KAL the Extended Journey.

So..... I have something I need to correct between now and Haspin.  Kal is not happy now.  Not sure If I bent something or what trying to pull the van out.  I will need to inspect things better on a sunny day.  I put a new belt on Kal and it shredded it right away.  Upon observation, it is rubbing the crossmember for the foot board.  Not sure why it is doing this all the sudden.  Nothing looks bent, but then again, it seems like the transaxle is now bent down in the front a bit. Like I said, I need to check things out in the day.  Make sure that I have not bent something.  If I have not, I can correct with a larger idler pulley.  Not sure where I can get a larger. If not, I may have to tweak and modify that brace for the belt to go around it.  I can tell you this, I really hate to change that belt.  Not the most friendly design Murray came up with.

OK, good news.  Nothing in the drive line bent or messed up.  Upon further investigation it appears the foot brace  has buckled a bit under my weight.  I have some heavier angle iron so I see myself upgrading that to be a bit heavier duty.

Below is the circled bent piece

Well at least it's not as bad as it first seemed, that's definitely good. Time to break out the angle steel! Haha.

Got the foot brace off last night that is rubbing the belt.  When straight, it only has about a half inch clearance it seemed.  After the bend it was always rubbing.  It appears to be bent up about 3/4 of an inch at the worst point.  



Side closest to me is the top.  The part with the round rod near my hand is the gap the belt goes through.  That should be even with angle iron I have on the back of Kal. I'll need to brace that up.  There appears to be 2 different bends in that brace.

Remade the rear foot brace.  It's a good 10x stronger now.  Dropped the low side so there should not be any hitting of the belt.

Reinstalled the foot brace, works great!  Much sturdier than before and now it is about 2 inches from the belt.  Need to get a new belt again and try again.

Gonna give the blue TSC belts another try?

I have had much better luck with Gates green belts, called power rated or something like that, similar price, I usually order them from amazon. Also Im trying out there new series called Blade Runner, but they are kinda funny lengths, like 91 1/8. they are there series to cover factory replacement sizes so they make em in all different lengths, I just went to there website and found the online catalog and found a size that would work for me and ordered the part number

I've never been able to find a good belt either, may have to try those green ones.

Looking good Mighty!

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHHH....


OK, going to do the same thing or something for the front brace as well.  Belt changes are HORRIBLE!  Just spent 20 minutes removing the chewed belt.  Should have just cut it off, but I still need to take 20 minutes to get a new one on.

I thought about turning it up on it's side might be easier to change the belt.  That is a no go, monolink keeps the front tires on the ground even half way over.  

Belt is on and Kal it ready to go. I finally got my high speed slam on the brake test. Kal locks up hard. It should be hill ready.

Nice!  Stock drum brakes right?  The drum brakes on my 2300 lock up great too.

Stock DISK brake on mine.

Ooh thats neat, didn't know they came like that.

Huge brake pads for it too. Like 3 inches long.

@MightyRaze wrote:

Operation butt-saver complete.

OK, I have been running these 2 springs now for a few months.... I do not like them at all.  They really do not supply any more cushion to the posterior and, they make the ride height uncomfortable.  Dare I say it... I will remove them this week.

Cool I get that, I hate sitting up tall on a tractor and if you dont feel like they are gonna help ya Id pull em, thats the thing about seat springs they dont have different springs for different people and a 120 lb tiny guy and a 250 lb guy are obviously gonna need a different spring. one of my goals for a future tractor is a air ride seat, I even happened into a Mack air ride seat frame, just need to figure out how to make it more compact so it doesnt stick out like a sore thumb

Finally getting the oil changed so it will be Haspin ready.

Well Haspin is now in the past, Kal was the only tractor I rode as I did not think Red would handle the stress.

Kal did beautifully.  I hit some pretty good mud holes and some deep ruts with NO issues.  I did see 3 opportunities for improvement for Kal.  After a day and a half, I went ahead and retired Kal.

Issue #1:  I need some kind of bracing around the transaxle mounts to the frame.  The frame had some flex that allowed a stretching belt to be thrown when I put the tractor in reverse.

Issue #2:  I need to upgrade the belt to a 5/8 belt to help with stretching under load.  To do so, I need to change out the clutch pulleys and an idler to a wider pulley.

Issue #3:  I need a LARGER pulley on the transaxle.  The one I have while gives me some good speed as @redzz02 seemed surprised to see, it was a bit of a hindrance on the trail.  2nd Gear was WAY too low and 3rd was way to fast.  I found myself doing a LOT of shifting.  I only ever used 4th gear twice.  First time was on our way out of the trail when I ran down @redzz02 and the second time was on the motocross track.  That is where I think I stretched my belt.

There ya have it.  Once I get some of my other projects done, I will look into fixing these issues.  The monolink worked out great. No issues.

Glad to hear she did well at Haspin. Belt twists are a pain, especially when they're pulley swapped. Found that out the other day. I think only having 4 speeds is the one weak spot in the 2300s. Sometimes 4 just isn't a wide enough selection.

I'm sure you'll have this all figured out soon enough Mighty. Although I think your buildoff rig should take priority for now

Good to hear she handled the harsh terrain, the damage toll isn't too bad! Now you can hammer out the small issues you found and ol' Kal will be good to go!

Haspin definitely makes a good durability test, hope to see you again next year!

I made my own 5/8 wide pulley for the transaxle on my vari drive setup. Just hammered my breaker bar into the V groove on a piece of wood. Belt never fell off yet. As far as slipping, been pulling cars/vans/trucks, tree branches, and logs with it with no slippage. I would loose traction first before anything.

I might could get away with that on the clutch pulleys... Not so sure of the one Idler I added.  Although.... I will be going back to a bigger pulley, so that idler will no longer be needed.

I just realized yesterday that I did bend the front spindle a bit too.  Nothing a little heat and a gusset couldn't fix.  

Did a prewash rinse of the haspin dirt.... found that 2 of my front end bolts had come loose, but did not loose the nut. Thank goodness for nylock nuts. Just need to tighten those bad boys back up. Still pretty impressed with how Kal did for my first real tweaked rig with suspension. I did find out it is a mudder but, as for severe up and down trails, it starts to be limited. Still not bad!