MUT: Murray Utility Tractor

Tried the #40 double roller chain on the front tires but not enough to do both. So I made a single link chain instead:



We’ll see if that helps next snowfall. The chain is just short enough to be installed when the tire is flat. Once inflated, the chain is locked in postion. Hopefully it digs in enough to give lateral grip when turning in snow/icy conditions, or when plowing with the blade on an angle.

Also wired up the rear marker lights:



Certainly good enough for people to see me in the dark.

Today I’m going to look at wiring up the reverse lights (switch on the linkage) and look at wiring up a neutral indicator light.  Them possibly getting a start on the cockpit control lighting (diffused output green leds)...

Litle bit of work done today.

Welded a new end on the steering shaft:



The eye end is actually quite large for that purpose. It’s a leftover from building panhard bars. It’s so large, the steering rod fit into the welding end.  Doesn’t really matter, its solid as a rock now. No worn ball/socket joint popping off under load or at the worst time anymore! I didnt do the end up at the steering gear. That end is still factory tight and I’m not completely sure there’s enough room to put one of these really big eye ends in there. We’ll see how it goes after I run this setup for a while and then change it if needed.

Fabbed up the reverse light switch and wiring:



Ah, thats better! No more backing up in to dark spots anymore. Theres another led on the other side as well. It’s not super bright behind the tractor, but more than enough illumination for backing up.

Probably knock it off for the rest of the night and enjoy the long weekend. I’ll likely fab up the neutral indicator light tommoroww.
Maybe even look at installing the instrument/cockpit lighting tomorrow. That’s going to be a much more tedious project to do. Lots of little wires, lots of tiny holes to drill...

Thought I’d knock out a quickie before stopping for the night.

I’ve been wanting to paint the shrouds for a while now. So I pulled the top shroud off to get it ready for paint.

Some A-hole PO had cut up the shroud over the starter. Looked like a pair of snips and a s-tty cut and tear job:



You can just see it if you look in the upper LH corner of that photo. The starter was pretty much toast when I got the tractor, so no doubt it was some kind of “hillbilly fix” that really just ended up eff-ing up the shroud. It’s down under the bodywork, so you could have left it like that I guess.

Problem is it would bug the living bejesus out of me knowing it was there and theres also a loss of engine/starter cooling as the engine fan air is no longer directed down over that area.

So after a little cutting, a little welding and a little grinding:



Muuuuuuch better! Still not my best work, but it will do for a lawn tractor. Still have some work to do on it, but it should work out nicely.

A little more grinding, then a quick sanding followed by a shot of semigloss black rust paint and it should be good to go!

I saved the engine decals, but the Rh decal is pretty chewed up after years of careless owners working on it. I’ll have to think about it for a while to decide what to do about those. I want to put the B&S decals back on,  but not chewed up old ones....

What the heck, decided to finish up the shroud before calling it a day:




It’s not perfect, but more than good enuff for the MUT. I’ll let it dry over night and put the MUT back together in the morning.

Shroud looks good!

Somewhere in the past, the MUT had taken a hard hit in both the nose and the RH side. There was a large dent in the nose, mostly hidden by the sticker. The RH side had been hit so hard the body was bent in, the hood and headlight didn’t line up on the body and everything was just generally bent out of whack.

The side hit is probably also where the headlight lens got busted into a couple pieces. I’ve since goued them back together, but you can tell it was one hell of a hit. The damage was pretty extensive, considering this is a lawn tractor and shouldn’t have been exposed to that tyoe of impact in it’s intended use as a lawn mower.

I’ve been slowly working it back in to shape when I pull the bodywork off to work on something and another round with the hammers and dollies today have it pretty close to orginal:





Not bad at all! A little more metal bumping and it should be ready for final body fill touchup and then paint prep. You can see the orginal paint where I pulled the nose sticker off. It’s actually really close to the Tremclad “Fire Red” I’m using to respray the whole tractor, so that’s pretty cool. I always lean towards “originality” when working on stuff. The MUT may be far from “original”, but that doesnt mean it can’t mostly look like it could have been original....



I’m also considering pulling out those sloppy pop rivets and spot welding the sides and front together at the top instead of it flexing and moving about at that joint. I can’t figure out why they used those pop rivets, since the lower parts of both side panels are welded to the front panel. It just makes everything feel cheap and nothing every lines up properly because it “squirms around” all the time. Just cheap construction processes  I guess...welcome to the church of the almighty dollar.....

Kept going with the metal work today.

Now that the shifter is moved, i figured I’d start using that extra space. I filled in the shifter slot/hole and started making a storage compartment:



Part of the space will be for the GM “reel light” I’ve been wanting to install:





I’ll fab up a lid for the compartment as well. Haven’t decided if it will be removabke or hinged. I’m leaning towards removable (with a tether) since a hinged door would limit access in that small space between seat and steering column.

The opening on the rear portion will be for access to an onboard compressor:



Thats a 12v continuous duty compressor from an RV air suspension. It will be “tankless”, unless I can find a small enough tank to sneak it on the MUT somewhere. Demands for air are minimal on the MUT anyways. It will mostly be for airing up things around the yard, if I need too.

This is as far as I got today:



Ran out of welding wire. I’ll have to pick up another spool tomorrow and then I can finish up.

I’m sort half thinking hinging it now. Probably hinge at the rear and the door will swing up and back towards the seat....

Sweet! This thing will be able to do anything when you're done!

Picked up something today I’ve been wanting/needing for a loooong time:



Motorcycle lift table. Air over hydraulic. Rated 1000lbs. Normally $699 CAD, on sale for $469 this week. I was also given a $200 parting gift from my mess when I retired, so it was really only $269 for me.

I’ve needed one for a while now for working on my bikes. My body is busted up enough that I really suffer when working close to (or on) the floor.

It’s just a little too narrow for the tractor (tires hang 50-75% over the edges), but I’m going to add 10” extentions to each side. That will make it just right for the MUT and much easier to get bikes on it (gives me a place to plant my feet).

The wings are going to be some loading ramps I bought at the same place ($40 on sale). Then I picked up the steel to attach them and make them removable. While I was there, I grabbed some 1x2” tube so I can make a proper wheel chock/clamp for it. The one that comes with the table I don’t think I would trust to hold much more than a bicycle.

My back is envious of your table.  I have always wanted one, air or hydraulic.  I hate bending over to work on something that could be lifted.

MightyRaze wrote:

My back is envious of your table.  I have always wanted one, air or hydraulic.  I hate bending over to work on something that could be lifted.

There are other modifications I want to do to it.

I don’t like the mechanical locking mechanism they use. It’s just a bar shoved through two of the upright legs. I’m going to build a ladder style stop system to hold it at multiple heights.

The base also seems too narrow and short for my liking. I need to build some “outriggers” with screw down feet to add more stability to it.

There’s probably more that I’ll change as I use it and find more of it’s shortcomings...

Jealous!! No more hurting backs! I need 1 so badly LOL

here is a pic of my lift. it's not air over but manual lift, from Harbor Frieght, i added 2x6s on each side and it works great. and not a bad price at 299 as i recall.

i also have a Tractor i call Mut (Multi use tractor) as well !

Well, it will hold a 560lb bike at least:



Definitely needs some work as delivered, but when I'm done it will be good and functional.

So the MUT has been doing a lot of snow plowing duty lately.

While the MUT has be handling it pretty good, I'm not doing quite as well. Being so broken up, I'm having some issues with reversing back down the driveway to make the next pass. Specifically, the rotation of torso and neck to look behind. Driving back down to make another pass just means multiple point turns next to the house to line up again, so that's not really much of an alternative.

So I need a way to minimize how much/often I have to twist my body around to look behind when backing up.

I could use mirrors, but that's going to look kind of.....errr....."stupid"....and it's not going to help when I have to see the rear weights when getting close to the house. That's the worst part of the process, with rotating torso and neck as well as having to bend backwards to look down.

To me, the solution seems to be a back up camera. Something I can keep looking forward and still see behind.

Luckily, I have a "license plate" style camera somewhere in my pile of assorted bits and a couple small monitors. Camera looks like this:



I have a couple 7" touchscreens and a smaller 4.3" rear monitor style one. 4.3 looks like this:



All this stuff is just gathering dust, so using it makes sense to me.

The camera I think I will mount up on the ROPS cross bar and have it looking down and back.It's mean to be mounted outside, so it's weatherproofed already.

The monitor might be a different issue. I don't want it just sticking up on the top of the dash. Too exposed to the elements there. Not to mention; it will also look kind of "janky".

I'm thinking of putting in down in the middle of the instrument column. There's already an access panel there (that serves no real purpose other than to make a "bend line" to stiffen that flat section of sheet metal) that would make a good spot to mount a monitor. You can see it in this pic:



A simple sheet metal box to replace the panel with a hinge mount section would allow me to swing the monitor out and see it when needed, but tilt it back in for protection from weather and such. Viewing it in that location would be easy also, I'd just have to look down instead of all that twisting and bending. If nothing else, I would only have to twist around to make sure I don't hit the house instead of being twisted up the whole way back down the driveway.

I'm working on a 17" wheel install for my FJ1200 right now, but I may see if I can find a bit of time today to dig out the assorted bits see if it will work out like I think it will....

I haven’t done much of anything to The MUT over the summer other than rebuild the bucket dump latch. It’s been too busy “earning it’s keep” to mess with it.

But, winter is coming and I’m out of space in both garages (corvette, fox mustang, f-150, wife’s van, fj1200, Venture 1200 and all kinds of lawn/yard equipment) so The MUT is going to have to sit outside with the snow plow on it.

But I have no desire to deal with it covered with snow and such. I just want to jump on, hit the starter and clear the driveway. So, I need a cab for it.

Anything you can purchase is universal fit and crazy expensive. Not to mention, most of them are not much more than a cheap conduit frame with a clear plastic bag hanging on it.

Yeah, I can do better than that. Both in function and price.

So I picked up a bunch of steel bits from the fall cleanup stuff. Someone put an old weight bench out and that provided plenty of square tube.

Now, windows. What to do for windows? I priced out some plexiglass and it was all a hundred bucks (and up) for even the stupid thin stuff. That just won’t do. Too expensive to do the whole cab in plexi, not to mention, it will be scratched and beat to crap before even the first winter is done. I needed to cover at least some of the cab in a more “budget friendly” material.

I knew I wanted at least the front to be glass. I wanted to be able to use a manual wiper and a heater on it (not to mention I will likely have to scrape snow, frost and ice off it) and plexiglass just wasn’t going to cut the mustard. But glass is super expensive and hard to cut to shape (at least easily). Hmmm, what to do?

There’s a guy down the road who sells old windows and doors, so I stopped in for a quick scrounge. 25 bucks later I’m headed home with two 36” screen doors and a couple big single pane window pieces.

I get the frame built and start working on the glass for the frame. After a couple frustrating sessions of trying to cut glass, I chuck the whole broken and cracked mess into the garbage and turn my attention to the aluminum screen doors.

Well, the glass is tempered in the screen doors (missed the label when I bought them) so theres no cutting that. Luckily, the window is just about right for the cab frame. Only thing I have to change is the frame needs to be square bottom to top instead of the taper from bottom to the top I had in it originally. Heres a couple pics of the progress so far:





Nice and roomy and visibility is great! As an added bonus, the tempered glass will shatter into thousands of little “safety cubes” should it ever be broken. And if it does break, a new window is no further than another used screen door away. I built it so the window can be slid straight up and out of the frame. The space at the top I will either fill with a canvas of screen material. As an added bonus, since I used the sliding window and it’s channels, I can lift the window and hold the bottom open (just like in a normal screen door) to allow some airflow/ventilation if/when I need it.

Next up is to make the doors. The aluminum screen doors are providing the material to make the door frames, the latches and the hinges. The doors I’ll have no choice but to spend a couple hundred bucks on plexiglass. No way in heck I’m going to get glass to work in the odd shape the doors need to be. Or at least, theres no way I’m going to be able to cut and attach it. Plexi in the doors makes a lot of sense from a safety point of view as well. If a glass door breaks (opening, closing, tractor tips, etc) it’s going to be a horrible, sharp mess. At least plexi won’t break with a reasonabke amount of hard use.

The rear will get another pane of the tempered glass, leaning out from bottom to top so I can lean back and look behind as I plow or when reversing.

The roof will just be plywood, cut to fit and covered with an aluminum skin (more “salvage” from the screen doors).

The spaces that are left (like where the frame goes around the hood and down the sides) will get clear flexible plastic to help seal up the cab a bit better.

The cab is not going to be “air-tight”, nor is it designed to. It will be “weather tight”,  but air will be allowed to escape in order to deal with fogging up. All the cab is designed to do is keep the weaher out of the “cockpit” area and make it more comfortable to plow in cold/windy weather...and keep the snow out of my face.

Coming along nicely, watch this space for more...

Good to see more work being done on this tractor.

Nice job on the cab so far, looking forward to seeing more progress!

Wow... been a while.  Really like this build.  Cab looks to be coming along nicely!

Rear window mounted:




Coming along nicely.

The back window is “leaned out” to give me some back-of-the-head clearance while sitting and to allow me to lean back enough to look down and see the hitch and suitcase weights.

Tomorrow, I’ll start on the side door frames. I’m considering just using some flexible clear plastic sheet to panel in the doors. Waaaaay less expensive than plexiglass and easy to work with. Or I may just put it on for now and buy the plexi next year for the doors, to help spread some of the cost out. Clear sheet plastic will do just fine to keep the wind and weather off me, it just won’t look as “professional” as plexi or glass...

Just workin' on the doors:





Turns out 1 screen door has more aluminum extrusions than I actually need! That was a nice surprise as I thought I'd have to add some Al to make up some spots.

My welds just plain SUCK!

I wish I had a TIG welder, but that won't be in the "buying range" of my savings until the end of Nov. So I have to make do with a spool gun on my Lincoln.

Problem is, the extrusions are so thin, the MIG just blows right through it. So I have to keep turning it down to try and weld without blowing it out but I keep loosing penetration as I turn the amps down or the wire feed piles up on the surfaces. The problem is the MIG just isn't the right tool for this job. A TIG can go very low on amps and still penetrate the aluminum (as long as it's an AC TIG and not a straight DC), but since you feed a filler rod rather than it being one of the electrodes, you can linger the arc in a spot as long as you want or move it off as fast as you need to.

But I'll have to make do until I get the TIG here. Once I've got my TIG, I'll probably pull the doors back off and redo the welds. With a TIG, I can just remelt the weld areas and add enough filler rod so I don't just blow right through.

There we go. One door, nearly complete:




The plexiglass isn’t hazy, I still have the protective film on it. All thats left to do is the latch and cut a pice of plexi for the bottom panel.

I’ll have to add some sort of opening “stop” so the wind won’t be able to rip the door off when it’s opened. I’ll probably just use a small bungee at the top frame to keep the door from swinging open more than 90 degrees.

Now; time to start the other side.

Total investment so far? Just a hair under 400 bucks. Thats all the steel, aluminum, glass and some plywood to make the roof. Not bad, not bad at all...

Looks great!

Door #2:




Not too bad for something that ised to be a junked screen door!

Now to finish up the other openings, give it a coat of red paint (or black, haven't decided) and we’re ready for snow!