That thing looks great tires are everything turns a stock mower into a mud machine. I really like that front end you must have a wide front axle to mount tires that size. I hope to find a wider cast iron axle this coming spring to do the same set up.
Thanks. It's really starting to get right where I want it looks wise. I'm actually running the stock front axle for now. Before I ordered my tires I just flexed it all the way out and measured clearances in all positions of steering on both sides to see how big I could go. I might have been able to go with 20's up front but it wouldn't sit level and my wallet couldn't afford more than 18's so I went with those.
I'm more than happy with the 18's and 26's though. Any bigger on the rear and I would have to cut my body up. And the tires make it look much tougher for sure. This weekend I'm starting to bed line it and will fix my hood and start an exoskeleton for it. Yep that's right an exoskeleton. Still have a long list of things to finish on it before the 30th.
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Tires look great. Makes the whole tractor look a lot tougher.
Thanks! I still myself can't believe how big the difference actually was. I really love it now.
redlinemotorsportts wrote:
Wow, crazy how tires can make it look so much better. I really like how you still rock the vintage paint, I'd never touch it.
How's she drive? Steering, clutching, performance? Sure looks good!
Thanks! I really like the original paint too, but sadly I'm going to have to do some paint work, at least to the red paint. Both the original hood, and the extra one i bought are cracked in the same spot so the hood catch strap wont hold it open and makes it a pain to work under the hood. I'd just have fixed my original hood, but it had cracked in two other spots and one of the previous owners did the crappiest weld job and its more work than necessary to fix. So I found another hood needing less work, but it turns out that the red currently on the tractor is not the original MF red; which is what is on the new hood. So the colors between the two hoods don't match.
So I have two options right now,
1) I fix the new hood, and then repaint all of the red on the tractor a red just like the red on it now (vs the original orange-ish red), and keep the rest of the paint old and as is. Though I would have to paint the new rear rims because I can't stand the wrong colors. So all red repainted, and the rims painted silver with the red centers. I also need to do something with the primer on the engine. I cant leave it like that so that will be painted silver again too.
2) or I'll fix the new hood and then bed-line everything black, and then top coat over that the red and silver again.
The second option is definitely much more work (and money $$) and it would ruin the patina look I kinda got going on right now; but I feel it would look sweet; but I am also really super partial to the old look that I have right now so I'm kinda torn between the two. Any help... well, would be helpful.
Onto performance of it, I rebuilt the heavy duty Ross steering column, so it is nice and tight and I'm ordering new tie rod ends tonight. But even with the old ones there's very little play. When I got it the play was so bad you could turn the steering wheel 1/3 of a turn before the wheels would move. Clutching; works fairly well, when you shift it into gear from neutral you really have to push the pedal down far or else it will grind a bit which is just an adjustment issue. But once rolling, shifting between gears it doesn't grind at all. The belt slips a little bit though but that is an issue with my vari-drive which will be eliminated soon for much easier pulley swaps. If anyone has eliminated a Vari-drive system or can help with ideas for building a regular belt clutch system that would be appreciated. I do have access to a welder but I don't really want to chop up the frame if I don't have to. Other than the minor belt slippage, she's a beast. Throttle response is amazing, First gear is slow enough for rock crawling, and 4th is fast enough to break the tires loose. And she's pretty fast for a tractor in stock form. 10 mph on 26's.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll be taking it over to my friend's house to test her out in the mud, fix my hood, and weld more tube work onto the stinger bar. Also maybe start an exoskeleton and start looking at the clutch. I'll post some pics if anything happens.
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So I took it over to my buddy's house and got to test it out. Tires grip beautifully, BUT my belt slips worse than I expected especially with the addition of water. Although, even with my belt slipping terribly, I never got it stuck once. Just had to put it in a low gear and crawl out of the mud. So today I'll get the fender plate off and get pics of my clutch set up right now and maybe you guys can help me figure out a good way to convert it to a regular belt clutch. Also my spare hood is being welded today and I'll get it back from him this coming Wednesday. Lights and paint will follow soon after.
I also got to use the winch more today. Once was pulling out my friend's 1977 Sears 18/6 since he got stuck every single time and then when I got home we used it to put tension on a tree when cutting it down. Still have yet to drain my batteries with it.
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Here's some pics of the belt drive system. I think I know how to get rid of the varidrive and convert it to a normal belt drive system. I'm just going to remove all the variator linkages, put a double stack V-belt idler pulley on the 3/4" mid shaft in place of the variable drive sheave, and a regular pulley on the front and back. Think I'm going to go with 4" front, 4" mid, and 4" rear for now for a 1:1 belt ratio. I'll adjust pulley size from there as I see fit.
I also need to weld up the tensioner linkages in several spots and redrill the holes to get rid of all the slop, and combined with a heavier spring I think I should have no belt slippage. The clutch will still disengage the belts like it did before, just no variator will be there.
Let me know if you think this will work before I buy anything. And I will need to find a double stack pulley with identical size belt grooves, that has bearings for a 3/4" shaft, and the entire pulley needs to be about 3.5" long. 4" diameter. If I can't find one (no luck so far) I'm thinking I'll have to weld two idlers together and balance them. Not really looking forward to that. So please let me know if you know of anywhere where I could find something like that.
Thanks
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Interesting how the belts are run outside the frame like that. Gives some more room to change things around. Good luck making the deadline.
Thanks! Yeah so far I was able to add a spacer to my tensioner to stop the belt slippage and I didn't have to use any tools to get to it. So that's kinda nice.
RevDogg wrote:
You'll get it done. Lookin' good so far! Keep at it!
Thanks! I hope to finish everything on my checklist by the deadline. If not I'll submit what I have but I want to get it as good as I can get it.
So today I didn't get much done but I ordered my new decals, and then mounted up my new seat and my 12" light bar. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make it to the TSC to pick up my last tail light and I'll also be getting my hood back from being welded so I'll mount up the rest of my lights and build the wiring for it. Besides decals I'm just waiting on my new reproduction hood bezel to be shipped. Will be prepping the parts tomorrow for paint and hopefully will start spraying paint by Friday.
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Let there be light!! Got my two 35w halogen headlights mounted in my new hood and wired up along with my 12" light bar. Tomorrow I will finish up the wiring back to my tail lights and will hopefully get the last tail light soon. TSC only stocks one at a time and they take forever to restock them. Might have to order it to the store. My decals and hood bezel STILL haven't arrived but they SHOULD be here by Monday at the latest. Well that's all for this update. Well other than me getting a set of jumper cables to keep in the tool box, and some of the PVC for my snorkel.
EDIT: moderators: if someone can rotate the image the correct way that would be great. I have no idea why it kept ending up upside down. I tried uploading it the correct way and upside down but it always ends up like this. Thanks.
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Despite the harsh cold 45 degrees out today (felt like 30 with the wind lol) I managed to get my lights wired up. I have a 3 position rotary switch along with a two position toggle switch. The first position on the rotary switch is off. The second switches power to the regular head lights (low beams) and the tail lights. The third position switches power to the light bar (medium beams) and the tail lights. Then I added the toggle switch so I can switch the regular head lights on while the switch is in the 3rd position so I have all of the lights on, for my high beams.
After getting the lights hooked up, I went to look up the recommended points gap for the Kirk Engines Points Saver ignition system and discovered that my ignition system is now "obsolete"... Lol. They're coming out with a brand new system to replace it so I will upgrade to that when it comes out just to see how it is. Story aside tho, I got my points adjusted and the carb retuned... Yet again... And it's running beautifully. After getting it running great again, I started to strip the paint off my hood. I'm really gonna have to rush to get this all done.
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Yeah they'll shine a good quarter mile in an open field. Pretty good too for a $45 light bar.
Well my hood bezel finally arrived. I'll admit I was expecting too much, so I wasn't too pleased with it at first, but now I'm much more happy with it after thinking about how much time the guy spent to make it as good as it is. Especially for being completely hand made.
So my decals should be here tomorrow and I will be continuing to strip the paint off. I get off school on Wednesday so I hope to have it painted by Friday; the final bugs worked out on Saturday, and then going on a nice hard romp on Sunday to get a good video and some pics for the end of the build off. Now to post videos do I need to upload them to YouTube or can I just upload them like pics?
Lookin good!! The stance with how you did the tires and raising the back pan worked out great.
Thanks! I myself am really happy with how the stance turned out. The only thing that is a little annoying about how wide it sets is the fenders only cover about 3 inches of the 12 inches of tire tread. So the other 9 inches are left slinging mud all over me. Tho I like how it looks too much to try to make fender flares but maybe sometime in the future.
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Well I've been working from 9:00 am to 11:00 pm the past few days to get this finished. I got everything to be painted sanded down to bare metal, primered, and painted. All four rims got painted two-tone silver with red centers. Tomorrow morning all that is left to do is respray my hood, put on my decals, put it back together, and load it up to take it to my buddies house to make a new tensioner arm, and test it out and get a good video and some pics in the mud pit.
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'We're here at the MasonMcK garage where the team has been working around the clock to get the massey mule finished in time for the closing of the 2015 ATLTF build-off. The word is that they will be ready for a test run by late tomorrow and should have no issue in making the deadline, which as we know is fast aproaching. There's has been some debate as to the exact cut off point for turning in your final pictures and videos, but as far as we know, this should be midnight monday night."
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Well guys, due to some climate-inflicted paint issues, I will not be able to take it for a video-ed test run today. However I have the hood repainted, and the rest of the tractor back together. Tomorrow afternoon I will get the hood installed, decals applied, and get a good video of it rock crawling on things around my house. Maybe next weekend after the paint has fully cured I will take it thru some deep mud but the paint has turned out too nice to mess it up while it is still hardening.
And as you can see I kinda like Corvettes... lol.
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Age : 29 Join date : 2010-05-12 Points : 6138 Posts : 899 Location : PA pittsburgh and pymatuning
Chassis: Year: 1967 Make: Massey Ferguson Model: MF-10 Rear tires: 26x12.00-12 Kenda Executioner 6 ply; 12x7” rims Front tires: 18x8-8 Rhox Rxal; 8x5.5” rims Transmission make/model: Peerless 2300 series 4 speed + reverse Brakes: 4-1/6” drum w/ brake band (Modified engagement arm for more leverage) Clutch: Modified clutch-brake linkage for shifting on the fly without brake engagement Belt tensioner: Redesigned tensioner arm w/high load spring for eliminated belt slippage in water Front engine pulley: 4” diameter v-belt Rear transmission pulley: 5” diameter v-belt Top speed: 16 mph in 4th gear, varidrive position 5, at 4500 rpm
Engine: Make: Tecumseh Model: HH100 Bore: 3.500” (Bored for STD size HH120 piston) Stroke: 2.875” (HH120 crank) Intake and exhaust mods: Ported & polished, 3 degree valve job, double wound valve springs Cam: Custom welded & reground high speed torque cam Cylinder head: Milled .080”, then valve pockets cut Piston: Diamond with coating Rod: Forged Aluminum Alcoa long rod for .020” piston pop-out Block: Bottom of cylinder clearanced for longer rod and longer stroke Exhaust: Side exit straight pipe exiting under right hand floor board Intake: Snorkel w/ K&N filter element Misc mods: Performance built carburetor, modified breather, grade 8 head bolts, Magneto to transistorized battery igniton conversion, Bosch Blue high performance ignition coil, Kirk-Engine’s Points saver, precision spin balanced internals. EST hp is 21 hp on 93 octane @ 4500 rpm
Winch: Brand: Traveler Size: 2500LB rating
Electrical system: Charging: 17 amp starter/generator; charges @ 16 volts Batteries: Dual, Huskee 320 CCA each batteries, wired in parallel Headlights: Hi/Med/Low beams Taillights: Four round taillights arranged Corvette style Misc info: All brand new hand built wiring enclosed in looms, all brand new electrical components, push start button, winch controller mounted on implement lift lever
Total hours invested: Too many to count. (Prep work & painting alone took 42 hours)
Total amount of money invested since purchased: $3200
Worth it? Every second and every cent of it
More information & specs can be provided upon request.
Here's some pics and a short video (can't upload longer videos due to data cap) of me driving it to show it's functionality:
This build is now complete... well for the purposes of the build off that is...
Last edited by MasonMcK on November 30th 2015, 9:38 pm; edited 2 times in total
MasonMcK Member
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