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Old 11-20-2016, 10:34 AM   #721
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1974 20' Argosy 20
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Just have to put a coat of primer and a couple of coats of black on the bottom of the gas tank and it's ready to install.
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I've still got some sorting to do to figure out how to mount the gas tank but I'm hoping over the Christmas holiday break that I'll be able to finish the installation.


Brad
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Old 11-20-2016, 10:47 AM   #722
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lol, I can't handle this peer pressure! I guess there is no use of hiding anymore. I'll try to take some pictures today of my "project" and get a thread going.

Dane
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Old 11-20-2016, 10:51 AM   #723
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Danec020 View Post
lol, I can't handle this peer pressure! I guess there is no use of hiding anymore. I'll try to take some pictures today of my "project" and get a thread going.

Dane
And the excitement rises to a crescendo....
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Old 11-22-2016, 08:55 AM   #724
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1977 20' Argosy 20
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Gas Tank

Brad,
The change to a 50 gallon tank will be a significant improvement. In 1977 all of the 20's only came with 24 gallon tanks and that capacity was a constant irritation. You are always looking for gas stations. I replaced my original tank with a welded tank much like yours and it was wonderful not to have to worry about fuel all of the time. The man who fabricated the tank also made some mounting brackets that used the original holes in the frame and work quite well.
Good Luck!
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Old 11-22-2016, 04:03 PM   #725
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While waiting for the new hitch to arrive I decided to move back to the transmission and finish up the rear mount and shift linkage. Aside from having an extra gear one of the big differences between a TH400 and the 4L80e is the overall length. The 4L80e is 3-1/4" longer than the TH400. This necessitated moving the transmission mount back 2-13/16"" and also required a physical change to the shift linkage rod along with relocating a pivot block.

Moving the mount back required drilling 8 new holes in the frame. Not much fun but mainly it just took time.
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On the shift linkage control rod the first task was to lengthen it by 2-13/16". The first three pictures show how I cut and spliced in a new piece of 5/8" tubing.
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The splice came out pretty good. You have to look close to realize it's been lengthened
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Once the rod was lengthened it required some bending and tweaking to get it to mate properly to the linkage down at the transmission. I bet I went back and forth between the cockpit and under the transmission about 20 times before I got it tweaked to work properly
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But it's done, it fits and I can select all gears smoothly! Now I just need to locate a new steering column shift label indicating the additional gear position.

I guess since I'm still waiting on the hitch I'll move on to fabricating the new mounts required to hold the 50 gallon tank.


Brad
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Old 11-22-2016, 04:08 PM   #726
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Brad,
The change to a 50 gallon tank will be a significant improvement. In 1977 all of the 20's only came with 24 gallon tanks and that capacity was a constant irritation. You are always looking for gas stations. I replaced my original tank with a welded tank much like yours and it was wonderful not to have to worry about fuel all of the time. The man who fabricated the tank also made some mounting brackets that used the original holes in the frame and work quite well.
Good Luck!
Gregg
Gregg, when I was moving from Arkansas to Kentucky I had to make a bunch of trips hauling a trailer with my Ford F350 diesel. It had twin tanks but one tank was not functioning so I only had about 17 useable gallons. Each trip was 600 miles one way and I had to stop twice to fill up twice before making it to Richmond. That got old real quick. That's one of the reasons I wanted a larger tank in the Argosy!

I'm hoping to reuse the existing mounting holes as well. That would definitely save some time!


Brad
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Old 11-23-2016, 09:18 AM   #727
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You do good work sir! Everything looks like it came out very well. As a bonus you got to exercise by having to climb up into the coach 20 times . My little experience working on Trixi thus far, working though the dog house is a Pain.

As for the gas tank, I think the upgrade is definitely nice! I had to stop about every 3 hours to fill up on my trip which got old quick. At first I was filling up every 2 hours to be safe so that probably didn't help. I am pretty sure my tank holds around 24 gallons. In the final days drive you will hear more about that fun discovery!

Keep up the good work and I am jealous of how clean you got everything down there!

Dane
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Old 11-23-2016, 10:23 AM   #728
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Dane, yeah I certainly need the exercise!

It's only clean down there because Fred's wife shamed me into painting it! She just reminded me that if I didn't paint things now while I had the chance I would regret it later and of course I knew she was right so....I went ahead and painted everything Lots of work but worth it in the long run.

According to the GM specs for the gas tank it's listed as a 29 gallon tank. Based on the location of the suction tube I can see where it would only have about 24 usable gallons. There's four or five gallons of gas floating around at the bottom of the tank that the suction tube can't reach. The fact that the replacement tanks being sold don't have any baffles is what really sucks about replacing the original tank with an aftermarket one. Without baffles you effectively have even less capacity

If or when you decide you want to upgrade your tank to a larger capacity I can give you the information on my tank.
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Old 11-23-2016, 03:18 PM   #729
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Well, here's about a 300 lb load of Argosy goodies
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Unfortunately only the small box at the back is for my Argosy which is the new hitch I ordered that arrived today instead of Friday. The other boxes are for Peanut, new seats and roof top AC unit.


Since the hitch arrived I decided to spend the afternoon doing a trial fit. It actually fits as good or better than I had hoped for. The receiver will be about 1/2" lower than the original and will protrude about 1/4" less than the original.
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I now have all the mounting holes for the hitch drilled which means the next step is to weld the support frame in place. Depending on how things go I'll either get the welding done tomorrow or Friday. Most likely that depends on how much Turkey I eat
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Brad
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Old 11-23-2016, 05:27 PM   #730
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[QUOTE=Danec020;1879327
As for the gas tank, I think the upgrade is definitely nice! I had to stop about every 3 hours to fill up on my trip which got old quick. At first I was filling up every 2 hours to be safe so that probably didn't help. I am pretty sure my tank holds around 24 gallons. In the final days drive you will hear more about that fun discovery!

Keep up the good work and I am jealous of how clean you got everything down there!

Dane[/QUOTE]

3 hrs of driving per 24 gallons???? 3 hrs@60mph =180 miles, 180 miles divided by 24 gallons is 7.5 mpg. For a 20 ft Argosy, that can't be good.

I do understand you're punching the same size hole into air as your bigger bethren do, but we lug a lot more weight around.

Cheers
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Old 11-24-2016, 06:08 AM   #731
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Danec020 View Post
As for the gas tank, I think the upgrade is definitely nice! I had to stop about every 3 hours to fill up on my trip which got old quick. At first I was filling up every 2 hours to be safe so that probably didn't help. I am pretty sure my tank holds around 24 gallons. In the final days drive you will hear more about that fun discovery!

Dane
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isuzusweet View Post
3 hrs of driving per 24 gallons???? 3 hrs@60mph =180 miles, 180 miles divided by 24 gallons is 7.5 mpg. For a 20 ft Argosy, that can't be good.

I do understand you're punching the same size hole into air as your bigger bethren do, but we lug a lot more weight around.

Tony
Tony, I don't think he was adding 24 gallons at a time. At the time Dane and I were discussing his stumbling issues and the subject of tank capacity was discussed. He had been driving in some hills when the stumbling occured which is when we discussed the lack of baffles in the new tank.

I think on one of his fill ups early on he might have put in around 24 gallons but I think on subsequent fill ups when he was stopping more often each fill up was less. It would be interesting to know who many gallons he went through for his 800-900 mile trip.

Brad
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Old 11-24-2016, 08:27 AM   #732
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Just a quick post before cleaning up for Turkey

Got the hitch/bumper frame tack welded in place and everything seems to fit as it should. However I did find out I need to work on my overhead welding a little bit
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Here's a view I haven't seen for quite a while. The bumper Martin gave me fits very nicely
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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!


Brad
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Old 11-24-2016, 07:30 PM   #733
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Looks great Brad! Keep up the good work. That overhead welding can be tricky. I do ok when its on a bench and I can move things around to get them in an ideal position, but, vertical and overhead welds are a whole other story. I like to get out some scrap and practice until I get the rod size, amperage, travel speed and motion down pat. Then I make the 'real ' welds. Keep the posts coming. Your work inspires me to keep plugging away on my project.
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Old 11-24-2016, 07:53 PM   #734
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The new setup looks great! It pretty much looks like the stock setup unless you crawl underneath the bumper to look.

As for the mpg of the trip, I was an idiot and didn't keep all my gas receipts. For filling up, I normally filled up when I had a quarter of tank left because I didn't know if I could trust the fuel gauge. Spoiler alert... But during the trip I passed a fill station when at a quarter tank and didn't find another for over an hour and had a close call. On that fill up I got 24.3 gallons I think, I got the receipt somewhere.

Anyhow, happy turkey day people!
-Dane
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Old 11-25-2016, 05:47 AM   #735
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Looks great Brad! Keep up the good work. That overhead welding can be tricky. I do ok when its on a bench and I can move things around to get them in an ideal position, but, vertical and overhead welds are a whole other story. I like to get out some scrap and practice until I get the rod size, amperage, travel speed and motion down pat. Then I make the 'real ' welds. Keep the posts coming. Your work inspires me to keep plugging away on my project.
Greg, I'm using a Hobart mig welder. I think I just need to slow my feed down a little bit AND get into a more comfortable welding position. Sometimes I tend to just try and "get it done" and don't get comfortable before welding. I learned a long time ago that if I'm in a comfortable position then my welds turn out a lot better

Thanks!

Brad
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Old 11-25-2016, 05:54 AM   #736
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The new setup looks great! It pretty much looks like the stock setup unless you crawl underneath the bumper to look.
I'm pretty sure the slight difference in hitch height won't be an issue. Having a new unused bumper sure does help make things look better


Quote:
As for the mpg of the trip, I was an idiot and didn't keep all my gas receipts. For filling up, I normally filled up when I had a quarter of tank left because I didn't know if I could trust the fuel gauge. Spoiler alert... But during the trip I passed a fill station when at a quarter tank and didn't find another for over an hour and had a close call. On that fill up I got 24.3 gallons I think, I got the receipt somewhere.
At least you know that you have about an hours worth of fuel (maybe 55 miles?) when you hit a quarter of a tank. That's something that's good to know for future reference. With no baffles in the gas tank your only worry at that point would be traveling on hills.


Brad
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Old 11-25-2016, 05:40 PM   #737
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Today I finally tackled one of the projects that I've been fretting about for years. The original dash frame was really buggered up by various POs and was basically just plan ugly. Over the years switches, gauges and a different radio were added and the quality of those installs left a lot to be desired.

I wanted to eliminate all of the added components along with a couple of original items as well. If you look closely at the original one you can see how many holes and openings were in the original dash. Fortunately the dash is made up of two parts, the extruded aluminum frame and a .040" aluminum panel. I was able to slide the aluminum panel out which meant I would be able to slide a new aluminum panel back in its place.
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So with a dremel tool, a whole bunch of cutoff wheels and hand files I cut the new panel to match what I wanted. It was a long and tedious job, I think it took over 8 hours total but it done! Basically I had to cut each opening twice. I cut the openings in the aluminum panel first and then slid it into the frame and then cut out any sections that needed to be removed to match the new openings. Needless to say I was sort of expecting the worst so I was a little surprised at how nice it actually turned out
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Now with the dash done I can start to reassemble everything behind the dash like all of the air ducts and wiring
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Old 11-25-2016, 08:17 PM   #738
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Jeez Brad...
Hurry up and finish this thing already....
I dont know what is taking you so long....
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Old 11-26-2016, 04:56 AM   #739
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Jeez Brad...
Hurry up and finish this thing already....
I dont know what is taking you so long....
Well, the older I get the slower I get so it's going to be a race to see if I expire before the Argosy get's finished

You're just the person I need to talk too about what to do with the finish on the center strip in the dash. It has some light scratches in places and it would be nice to do something about them. The only source for metal around here that could cut a strip of .040" strip of aluminum 2.75" wide and 90" long couldn't get me a piece that was perfectly shiny.

Later today I'll post a couple of pictures showing what the finish looks like, hopefully you'll have an idea or two on how to make it look better

Brad
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Old 11-28-2016, 05:32 PM   #740
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Steve, here's a few pictures showing what kind of scratches are in the dash face. I think a satin finish would be best to keep the glare down, so how do I achieve that look?

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Thanks!

Brad
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