Sears suburban 18/6 rebuild w/ Predator 420 swap

TAHOE

TAHOE

Tractorologist
Member
First a little backstory. I got this tractor from a guy I met through a facebook group. He needed help getting his 18/6 Onan running. We got it to fire and we became friends after that, I've actually bought a Sears custom and . He decided for some reason to buy a Harbor Freight Predator 420 to get tractor running. Fast forward, life changes and he decided to sell all his tractor related stuff.
Another friend of mine "split the pot"...and costs, I wanted the tractor mainly for the tires and also a complete Sears 3 pt hitch. My friend took the grills/hoods, 2- 18 hp Onans and other parts. After a couple weeks, I decided to put tractor back together so I bought the 420 from my buddy and here we are. People are saying stay with Onan, I am wanting to see how reliable the Predator is, I'm tired of throwing money at older engines that may run, may not. Ther are also plenty of repair parts and go fast goodies for the predators, this is an experiment ;)
The top side was painted flat black, I want a different color so I decided to blow tractor apart and do a repaint with a different bold color pallette.

Here are some pics of getting it into the barn. Since the Predator was in there before, I set in on frame to see what she looked like


Sears 16-6 Predator 2.jpg
Sears 16-6 Predator.jpg
Sears 16-6 Predator 4.jpg
 
Okay, so I wanted to put these pics off until I got tractor more assembled, but I am at a 4 way stop not sure which direction. This was supposed to be a quick cheap repaint so I bought all my paint and started. A case of the cap doesn't exactly match the paint. I am 50/50 on the shade of the color, was hoping for the darker blue tint, but it's slightly redder shade. I guess I can just say it's a Dodge muscle car color :thumbs: I know 98% of people won't like it, say it's ugly, but I am a fan of purple and I want something bold, it's not an original tractor anyway. Rustoleum makes a metallic purple that I thought of over coating it, but I can not find a can anywhere so probably just paint this then clear coat.

Sears 16-6 Predator 5.jpg
Sears 16-6 Predator 6.jpg
 
Plum Crazy Purple! I like it remember that color on the Dodge Challenger back in the day. What's your tire & wheel combo sizes. They look like atv tires. These are getting popular on the gt's. I know I'm jumping ahead. When you get to the trimming stage the polished aluminum or chrome deck steel would look good as accents like in the grille or step plates etc. Keep us posted will be following.
 
Sawdust said:
Plum Crazy Purple! I like it remember that color on the Dodge Challenger back in the day. What's your tire & wheel combo sizes. They look like atv tires. These are getting popular on the gt's. I know I'm jumping ahead. When you get to the trimming stage the polished aluminum or chrome deck steel would look good as accents like in the grille or step plates etc. Keep us posted will be following.
Click to expand...

Yes they are ATV tires, my buddy was going for the mud mower look.
Fronts- 19x7.5x8 on the wider SS rims
Rears- 25x10x12
I know I gotta figure out some type of weight for front end, buddy said with lighter engine and higher COG, the front end liked to come up. I've got some old window weights, may try to figure out how to affix them under frame and may fill front tires with washer fluid.

Accent colors
Wheels- Rustoleum hammered gray.
Lower, maybe upper grill and other small things will be gloss black. Undecided if dash will be purple or black.
 
Well so much for the quick blow apart, paint and throw it back together. I just cant do it. This isn't a sand blasted show tractor, but I just have to clean up rusty parts and paint everything. It's all apart, might as well make it look decent. Spent about 6 hrs in the sweltering heat cleaning and painting.
I painted a lot of small undercarriage parts, gas tank, seat spring, etc. Below are a few pics.

PO painted everything flat black, not my flavor for this one. I decided to use the hammered gray on the wheels although they don't looked hammered. The hammered silver I used before has the fish eye look this stuff just looks like metallic gray. If Rustoleum put wrong stuff in can, it was a good mistake, I'm really digging this color., gonna look good with the purple.

Before

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Paint prep
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Final
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Got a coat on the front axle

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I messed up the lower grill. I lightly sanded it and it still must've had some old paint residue or something across front lip, paint buckled on me, you can kind of see in picture. I'll let it cure a few days, sand and try again
20190720_183312.jpg
 

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Marty looking good. I found out the hammerite wont fish eye on primers or old paint. In fact it fish eyes best on raw metal. When I painted my welder cart the rusty pitted angle iron I cleaned up & primed it looked like regular paint. The piece of angle iron I just cleaned & gave it a quick shot of paint just to see how it looked fish eyed great...go figure.
 
Sawdust said:
Marty looking good. I found out the hammerite wont fish eye on primers or old paint. In fact it fish eyes best on raw metal. When I painted my welder cart the rusty pitted angle iron I cleaned up & primed it looked like regular paint. The piece of angle iron I just cleaned & gave it a quick shot of paint just to see how it looked fish eyed great...go figure.
Click to expand...

Well that's good to know. As I stated, I'm glad it didn't, I really like the color.


Daniel, I think it's a tad darker than MF gray.
 
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