Husqvarna LT 130 MUD mower

Not a bad idea mighty but there would still be a mounting plate sticking out the front of the bumper.

A little more work on the front today, slowly getting there but christmas is getting in the way. I am going to move the front axle froward 6 inches to give me room for the coil towers when the time comes and also so one of the tensioner springs isn't in the way. I needed to re strengthen the cut out from where the old axle was so I am going to use some angle and put a plate on the inside and weld it all up solid. then I need to make a slot and slide the axle setup in and weld it all together. After that I will worry about the links, the steering and the coilovers. for now it looks fine and its pretty solid. What weight rating should I get for the coilovers?

Interesting front axle design. I should really follow this build more. As for the coilovers maybe 400lbs? Just kinda spitballin.

Thanks rich. Ya im kinda going my own way on the front axle. You think 400lbs? don't you think thats too much? dont you want it to be the weight of the front of your mower?

I'm not sure really, haven't done suspension before. You definitely want them to be stiffer than the weight of your mower. If you get ones just the same toughness as the weight of your mower, they'll hold it up, but as soon as you land a jump they'll compress to the bottom. Just my thinking though, I've never messed with this before.

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

I'm not sure really, haven't done suspension before. You definitely want them to be stiffer than the weight of your mower. If you get ones just the same toughness as the weight of your mower, they'll hold it up, but as soon as you land a jump they'll compress to the bottom. Just my thinking though, I've never messed with this before

Your logic makes sense but you do want them to compress when you go over a bump or take a jump.

Good place to start would be to weigh the front. Keep in mind weighing the front of the mower is not the total weight of the mower. So weighing the front, you want one coil spring to hold up the whole front. So, say your front weighs 250 lbs total and the back weighs 150 lbs. Total weight is 400 lbs with the rider (don't forget the rider when weighing).  So you got the weight distribution now. Back to the front, you need a coil that will compress completely under 250 lbs. You want it to compress completely or the suspension to compress completely, these 2 could be different but choose the least amount of movement. The idea is when at full extension the coil is at full extension with no looseness for it to fall out, and at full compression is supporting the full weight of the front. Now with the rider on and sitting still, the suspension should be somewhere in the middle of it travel, maybe at the top quarter of it's movement or in the middle of it's movement, but top quarter would be favorable. This setup would be a good place to start. I can't give anything specific because each mower is different in weight, But are guidelines to finding where to begin.

When selecting coil springs, look at the numbers and calculate. I think when you look at the numbers, the spring rate is how much it will compress 1 inch, not total compression, these are 2 different numbers. Example- a spring with a compression rate of 100 lbs, would be that it takes 100 lbs to compress the spring 1 inch. That same spring will compress 4 inches total, which will take 400 lbs to compress completely, and would be too stiff for the mower example above. The spring needed for above mower would be a spring with a rate of 62.5, which means the spring would need 62.5 lbs to compress 1 inch and to completely compress the 4 inches would need 250 lbs.

I believe if you are putting suspension on something, it should flex the whole movement. So with this in mind, the theory of one spring flexing the whole movement and tapping the stop would be a situation of crawling up onto something and one front wheel is holding up the mower and the other wheel dangling, type of situation.

Next would be personal preference of how stiff or total movement you want the suspension to move under loads. If you like stiff or little movement, then a higher spring rate would be needed, example- a 80 lbs spring rate might be ideal for the rider on above mower. It would take a total of 320 lbs to compress the suspension 4 inches but would not compress completely if one wheel was on an obstacle and the other wheel dangling. The suspension would compress around 3.2 inches. Riding characteristics would be stiffer hitting little bumps while riding. And location on axle matters and slanting the coil spring while mounted matters too, since leverage influences the spring rate some and is calculated by ratio's so keep the coil spring as close to the wheel and straight up as possible so this has little to no influence.

Anyways, you get the idea on what to do. Plus setup would also be limited by what kind of coil spring you can buy or get also. Plus any coil spring setup, the movement would can be quick, meaning bouncy, if you don't like bouncy then a shock is needed to prevent this.

Thanks Prancstaman! ill definitely keep what you said in mind when it actually comes the time to make it. First I will put the rest of it together.
Merry christmas!

Merry Christmas

If you are following my craftsman build you would know that I did a carb swap. I think both of the carbs are fine but it was more of just a test for the craftsman. Now i'm thinking I want to put a 27MM dirt bike carb on it. You can find them for as cheap as 15 bucks on Ebay. Do they work? Has anyone here ever tried them? honestly I don't care a single bit if its a knockoff as long as it functions decent.

Here Allis and a few others that could be interested. Firstly I want to beg my pard for the pictures taken on a genuine organic potato, but today I am welding in place the base of the new front axle. Yeah it flexes, yeah its sketchy and yeah I cant wait to try it but I need to wait till I put the links/traction bars, the coilovers and the modified steering rods back in.

BMP for the neck twisting upside down pictures too. You needed a neck stretch anyways!

Looks pretty stout. Do you think that pivot setup is gonna wear out because of the metal on metal contact though? That happened to my axle locator on the MTD, which is why I switched over to a track bar. Looking back the locator wasn't the best idea hahaha.

yeah it might wear a bit over time. I will see how it goes overtime, if it becomes really bad i will pop the axle out and slip a few bushings in. I think its fine for now maybe ill just throw some grease on it.

Yeah, all you can do is wait and see. Might not be too bad.

Just wanted to keep this topic alive so sorry repeat myself but this kinda concerns both of the topics.
Ok so this weekend I am doing the motor swap on the build off and mud mower. I know it may seem like a downgrade for the racer but I think the LT130 deserves the torque. I also want to try to fit the hood of the old sears craftsman so the 13HP might work because it is narrower. It should be a fairly easy swap because they are both Briggs and they have the exact same frame so the bolt holes should line up perfectly.

Engine swap is complete just need to figure out the electrical on the mud mower but I pulled the carb off today to clean it and its gonna need real good clean and I will order this carb rebuild kit because all of the gaskets got ruined.

Engine swap lookin fresh carb is gonna need a rebuild so it will give me some time to work on the suspension. Picked these coil overs off a bike at the scrapyard for $5 and I think that the weight rating should be decent if they are off of the back of a motorcycle. Now I need to make the towers and hope that they clear the carb.

Just had to do a little bit of a front axle widening. The coil overs weren't gonna fit otherwise. Now they should since I added 1.5 inches on either side. It might not be as strong anymore but I can always reinforce it. Now all i have to do is pick up my tires at school, Make the towers, wait for a carb rebuild kit and heim joints to come in the mail and at some point I want to make a double pulley clutch.

Is it still going to have that pivot bolt? Seems like you went out of your way to put a pivot hole on it.

If your welds are good (they look good to me), I don't see how it would weaken it.

Yeah the pivot will remain. I'm not bad at welding either even though I did it quick so my teacher didn't see me lay down about 1lb of wire ...

Finally done the tower type thing. It bounces up and down a few inches for sure but I probably could have gone with a little less heavy duty coil overs. Oh well. I'm happy with it. I was going to reinforce the towers but it seems plenty sturdy for now. I had to trim the corners off of the axle holder just so it didn't catch but it looks even better now.

I have a question though. My hood no longer fits over the towers so what should I do?

Get out the sawzall and start notching the hood if you can. Biggasmowers had to notch out his murray hood for his shock towers. It came out looking really good.

Wait what??? The front axle pivots in the middle but the pivot can slide up and down in those mounts? Interesting,  can't wait to see how that handles and flexes . Yeah I had to notch or get ride of a bunch of hood material but I really liked how it turned out as I can snap the edge of the hood onto my towers and it locked the hood in place and I would just pull on one corner and it would snap off. ( doesn't do this anymore since I hit the tree , bent something)