welding wire, with the end lugs crimped and soldered. It currently goes to the starter solenoid, which will double as a lug point for the winch power. Ground will be the Argo frame and I'll just put a short 2/0 gauge jumper from the batt neg post to the frame, then a ground jumper to the solenoid and ground jumpers where needed to make the power path. The Pos cable currently is directly to the batt Pos post, but I'll get a "mega fuse" to put between the battery and feed wire. Prob a 60A fuse. Enough to take the entire load of what I have planned, but small enough to blow quickly should there be a short in the feed wire. Highly unlikely with a plastic body, but better safe than sorry.
The charger you see in the pic will be permanently mounted in the battery compartment. It's a sealed marine charger for AGM batteries and intended to be permanently mounted. It's been sitting around and doing nothing for a year or so now, so might as well just leave it in the Argo.
There will be a mini ATO fuse box in the dash under an open-able panel that will provide switched ACC for various systems. I chose one with 10 circuits and built in blown fuse indicators.
That's it for today, tomorrow I'll work on the ground circuit and fabbing the dash.
One PITA I did notice today was there seems to be fluid on the power pack tray. Looked like it was red when I touched it. Only thing that could possibly be is that someone, at sometime, filled the transmission with transmission fluid instead of 80w90. I was pretty sure it was empty when I had it out, but it can't be anything else. The PITA is now I have to pull the transmission back out to check for leaks that I might have missed. That is not going to be fun. Fingers crossed it's just a seal or gasket and not a cracked case.....
I finished wiring up the battery and hit the key: click click click.
Solenoid is working, but not turning over the engine.
So I short the power cables and you can hear the starter rolling over, veeeeerrrryyy slooooowly.
Crap.
Now I have to try and get the starter out. Has to be a fairly easy fix as it started just fine when it was taken apart last year. Maybe I'll try a jumper cable to the engine block first to make sure the ground path is good.....
The starter problem turned out to just be a ground issue. Once that was determined, I made a 4 gauge cable ground from the engine to the frame ground. I was planning to make a dedicated large gauge engine ground anyways, so no big deal.
On to building the dash panel:
Not a bad beginning. I'm going to hinge the bottom and bracket the top. That way, I'll be able to remove a few screws on the top surface and swing the whole dash down for access to the components. Only hitch will be the control sticks. I have to decide if I want to remove the rods to the sticks and pivot them down when I need to get behind the dash, or the part behind the sticks will have to stay up while the rest pivots down.
I'm undecided on leaving the dash shiny checker plate or painting it a duller color.I've had larger shiny bits in car dashes before and it's absolutely blinding when the sun hits it. Semigloss black or maybe the same "dark steel" paint (looks like a darker silver) that's going on the wheel rims....
Still have some welding to do and finish a few bits like end caps, but that essentially it. Still trying to decide if I should paint it or leave it shiny.
I decided to hinge it at the top:
Not the best access for working inside the dash, but it’s not bad. And, I don’t have to do anything with the control sticks when I need to work inside the dash. It was the best compromise IMHO...
Under the weather today, some kind of stomach thing, so I didn't get much done:
Pulled the sticks off and cut down the handle lengths, installed the key in the dash and popped in the Lanyard/kill switch. I wanted a lanyard kill switch in case I get tossed from the rig on a bad bounce or roll. I've been tossed off an aluminum boat and a jetski before (catch and edge or bad wave) and lanyard kill switches have saved my bacon each time, so I'm sold on them anywhere there's a chance of being separated from a running machine.
I also took the Honda Foreman switch-gear apart and rewired the switches to work for the purposes I have in mind for them.
The kill switch is a particular PITA since the Kohler needs a "make" signal to kill the engine and the Honda switch is a "Break" switch to kill. To make it work the way I need, I'm either going to have to come up with something creative with the switch itself or simply use it to trigger a relay.
The relay seems to be the easiest way to solve the issue, so I'll probably go that way.
Coles notes: the switch will turn on the relay, the relay will pull ground off the terminal when powered and allow the Kohler to run. It will basically be "fail-safed" to not let the Kohler start with power off.
Should the fecal matter hit the fan out in the woods somewhere, I can just pull the engine connector and the Kohler will run just fine. I just won't be able to kill the engine without providing a ground.....
Sure, the gauge face is different and it's probably got a little different programming for the LCD info, but that one hell of a markup for a made in china generic part.
Friggin' Argo, nothing is anything special from those jokers except the body and the transmission......
Just caught up on this thread. Wow! A lot has happened since I last checked in. I'd like to see how you'll wire the tach to this kohler, I'd like a tach on some of my tractors. All the fabricated aluminum stuff is cool, are you going to paint it?
Well, the Kohler is a magneto and the Tach is a "regular" one. IOW, you can't drive the tach from the magneto. Signal is all wrong. voltage, current, etc, everything.
So I either can't use the tach or have to find a way to get the right signal to the tach from the magneto.
Kohler:
I find some "retail" converters, but they're all 100 bucks or more. That's a little high for what I'm sure is just a few cheap electronic bits.
And I just happen to have a 6-36VDC hall sensor in my parts bins.
A Hall sensor will be a much more stable and clean signal than trying to take something off the internal coil magneto system. A hall sensor is also dead nuts reliable at low rpm, important when you redline at a mere 3600.
A quick bracket and the only question is if I will be able to use the flywheel magnets already in the flywheel or have to add my own.
Ok, good news is I found the transmission leak. The drain plug is a pipe thread plug and whoever put it in last time didn’t use teflon tape. I haven’t had it out, as the fluid was full and clear when I bought it.
What was happening is the oil was just slowly wicking it’s way through the thread clearance and dripping doen onto the power pack tray.
Unfortunately, in order to find it, I had to pull the transmission out completely. The plug is so low on the case that there really wasn’t any visible fluid on it. It’s also nearly impossible to get down in there and see under the power pack, which doubles the trouble finding leaks. That I’m using a (mostly) clear synth gear oil only made it more impossible to see.
Since I had already gone this deep, I tefloned the plug and stood the transmission on so e clean white paper for 2 hours, topped off with gear oil.
Not a drop. Case gasket good, seals tight, drain plug dry.
Now begins the PITA of putting it all back in... oh my achin back.
Let me tell ya; if you’re old or don’t like working at bad angles and bent over things, you don’t want to buy an older Argo that needs some work. You’re not saving any money and you’re probably going to hurt yourself...
I was planning to a completely new firewall out of diamond plate aluminum, but I think I'm going to do a combination of the original firewall and aluminum pieces.
Basically, I decided I don't want aluminum edges rubbing against the plastic tub walls and possibly wearing them away or thinning them over time.
I can’t believe it took me nearly the whole day to make this one plate on the firewall:
That stupid diamond plate did NOT want to form at all.
Now I have to decide what I want to do for the shifter. I could just re-cut the horizontal slot and put the stock shifter rod back on, but that just seems so much like a “cop out” after all the other custom work I’ve done....
Subject: 
May 8th 2019, 6:25 pm
