Introducing the Stig Special

[Jake Kuhn 1,555]

Wow what a difference! She's a beauty now!

[Madcat 9]

That was a great project. I enjoyed following the progress. What a machine !

 

WHAT'S NEXT ?? !!

[meadowfield 2,570]

here's a few of my pics from the stickering ceremony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[massey 118]

WOW.  Congrats on your perserverrence, it looks great.  I know you must be proud and you should be, simply stunning. :handgestures-thumbupright:

[Griff 17]

That's a marvelous  machine. I'm very impressed, and i dont impress easily!

[Stormin 9,981]

Fantastic job, Ian. You'd think it was built in a factory.

[B-100 Dan 7]

NICE. What else could you say!!!!

[papaglide 542]

Pretty freakin' AWESOME! That tractor is cool as hell and looks like it came right from South Bend! Great job Ian!

[Stigian 1,234]

Oh, alright then! It did make a very good drinks table

Can't believe I booked time off work to make sure I could make it over.... I think I was more excited than you stickering it up it felt good to be there seeing the finishing touches being applied!

Great to catch up again, thanks again for your hospitality and thanks again for letting me take her for a spin.

I'll get some of my pics potatobucketed and on here and my site. For now here's two phone pics

Cheers

 

Yep the Gt sure did make a great drinks table...  It also showed me I'm too old to drink much these days... I did feel very knackered the next day

 

Yes you were more than keen to get the stickers on, thank you once again for the great decals..

 

Are you finding that potatobucket is having problems with high quality photo's?

I can upload them but they don't seem to be going to where they should!!

 

 

 

 Wooooooooooow Ian, I can't believe that's the same Beast!!  Its absolutely gorgeous!   Its been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait, and I'm sure I can speak for every RS member when I say congrats, and well done. Those decals look fantastic on there, and really give it the final touch. Nice job Mark, and I really like the "In The Shack engineering" one.  I believe this   is going to steel the show.

 The only thing that could make this any better, would be to see a dozer blade on the front!

Matt

 

Thanks Matt, it's amazing what a lick of paint and some superb decal can do to the look of the machine..

The dozer blade is going to have to wait a while... After Ardingly I'm going to have a well earned break from the 6X6 and give the GT 14 some love it deserves..

 

 

 

It don't get any better than this! Just can't say enough, enigeneering, build, body work, paint, decials it's all great. It need a nice decal under " The Shack Engineering decial "

that say Built by Stigian.

 

Thanks Don, much appreciated

 

 

 

Simply gorgeous Ian...thing looks like a  freight train.   

 

Are you saying it's as long as a freight train Craig?? 

[Stigian 1,234]

What a "Beast"! -- What a great build topic this has been!! -- I wish I had 1/10 of your skills and determination Ian -- What a wonderful job

 

Thanks Dave.. Skills you can learn, so have a bash at building something different.. You never know but you might find the skills come easily to you. As for determination.. I just don't like to be beaten

 

 

 

All dressed up in it's 'Sunday Best'. Well I can't add much to what has already been said Ian. You done good !. It really look's right in every way, especially now it's Red. Just Amazing. Looking forward to seeing you/it at the show.  

 

Hi Richard, glad you got the "you/it" bit in the right order

See you next weekend Sir.

 

 

 

Wow what a difference! She's a beauty now!

 

Ta muchly Jake.

 

 

 

That was a great project. I enjoyed following the progress. What a machine !

 

WHAT'S NEXT ?? !!

 

Thank you Sir... What's next is to have a break from the 6X6 for a while.. Apart from lot's of driving it of course..   And then get on with finishing it.. Still loads of parts to paint.. A dozer blade to make.. And eventually steel tracks to make and fit... OH, and a diesel engine would be nice as well

 

 

 

WOW.  Congrats on your perserverrence, it looks great.  I know you must be proud and you should be, simply stunning. :handgestures-thumbupright:

 

Thanks Massey..  Proud I am indeed. In fact there is a part in my latest video (which should be uploaded overnight tonight) where I get quite emotional watching it!

 

 

 

That's a marvelous  machine. I'm very impressed, and i dont impress easily!

 

I'm honored if you don't impress easily Griff.. Thanking you kindly Sir.

 

 

 

Fantastic job, Ian. You'd think it was built in a factory.

 

Thank you very much Norman, the "factory look" was something I was aiming for so I guess I've got it right..

 

 

 

NICE. What else could you say!!!!

 

Thank you Dan, Nice is good enough for me..

 

 

 

Pretty freakin' AWESOME! That tractor is cool as hell and looks like it came right from South Bend! Great job Ian!

 

Thanks Mike that's a hell of a cool compliment

[Stigian 1,234]

I'm blown away with all your great comments guy's...   all.

 

 

A few bits have been done over the past couple of days.. The exhaust now has a heat shield to hopefully stop the paint on the hood from melting.. The battery box finally has a lid, I still need to paint it.. And the motion control levers have had a fresh coat of paint by Rob..

 

Sorry, no photo's of the above but have a few taken of the ol girl when the sun came out..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fabricator2009 48]

First class job. You should be very proud. Thanks for sharing the build with us.  Ken.

[bowtiebutler956 650]

  Ian, I'm going to have to start wearing sun glasses just to view future pics of your 6x6!   Looks great out in the sun!

 

Matt

[Stigian 1,234]

First class job. You should be very proud. Thanks for sharing the build with us.  Ken.

 

Thanks Ken, I am very proud indeed.. It's taken a long time to reach this point, but it's certainly been worth it

 

 

 

  Ian, I'm going to have to start wearing sun glasses just to view future pics of your 6x6!   Looks great out in the sun!

 

Matt

 

Yeah she is a bit bright out in the sun..  Maybe people need to look at it through a pin hole in a piece of card... A Wheel Horse eclipse

 

 

I've not had a chance to do any work on the ol girl today.. Had a wasted day going to London to see a specialist who spent an hour talking about "how the brain can be trained to deal with things that I don't know are about to happen".. And then finished it off with "it probably wouldn't work with you"!!!!

 

Anyway, miniature rant over...

 

 

The battery box now has a lid, I'd better get it painted tomorrow..

 

 

 

I did set out to find out why the ol girl won't tick-over but while I was in the carb area I thought I'd sort something that needing sorting.

 

The engine was designed to run with a sealed air box on top of the carb with all the air being forced in to the air box from the cooling fan..

The original air box wouldn't fit under the hood so I just fitted a "normal" Raider (and others) type air cleaner..

This worked ok but the engine ran a bit on the rich side..

The carb being a fixed jet type means I couldn't adjust the mixture!!

 

Soooo... I cut a hole in my freshly painted air cleaner..

 

 

 

A bit of faffing about with some rubber hose later and the air could be forced into the air cleaner.

 

 

 

I needed to stop the air being blown out where it would normally be sucked in, so the out lip on the base of the air cleaner was gently beaten flat..

 

 

 

To give enough space to fit this ally ring in..

I know it looks a bit of a strange shape, but it fits as it should so I guess the top of the air cleaner is a bit on the oval side..

Anyway, the air filter (the bit the actually does the filtering) fits inside the ring.

 

 

 

And when the air cleaner is bolted together the air can blow out no longer..

 

 

 

I still need to work out why she won't tick over though!!

 

 

And to finish, my latest video..   You get to see her looking all bright in the sun, and Mark driving about in a much better quality than PotatoBucket can handle

 

[dsholler 54]

 

I still need to work out why she won't tick over though!!

 

 

 

Wouldn't the lack of air account for that?

[Stigian 1,234]

 

 

I still need to work out why she won't tick over though!!

 

 

 

Wouldn't the lack of air account for that?

 

 

As it happens, it did..

I had a play yesterday with the idle mixture screw (at least I can adjust that on the carb!) and managed to get the engine ticking over quite a bit slower..  Not a "chug.... chug" sort of ticker but slow enough to make me happy 

[Stigian 1,234]

Morning all, it's been nice to have a break from the 6X6 for a while, but I'm back on the build now.

 

The Ardingly show hid highlight a couple of problems with the ol girl, one being the throttle cable broke loose.. An easy fix..

The other more serious problem is both transmissions started to loose interest in reversing when they got rather hot!    And it was a baking hot weekend the Ardingly weekend..

 

Oil coolers would work, but the problem is finding a couple of them which will handle the pressure of 700-odd psi that the transmissions create at a cheap enough price!

 

Sooo, best find a way to make the cooling fans more efficient then..

 

The rear trans fan self destructed quite a while ago and gluing it back together just didn't work..

 

 

 

That got me thinking about making a new fan for it..

 

A quick bit of metal shaping later just to give me an idea of if it can be done.. Not bad, but maybe a little prone to bending when spinning..

 

 

 

Test fan blade number 2 was much stronger,, if a little more interesting to shape..

 

 

 

 

A measure of the available fan space showed I could fit a slightly bigger fan than original, so I cut out five new slightly bigger blades..

 

 

 

The scales came out to see how even the weights of the blades were.. All within .4 of a gram of each other!!   Rather happy with that.

 

 

 

Standard size on the left, you can guess which one the right one is

 

 

 

The blades need a final bit of gentle shaping to get the curves 100%-ish smooth, but I think they look good.

 

 

 

 

Today's fun will be making the center part of the fan....Should be fun 

 

 

[Dual Drive Horse 6]

There should be very little hydraulic pressure in the return line, that is the usual place to fit oil coolers. A pair of car ones from the scrappy would be fine.

[Stigian 1,234]

That's interesting thinking Simon, I like it

I guess I need to now do some more oil cooler looking into...

 

But it might have to wait a few days, busy with the GT again

[Stigian 1,234]

Hi guy's n girls, thought I'd give a little update on what's been happening with the 6X6...

The steel cooling fan I was making never happened... Mostly because I got stuck in to the GT14+2 and other things, and then couldn't find the fan blades I made!!

The rear trans now seams to be keeping it's cool a bit better with the original but slightly damaged cooling fan installed..

 

I was given an oil cooler at the weekend, but you might say it's a bit on the large size!!   I think the chances of finding space to fit it are very slim!

 

I still need to pull the ol girl apart and finish painting it, but that won't be happening until spring as it would be nice to have her drivable during winter... Winter is no time for painting anyway

 

I did have a bit of problem with the drive belt slipping a bit, fingers crossed the 3 extra springs I have added will help.. I've still to take her for a spin to find out..

 

 

Speaking of "taking her for a spin", here's a shortish video of the 6X6 in action with an on board camera..

 

Enjoy.

 

[Anglo Traction 761]

Great tour Vid on the Beast Ian   . So are we going to see a Spill Proof Coffee Cup Holder/Heater installed?   .

[Ole MN 11]

Bravo!! Ian,

Gald to get a good read in.

 

Thanks Brad

[Terry M-(Moderator) 2,175]

Ian, I think that your tractor's  looks really sharp with a new paint job!!!!!    

 

Nice Work !!

Edited October 29, 2013 by Terry M

[meadowfield 2,570]

fab - you are giving me more ideas...

[Charlie Smith 142]

Brilliant video once again, and how's the camera man trailer chair going, I'm pretty sure I just see it at the end of this video..... Well the chair anyway,