Shaft powered lawn tractor

I wanted to know if any of you had a shaft driven lawn tractor. It would be ideal for water. I think some Cub cadets have have em. It wouldnt be too hard to make.

Someone somewhere mentioned about home making one out of two axles that have pinion gears - use two pillow blocks to support them - id say mount them to some square tubing ( L shaped) and add a cross brace - then build a box with oil seals out of steel sheets, welding all the sides but one ( to access the thing, bolt the unit to the bottom ( to remove it if needed) - i think its possible and sometime i wanna try it!

Only hard bit would be to mesh the gears correctly- might need to check it like when checking a differential ( to see if they mesh right).

my honda has a shaft n it goes ok in the mud its just kinda heavy if u get better tires itll do better

The bigger cubs have shaft drive - they weight alot as well. Thats why alot of tractor pullers use a cub trans as a starting point.

I dont know how well a transmission mounted sideways would work - where would you mount it? They take up alot of room - plus theyre weak ( unless filled with oil and heavy duty berings) - only way to find out is build one actually.

Belts will still work when wet- IF theyre the better quality ones - i ran my agway in the mud and water up to the bottom of the motor and it still moved easily ( only lost traction from the crappy stock tires is all).

I had a bolens with shaft drive..

Yeah that guy Tommarytn on YT uses all those old Bolens tractors with the wisconsin and kohler motors - neat things about those are the trans can be locked like a front axle on a 4x4 - just twist the knob on one of the rear wheels- plus the tube chassis is cool. He takes those things everywhere - mud, water.

The shaft setup is sorta weird- it hooks to the motor by belts- its not directly hooked to it - its mounted a few inches below the motor back to the trans.

ive thought about doing this a few times but alot of times i dont have the money

@dangeroustoys56 wrote:

The bigger cubs have shaft drive - they weight alot as well. Thats why alot of tractor pullers use a cub trans as a starting point.

I dont know how well a transmission mounted sideways would work - where would you mount it? They take up alot of room - plus theyre weak ( unless filled with oil and heavy duty berings) - only way to find out is build one actually.

Belts will still work when wet- IF theyre the better quality ones - i ran my agway in the mud and water up to the bottom of the motor and it still moved easily ( only lost traction from the crappy stock tires is all).

i had 2 similar tractors a few years ago and they both had the exact same belt, i replaced both belts within 2 months but i bought them at the same time because i knew id need it anyway one of them i could completely submerge and itll still grip fine but on the other it didnt take much at all and the belt was slipping and i had to get the other tractor to pull it out

On Tommarytn's YT cahnnel- when they went into deep water- water would spray up like a water fountain when the hood was open , just in front of the steering wheel- pretty funny.