Craftsman GT3000 "MUTT" Part II

Port job is definitely on the list, I’ve got a little die grinder bit on the way for it. If I’m lucky I might get some work done on her this weekend. I think the trans and brakes are definitely first in line though.

Found a funky piece of aluminum angle to mount my caliper. I drilled and tapped two new holes in the caliper frame with a regular spacing and less weird angle. Make mounting so much more simple.


The mount bolts on using the transaxle mount bolts.


Now to figure out if I’m using my old lever or a new brake and to do all that. It’s funny I’m putting these brakes on when I’m just about to pull the transaxle back out to put shift keys in.

I was lazy and stuck with the brake lever I had. Made two standoffs on my little lathe and just bolted the master cylinder down through them.


These brakes work great! I can lock up the wheels on just about any surface with a good pull on the lever. Best brakes I’ve had on this thing yet.

Somehow I got distracted and decided to redo the knuckle pivots in my front axle. Cut the outside of them off with a grinder and plunged the rest out on the Bridgeport. From there I bored it up until a 1-1/4” shaft just went though.




Now to bore and face the shafts. I do not have bushings at the moment so I’m just gonna ream it 5/8”. There’s plenty of room to bore for bushings later if these slop out.

Zap


If anyone is wondering why I didn’t add grease fittings like in my usual fashion, it’s because the bolts I have for pins already have them

It’s good to be back out






I got a chance to use my winch, pulling a tree out of the trail with the winch. Worked great, I had my bumper against a tree and it just about pulled me around it before the tree starting sliding.

Wow, been a while since I see you ride that clearing!

That powerline comes right over and off of my property, just a short trip up the road and up a steep side of a ditch and you're practically in it. Lots of good riding on either side of it. I don't think I have a contraption that I haven't taken back there.



Gotta get the new shift keys in the 820 so I can get started on building an oppy

Fired up mutt today to tune her up a bit for the Good Evening Ranch ride in WV. First thing she did was pour gas every which way out of the carb. The float was stuck due to the carb being cheap junk- the floats would stick on the rods or between the rod and the wall of the carb. Drill out the floats and bend the rods to fix the issue, and the floats would interfere with the float arm. I think I wound up grinding .05” off of each side of the float arm to resolve the issue. She seems to be running better than before, now.

I had a little LED volt meter in the dash but it died, so I finally installed the oil temp gauge I’ve always wanted in the hole where the volt meter was.


Little sending unit just plumbed into a drain hole.


I also changed the oil so the oppy has some fresh stuff to burn

Edit: apparently that pic uploaded sideways, sorry about that

Pro tip: To fix pics that do that first crop them, even taking off a tiny sliver fixes it 9 times out of 10!

As for the carb... trouble seems to find you pretty easily don't it!? Lol

Lol, it just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t have stuff break all the time. That’s my thing lol

Short update video

Now that you are back from GER, how did MUTT hold up?

Well for starters…my front axle bent. Hit too many jumps, lol.


And uhh, a LOT of stuff is bent. Most steering arms, the skid plate mount rod bent up, and a few other things. I smashed things on rocks a bunch of times, had it balanced on rocks underneath, slammed the skid plate, running boards, flattened my exhaust, etc. No actual breaks though!


Only modification I really had to make at the ride was to clearance the front axle mount, my steering would lock up with the axle fully articulated one way. That was an easy fix with Creepycrawler’s angle grinder.

So…things to work on…

-front axle, fix this one or make a new one. I would like one slightly narrower
-new front tires so I don’t have to do 32 point turns
-rebuild an oppy, this one smokes bad
-get shift keys in an 820
-find a 6 speed 820 gearset or else knock down my pulley swap for a more manageable second gear
-redo skidplate mounts
-double check how tight a bunch of bolts are, loctite steering connections
-look into a better steering box? This setup only has 1 and a half turns lock to lock
-brace tie rod arms. They seem to have bent into a better position and I’ll probably leave them there. Same with the arm for the drag link.
-make a better winch fairlead, get a round hook and snatch block for this winch rope

That’s all I have at the moment… I’m sure I’ll think of more things along the way.

Sounds like you had alot of fun! Lol

It was so cool seeing this build I followed forever kicking ass out on the trail, and Rich is one hell of a driver too! My only mod besides what you have already said would be some kinda indicator on your winch gear box so whoever is running your winch for you knows what gear it’s in, sorta like the factory does on most mowers

That’s a good idea. I actually sort of had the idea to make the shifter cable driven so I could shift it at the dashboard, but I’m not sure a mower throttle cable would be rigid enough lol.

You could use a pto cable, they are way thicker and heavy duty.

Actually creepycrawler recommended I use an automotive shift cable. I think I might go that route.

Washed! Lots of new scars to see from GER. I think there’s chunks missing from my aluminum front rims,  


I proceeded take a ride in the pasture and roll her off a fallen tree. She puked a bunch of oil through the PCV into the intake, lower cylinder was hydro locked when I tried to start her back up. Spat out a bunch of oil when I pulled the plug! Maybe a catch can wouldn’t be such a bad idea.


Fun carnage from GER! That 1/2” rod used to be straight.


Looks like my shifter seal works great!


Dropped the trans to replace shift keys and realized both of the mounts on the right side of the trans were loose. Looks like I’ll have to make some revisions on the stock mounts. I’m also thinking about bracing the input shaft while I’m in there.

I also have new front tires coming…through FedEx…so I’ll hopefully get those sometime…

Split the case on the 820


Shift keys looking grand!


Nice glitter!


I think i busted out the inside behind the front mount bolts at some point in time when I was trying to bottom tap the front mount holes for more thread engagement. Those pieces of case subsequently got ground up by the gears.


I discovered that the original 6 speed from mutt had a slower 3rd gear than the 5 speed does second gear. So even if I blew up the 2nd gear in the 6 speed (the biggest difference between a 5 and 6 speed), I could add 3rd gear out of the 6 speed in front of the 2nd gear in the 5 speed and have a slightly slower 2nd gear, making the old 2nd gear my new 3rd gear, and giving me 6 gears overall. I hope all that makes sense.


The new shift keys are in and everything and the gearset is awaiting the case to be cleaned so everything can be installed. When the trans is back together I will be doing some bracing, as well as reusing the old brake mount location as extra mounting bolts.

New tires just came! Should be a lot better than the old fronts.

This here is a 3D rendering of how Mutt would look if I mounted the new front tires. Crazy how far technology has come


New vs old tires. They’re supposed to both be 21s. The old ones are actually more like 22.


Anyways before I put everything back together I drilled and tapped out the brake mounting holes on both sides from 1/4 to 5/16. Make sure to drill and tap crooked so you get more thread cross section


Here you can see the brake caliper bolts I cut oversize. The two case bolts directly above those were drilled through into the hollow above the brake bolts and tapped through. I can’t put a nut on the backside there, but I will have something like 1/2” more thread engagement on the bolts that need it most. All of the case bolts will be replaced with longer bolts and will have a nut on the backside wherever possible.

Cored out and bored a collar to fit the input boss nicely. The holesaw in the lathe toolpost actually worked really good.


Added a square tubing brace between the rear mounts


Notched a piece of 1/2x2 bar in the CNC mill to fit the input collar nicely


As far as I got last night. It warped a little bit in the middle so I’ll have to straighten it back out in the hydraulic press at work

Here’s what I wound up with. Had to go buy some 1/4x2 flat bar to tie the front and rear mounts together, as well as make the extra front mounts.







Those pictures uploaded out of order but I don’t care to fix them lol

(Fixed?) - MR

Nice work man that looks really good!

Thanks, I’m not trying to have that trans come loose again, or bust a trans like I did a couple years back. I’m going out to Giverthebeans97’s this weekend, gotta have her in tip top shape.

(and yes mighty that fixed it)

I watch his YT sometimes.  Seems like a pretty cool dude.  Lots of cool riding it seems there in KY.