Project : Argoceptor!

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

I'm not sold on the foil idea, but I think the Jet drive would be awesome. You could probably pick up a jet ski with a bad engine for really cheap with everything you would need. Then just attach the output to the existing land steering mechanism, and you'll be all set. Since you've already said you're good with fiberglass, grafting the intake of the jet drive onto the bottom of the argo chassis should be no problem for you.

That would be much cooler than an outbord hanging off the back

Foils would be mostly if I cant get the tires high enough to get them out of the water to plane.

The front 3 sets don’t have a chance to be lifted high enough to clear the water before it planes, so I may need the foils to streamline the tires to “get it up”.

I’m leaning more towards an outboard for power reasons. Most jet drive multiwheel ambphibs don’t even get close to plane. With an outboard, i csn play with ho, trims and prop characteristics to give it the best chsnce to “get up out of the hole”...

With that V4, you should be able to spin the tires fast enough so you can hydroplane across the water. LOL.

Well, I need to go from the chain drive V45 to the belt driven argo transmission. I also need a way to minimize shock loading on the argo transmission when using a chain drive.

So, take one CBR/F2 rear wheel and cut the center out:



Right about now there’s a team of VF and CBR owners furiously google-ing for my address and forming the lynch mob! Lol!

Chuck the resulting lump up in the lathe and turn it down to the pieces that I need:



You can see the rubber “dampers” that absorb the chain shock loads. They also let the sprocket carrier "float" a tiny bit to account for small misalignment with suspension action. In my case, it will afford some tolerance if/when the Argo frame "flexes".

Assemble the bits:



Perfect!

Test fit on the Argo input shaft:



That's going to work nicely!

Last piece I have to make is a steel adapter to fit the center bore in the aluminum wheel hub to the Argo input shaft. It will be attached to the Argo shaft the same way the CV driven clutch is built: aluminum sheave with a steel center pressed in and keyed to the Argo gearbox.

Coming together nicely.

So I'm thinking more about the getting the argo hull to plane in the water.

As mentioned, with the suspension build comes the opportunity to make the wheels retractable. At least enough to raise them above the bottom of the hull, if not out of the water. Suspension is relatively easy to design, but retracting suspension is a fair bit more work.

So before I put any thought in to a retracting suspension, I think I need to find out if the hull can be reasonably made to plane in the first place. So I think I have a plan to test if the hull will plane (and be controllable) before even striking the first arc.

This summer, I'll take it down to the water, drop an outboard on the back, remove all 8 wheels and see it the sucker will "get up on step" as a hull. If it will get up on plane, then I at least know I have something I can work with. The axles will still be sticking out, but a big hopefully they won't be as much an impediment to planing as the tires.

If the hull refuses to plane without anything bigger than a 10-15 Hp outboard, then I can abandon the thoughts of trying to make it plane at all and just build a fixed suspension under it. If I have to settle for a fixed suspension and no plane, I'll just have to settle for displacement hull speeds around 2-5 mph....

Ok, stay with me on this one. It's going to get a little weird for the uninitiated.

More thoughts on water speed.

This is probably going to sound right out in left field if you use your Argo for hunting or hauling stuff. Heck, It may sound nuts even if you just use it for fun.

Looking at the Argo and options for getting it on plane, I just don't think it will happen. Even if I make the wheels retract up above the bottom of the hull, the front 3 sets will still be underwater(and most of the fourth set as well). That means drag, lots of it. It very likely means I won't be able to get enough power on it to get it up on plane. If it did plane, the power requirement goes waaay down (and speed goes up), but I just don't think I'm going to be able to overcome the drag to get it there.

Now, crazy idea time:

Hydrofoil.

A hydrofoil works by lifting the craft out of the water. Beauty of them is, they don't require a lot of power to create that lift. The foil under the water ifs a wing and the camber can be adjusted to create more or less lift (there are drag penalties, but nothing like eight tires).

Once the hull is up out of the water, the drag of the tires goes away and the power requirements goes even lower to keep it up on the foils. You have a foil in the front in the water, foils in the back and the prop/leg from the outboard and that's it. Everything else is clear of the water.

Obviously, it has to be retracting or folding, or the land performance of the Argo is negatively impacted. It's also only going to be good for travel on lakes or waters of some depth. You don't need deep water to operate a hydrofoil, but you need 4 or 5 feet of depth to deploy it.

I've built a lot of stuff over my 53 years, but never a hydrofoil. At least nothing bigger than an RC model. I gotta say, I'm kinda swayed towards trying it for the challenge if nothing else. I've always liked the story of the "flying 400", a hydrofoil warship sea trialed right here in my home province:



Named "HMCS Bras 'Dor" after the Bras 'Dor lakes in Cape Breton, where Alexander Graham Bell built and flew hydrofoils and eventually the silver dart, first powered flight in Canada.

It's a bit of engineering to work it out, but the actual construction is nothing difficult. If you look at this model pic of a surface piercing foil:



You can begin to see how it could be made retractable on an Argo hull. The front you put a pivot point far enough back on the sides so that the foil either fits the Argo curved nose or can lift above it yet deploys below the wheels. Same with the rear. A simple strut would work to hold them in the deployed position. Refinement will make it more "integrated" when folded for land travel. Then it's just a long leg outboard (or a moveable mount plate) on the back for power.

Here's a video of a home built boat based hydrofoil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ExF3xb-6g

Concepts are the same, although my execution would be different. On a boat, it doesn't matter if you use a submerged or piercing foil, how it's deployed, where it sticks out when folded, etc.

"Pie in the Sky" stuff on an Argo for sure, but my initial consideration of it seems to say it's "doable".

Maybe not practical for everyone (or anyone?), but I'm not your average bear.

And I love an engineering/building challenge.

I have been thinking of building a small plane in my retirement, but this might be just as much fun to build. An airplane I would build from a "kit", but an "ArgoFoil" would be all my design.

And a lot less trouble to use (legally) once done.

Hmmmm.........the wheels are turning.....

Progress, but very slow progress:



This is one of those things that just doesn't happen fast.

I’m basically designing a “one off” drive system as I go, so its going to take lots of time and lots of thought before even making my first turn on the lathe.

All I’ve done so far is get my steel dimensionally true and cleaned/trued up the center hub drive bores.

“Measure twice, cut once”....

I think there was a Navy rig back in mid 60s that used a similar concept.  I think it was called an LVH1, 4x4 5 ton, apparently it went 40mph in water so you're probably onto something!

Well, it looks like this blunt, “un-boat like” lump is destined to be a 4-5 mph water borne vessel.

I ran the calculations and it’s pretty much not practical to get this thing foil borne.

The problem is the “take off” speed. In order to get enough lift to the wings at the speeds the argo is capable of, even with an outboard, the wings have to be prohibitively large. As in: stupid large.

Its that damned argo hull again. If I could get 10-15 mph out of the hull, then the foils can be reasonably sized. But with the speed so low, the only way to do it is make the wing surface bigger and given the high weight and low speed, thats where you get in to the prohibitively large wing.

On e out of the water; not a problem. It’s getting it out of the water that is a problem.

Alas, I may have to settle for just a couple knots out of it as a top speed.

Just a thought. Not sure of the practicality of this but what if you had pontoons mounted on either side of the Argoceptor that were hydraulically retractable, so that you could deploy them quickly but also keep them tucked up out of the way while on land. I'm not sure what size of pontoon you would need or if its really feasible but just throwing the idea out there.

Getting there. Slowly but surely;



Still to do; finish the bore to final size for the transmission input shaft, machine a groove on the large diameter (so I have a place to grab with a puller when I need to remove it), machine a recess in the large diameter for the transmission input shaft retaining bolt and broach a keyway in the trans input shaft bore.

Then its just shrink for the CBR600RR wheel hub to the center diameter and it’s good to go. Couple more days of just lazy paced work should have it done.

Then its make the offset sprocket for the engine, cut the chain to fit and move on to building the exhaust.

Little work to wire it all up and then it’s ready for a test run. Maybe in a week or two’s time.

I think I'm going to make change to the drive adapter construction. The mechanic in me really is rubbed the wrong way with shrink fitting the hub to the adapter and there being no way to remove it without, essentially, destroying it. After all the time put in to building it, I sure would be "peeved" if something broke and there were no reasonable way to salvage the remaining good pieces.


So I think I'm going to change from a shrink fit to a press fit. This will mean less "holding power", but I'm going to fix that with another change. I'm going to machine a 3/8" plate to fit on the large diameter of the adapter and then grub screws through the aluminum hub to the 3/8" plate. The press fit will keep it running true and hold torque inputs, the grub screws will aid in keeping the hub from rotating and help handle the torque. Where the screws will be going is the ticker part of the piece, approx 0.250". It also open the option to use 5 to ten screws if I want (there's 5 compartments in the cush drive). One row in close to the hub, one row further out by the edges. It would pretty much have to blow apart for that to fail under load...


I also decided to machine a groove in the large diameter. This will give me a place to attach a puller if/when I need to get the entire assemble off the transmission input shaft at sometime in the future. An example of needing to get it off in the future might be changing the driven sprocket to change the final drive ratio:





The adapter is a slip fit on the shaft, but a little corrosion and we all know how easy it is for these type of things to "rust weld" themselves together over time. the ability to use the puller makes it feasible to actually get it back apart in that case! LOL!

Actually, come to think of it, it might make more sense to just use a socket cap head screw and instead of going from the inside out, come from the back of the steel plate into the aluminum body.


That would give me a full head to grab when installing and removing the components. For that matter, I guess I could use a standard head bolt if I wanted since I would no longer have to worry about the bolt interfering with the internal cush drive dampers....

Test fit complete! Hub goes on the adapter slick as snot!


I took a few thou off the adapter since last posting.


I used the same technique I use to drop #2 engine bearings on compressors (one of the things I do/did at work is build jet engines from the compressor disc up).


I placed the adapter on a nice thick, flat slab of granite (I have a couple pieces that I use for surface plates when building racks of carbs and such) for a couple hours to get it temp stable with the room. Then I wrapped the hub in tin foil and in to the oven it goes (500c) for 20 mins.


I pulled it out of the oven, move quickly out to the garage, unwrap the hub and slide it down on the adapter. Goes right down to the shoulder with no problems. Well, a little drag, but that's more about me keeping it square than it not fitting.


Since I need to still cut the keyway, I pulled it back up off the adapter before it had a chance to contract.


I didn't want the hub locked to the adapter in case I mess up the keyway. I had planned to put it together and then cut the keyway, but common sense won out and said to fit the hub after cutting the keyway. It would suck to mess up the keyway and have to throw out the adapter but I'd have a major meltdown if the hub was locked on to the adapter and I flubbed the Keyway. If I broke the hub trying to get it off, I'd need another CBR600RR wheel to turn the hub out of! No thank you, I'll wait to make sure the keyway is right first!


I worked it down to a measured 0.003" interference fit with maybe a +/- 0.001" error because of the measuring tools I have to use here. The way the hub slid on and off, it could very possibly be more like 0.002" or 0.001". Definitely won't go on when cold, so it's an interference fit for sure. If it is closer to 0.001, the back up plate and bolts I plan to add later will help lock it together to help deal with the drive torque it will see.


So, tomorrow; build myself the broach and if time, cut the keyway. After that is done, drop the hub on the adapter and on to making the offset sprocket for the engine output shaft.


Coming along nicely. Can't wait to take it for a proper rip across the field!

Nice work!! I'd like to see how you make the broach tool.

After a totally frustrating and wasted day, I chucked the steel I had for the broach out the door.

Seems the block I was going to use had a broken off drill bit in it. After trying to punch, drill and other wise remove it from the face of this earth, I gave up and fired it in the trash pile. Being xmas eve, it was that piece of steel or nothing. I figured that was it until Well after xmas day as most places around here where I can get a block of steel 1” or bigger are pretty much closed up until january.

Got up this morning and in one last attempt a saving the project, I found an old 1 1/4 receiver hitch tongue in the back of the garage. I chopped it up and it machines like a dream. Some kind of mild steel, carbide tools glide right through it and leave a nice finish.

So after half a day of dinking in the garage, I have the cross slide 5/8” holder and the 5/8” cold rolled bar built.

Now to move on to making the rest of the broach/shaper attachment...,after the turkey dinner settles and I can move again that is!

Certainly not finished, but here's most of the basic keyway cutter I'm building:



It's got a 4.5" stroke at the cutter position and has a .003" runout at the full length of the stroke. Pretty good for my first attempt at making a "shaper". I'm thinking of adding a gib screw a the front and back to take up even more of that .003". But it's certainly usable for my purposes as it sits.

Next is to mount the cutting tool at the end, make some spacers to replace the washer stacks you can see in teh linkages and some misc finishing up work. Eventually, I'll turn a handle for the end of the lever bar.Just to clean it up if nothing else.

Well, it's cutting:







But maaaaannnn.....is it ever slooooowwwwwwww. And it hooks and hangs a lot as well. The "dents" you see on the end of the turning are there because every time it would grab it would rack the turning, so I'd reseat it with a little bumping from the hammer. I eventually dismounted it, turned the jaws of the 4 jaw around and used the curved sections to hold the turning. That seemed to solve the racking problem. Probably should make myself a brass hammer too.....

I had to go though a couple grinding sessions until I got the cutting tooth just right. Very fussy to get the geometry just right so it would it cut the 1018 well.

I had to rework the "nose" of the bar a couple times to get as must depth as I could out of the blind hole. I also had to drill a hole in from the side to give the chips a place to break off. That was a fun task. One drill bit broke off and I had to abandon it in the hole, a second hole I messed up my measurement and it was too far up the bore, the third was in just the right spot. I'm not too worried about the couple extra holes, they're under the press fit hub once it's all assembled and the turning is so thick, a couple 3/16 holes are to going to hurt anything except my OCD.

I had several problems with the tool turning in it's mount, which caused most of the grabbing problems. I finally figured out it was actually the tool post turning in the compound rest. With the amount of force on the tool post, there was just no way to keep it from "creeping" as i worked the slotter. So I mounted up the Atlas milling attachment and that solved the problem. Side bonus is it also allows me to set the height precisely.

But I think it's going to take me 6 weeks to cut the keyway! LOL! Probably would go much better if I was cutting aluminum instead of 1018.....

Are you making the cut in the lathe with the spindle holding the part on the head? Do you have a lock on the spindle to keep the part from turning while you cut?

prancstaman wrote:

Are you making the cut in the lathe with the spindle holding the part on the head? Do you have a lock on the spindle to keep the part from turning while you cut?

Yup, and yup.

Been a bit of work, but the input adapter is ready for the hub:



I knurled the hub shoulder in order to give it a little more "bite".

Then the hub goes into the oven to soak at 500f for 20 mins:



I wrap all my heated parts in tin foil for the heat soak. Occupational habit. When I'm building jet engines and fitting something like a #2 engine bearing, we always wrap it in foil to try and keep it as hot as possible on the trip from the oven to the compressor stand.

First, one last check of the input adapter to make sure it's microscopic clean (IE: nothing to hang or cock the hub when it goes on) and then the race from the oven to drop the hub down on the adapter:



Nice. Slams right home on the shoulder of the adapter. you can't even get a .001 feeler gauge under it:



I'd normally do what we call "drop measurements" to make sure it's fully home, but it's more than good enough as it is for this application. No light under the adapter works for me!

Now to wait an hour or so to let it all cool. The steel hub sucked up the heat right away and it's all too hot to touch now. Last hurdle is for the aluminum casting to NOT crack once cooled, meaning my interference fit is good to go.

Then it's make a simple spacer for the input shaft (to keep the sprocket properly positioned on the hub and help locate the adapter on the shaft) and it's done.

Then on to making the offset sprocket adapter for the VF750 transmission output shaft. Compared to the rest of the machining to this point, that's easy peasy!

After that, i can get on building the exhaust. That's will be "a treat", but no where near as exacting as all the machining work so far, so it will go together relatively fast.

Cooled off and assembled:







On the transmission input shaft:



Gotta say, I'm pretty pleased with my work!




I don't even want to think about how much it would have cost me to have a machinist build this chunk........

Took a break from working on the drivetrain and did some aluminum work:











You can see the front seat back frames. Right now, the seat back is straight across. But once done, there will be two seperate seat backs and a “step through” space in the middle. That will make it easy to drive into the water and move to the back to use the outboard. I may make it a “fold down” center or maybe a solid step plate. Dunno yet, still thinking about that one...

The tail lights are from the Interceptor, I had an extra in my spares pile so I could do L+R lights and they keep with the “Argoceptor” theme. I needed to install rear lights anyways, as (by law) you can’t ride an ATV or dirt bike around here after dark without head lights AND tail lights.

The Johnson 2hp outboard is just set in place for mock up purposes. I’ve also got an 8hp, but the 2hp (they’re both 2 strokes) is more than enough to push this brick through the water, it’s very light, the fuel tank is self contained (8hp needs an external tank system) and it will run forever on it’s tiny tank. The 2hp is also stone simple tech wise and easy as heck to feild repair (if needed). I also upgraded to 2hp ignition to a solid state unit (brand: Atom) that lets it tick over and stupid low rpms (if I want to troll) or at max rpm.

The outboard needs to drop another 4-5 inches though, to be comfotably below the bottom of the hull. It would be in the water (and work) where it is, but I’d like it deeper to get less tubulent water for both the prop and cooling water uptake. I’ll be building a “slide” mechanism that will allow me to raise it up nice and high (I’m thinking about 12-18” of lift) for land travel and then drop down for water travel. I’ve got a couple designs I’m rolling around in my head right now, just have to figure out one that will work....

Well, in order to get the outboard low enough to get the cavitaion plate level with the bottom of the hull, some changes to the rear rack were required:




Looks ok and is nearly as strong as it was before. It added another 7” to the rack, but it’s up fairly high so it shouldn’t be a snag hazard when climbing and it’s a relatively small point in the middle so it shouldn’t negatively effect turning. Those pics are with the motor at running height. For land travel, I’m building a vertical sliding outboard mount. It will raise the outboard 18”, which will bring the skeg about 3” below the body split line.

Was driving home the other day and I drove past a bunch of car pieces at a country intersection. Someone had an accident there and there was a busted F-150 grill in the ditch.

I stopped to have a look at it and it seemed to me I might be able to do something with it. So into the back of the truck it went.

As anyone who has one knows, heat is a big issue in an Amphib. Getting air in (and out) is a problem due to it basically being a sealed bathtub.

I striped what was left of the grill down to just the plastic insert and set it on the Argo nose:







Yeah, it's too big as is and it's got some busted pieces. But it's just thermoplastic and that's super easy to both cut and form. All you need is a little heat, applied the right ways.

The wheels are turning in my brain. Sure would be nice to be able to get a front facing radiator in the nose of the Argo. I've got two thoughts:

1. Cut out the nose and fit everything (headlights included) behind a modified to fit grill, or
2. Cut down the grill to open up just the center section of the nose between the headlights

Options 1 benefits: LOTS of cooling air, front mount radiator options, unique looks.
Drawbacks of options 1: Water entry might be an issue. Such a large cut out may weaken the upper tub and maybe the lower tub.

Option 2 benefits: More cooling air, option for front mount radiator, would retain more of the original structural integrity.
Option 2 drawbacks: water entry concerns, although less than option 1.

The big "FORD" mounting spot in the middle of the grill is an easy fix: I'll just make up an "ARGO" emblem that's the same shape/size as the FORD badge and stick it on. That's as easy as printing one out and covering it in a clear epoxy.

Loosing the center part of the nose for a winch mount in either option isn't a big deal as I had already planned to build a custom winch mount that sits the winch level on a brush guard instead of being on the angled nose piece.

It means the Argo will loose some of it's froggy/puppy look on the nose, but that's not a big deal for me. A grill might actually update the look a bit so it looks less like it's 1960/70's counterparts and more like a some of the more recent designs.

Decided to try for option 2: cut the grill down to size for the middle section of the Argo:



Not bad, not bad at all.It looks big in the pic, but it's a little lower than the hood line and a little less wide than the flat center section on the Argo nose.

Or, I suppose I could invert it like it was on the F-150:



I might not be as keen on that orientation,. It would, however, allow the hood to stay the same width to the grill instead of having to narrow it to match the narrow top grill.

That's just put together rough for now, it needs more plastic welding, shaping and finishing. But that's pretty much the way it will look.

I'm thinking installing the bottom even with where the Argo body line is now, but instead of leaning it back to follow the Argo nose "slant", I'm thinking leaving it a bit nearer vertical to make more room behind it for the radiator.

I'll have to rework the nose to come out to meet the grill and I can just make the hood larger to cover the top part. The hood is the easy part since it's fiberglass. That's just more cloth and resin to get it the way I want it.....

Well, no turning back now:







After trying multiple times to reshape the plastic, I’ve decided to just slice it right off. I’ll make the grill part of the hood and fiberglass the sides to blend it to the cut opening. I can get a much smoother and finished look that way instead of trying to reshape the plastic.