BAJA SEARS BUILD

very impressed with the thought and quality of work, keep it up!

Welded up the braces. I put the exhaust back on and tested it without gaskets just to see how it sounded. When I started putting it back together I remembered that I never went to buy them. At any rate, it is loud, but not like I imagined it would be. Has kind of a neat sound when you back off the throttle. Sort of sounds like the mustang in the bullitt movie. You can see a bunch of white powder from the welding blow out when I crank it over. Of course when I rev it...well that looks like a bit of smoke. I was actually hoping it smokes just a little, draws attention to where the exhaust exits. Also you can see the pipe jumps around a lot. I didn't tighten up the mounting bolts on the lower pipe.


I welded on a couple pieces of bed frame for the firewall/dash. This will hold your switches and junk, and also the back of the hood.


Next I'll run a rod or piece of pipe from the top to the steering column. That should make a pretty rugged setup out of it. There won't be a whole lot of room to hide your wiring and starter solenoid under there, but I think it'll fit.

i saw flames

That's intense= absolutely awesome

Best sounding single cylinder I've ever heard!

Thanks, it came out better than I expected it to.

Sounds great man, mega phone style.

im liking it, its coming along nicely

Sounds great!

Sounds great! I love that raspy megaphone sound especially when backing off the throttle.     

Thanks

Made an extention for the throttle arm on the carb.


Welded it on without ruining anything. Just remember to remove the throttle shaft from the carb to weld it if your going to do something like this, especially if the float bowl still has gas in it. I drilled some various holes for adjusting sensitivity of the throttle pedal. Off center hole is for a return spring.


Ran some brake lines. You think your going to bend it nicely around stuff and it still comes out looking like a quick job. I guess it's ok, I used that nifty new nickel/copper stuff. It's not copper and it is meant for brake lines, supposed to not rust. Figured it would look neat instead of the regular stuff.


T'ed the two ports together from the master cylinder.


Welded on part of a bike's handlebar to mount my throttle pedal. I used a curved piece so I can adjust pedal height a little by moving the lever out on the pipe. This might not be the lever I'll use, but I just stuck on the one I had to mock it up.


Got the alternator belt adjuster figured out and got a belt. Found a lighter steel pulley instead of that cast iron one I had for a little less drag during acceleration. Not only that, but it's not rusted up, so I don't have to clean it before painting. Adjuster is the original sears part from the generator, I just had to shorten it a little and drill another hole.


That takes care of most of the things I didn't feel like working on anyway...

Got my budget headlights back together. They were pretty rusted up, then I painted them up with a brush that was too stiff and some old paint. Turned out glossy, so I guess that's good enough for something that I'll probably smash into a tree anyway. I had to make some of the clips that hold the lenses in out of disk brake springs, some of the original ones were rusted thin and broke. New lights about the same size are only about $15, but I must think I'm saving a bunch of money or something working on these for a million hours and using $10 worth of paint and wiring on them. Should work out good as long as they don't burn out right away.


I see enough tubing to make a nifty looking front bumper, I don't think anyone will miss this mower too bad. The tight 90 degree bends are what I really need to go around the headlights. That 8hp briggs would look nice on a push mower maybe, but that doesn't really belong in this thread I guess.

Id build something nice for them lights, id hate to see them smash into a tree after all that work.

T-Dub13 wrote:

Is anyone on here old enough to remember the Ford Pinto cars that would explode if ever rear ended?

I am. I drove one. Ford saved only 53 cents per car, by not making that a safe design. But their bean counters figured out that it would be cheaper to pay for all the lawsuits from people dieing in flames, than it would cost to actually make them safe...

Lawren Wimberly wrote:

as to the vent problem in the tank... weld in a ball check valve.   LOL think of it as a fuel diode  

Put in a tire stem.

I should have the bumper part that goes around the lights tacked up in a few days. I bought a couple of napa lights like I used on the simplicity. Now I've got all four.

Painted one rear rim and mounted one of my used atv tires. Looks pretty good cleaned up. 12" rims happen to fit on the tire machine, so I didn't have to put it on by hand. I'm using them tubeless since they looked pretty good, so we'll see how it goes.


Two lights on the outside are the napa lights with the lights off the jeep. Ready to weld the bumper up. Turned out being too tall, so I cut an inch out of it to make it fit tighter around the lights.


Tubing which will hold the bottom of the bumper. Hooked it together with the battery tray.


Roughly where it will end up. Might look a bit massive, but I think it'll be ok once you get everything else together. Like the hood and skid plate.


Nifty looking welds where I notched out the tubing...blah, blah, blah...


Not much left of the old mower now. Just about out of that size tubing. Pretty good stuff though with a fairly thick wall.

  Dats a nice looking rim, hell it all looks good!

Thanks, it's getting there.

O dick look at that thing.... are you gunna screen the lights like how they do on the vw bugs?

Loooks great M! - Nice rim too.

That sheet metal will look cool with the motor peeking out. Are you going to do a giant air cleaner like the modifieds? That would look sick.   

Thanks. I was going to put some cross bars/rods between the lights, but I wasn't planning on screening over the whole thing. As far as the air filter, I thought about it quite a bit. Originally, I wanted to use the stock air cleaner right where it was. I was going to cut out the hood around it. The problem is that I won't have any hood left. I was going to make a tube frame for the hood with thin sheet metal over it, so the "frame" would be kind of messed up bending around the air cleaner so close to the cylinder. I think I'm going to cut the top off the carb and run a radiator hose off a car to an airbox behind/under the dash. That way, the hood will be in one piece and the air intake will be in the highest possible place without having an actual snorkel, should I decide to venture into deep water.

Got a little more done. Braces added to top of bumper.


Lights mounted.


I'm thinking two more small rectangle fog lights that I have could go above the hood in front of the steering wheel... That ought to just about cover the lights up front.

Will there be any problem with the battery being so close to the exhaust?

Angchor wrote:

Will there be any problem with the battery being so close to the exhaust?

I'll have the pipe wrapped with header wrap from the port to the flange and maybe a tin heat shield behind the shock tower. Should keep things pretty cool.