I met him at GER. He’s a great guy and his wife is badass on her minibike!
Trans is in and the rear end is back together. Had to modify the mount a little bit and make a new shifter linkage. You can barely notice the difference between 2nd and 3rd gear, lol. Then I tore the front end apart.
Front axle ouchie
Will be going to look for some heavier square tubing the right size tomorrow afternoon.
That’s what you get when you land 500lbs of tractor on a front axle, haha. It’s only 1/8” wall tubing, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Outlasted the original front axle by a long shot though!
I’m going to weld in knuckle pivots like I did on the old axle, less for strength and more so that the knuckles have good surfaces to ride on. Here I got lazy and just plunged out the holes in the axle with a 1” end mill, after pilot drilling them 1/2”. Makes a little looser hole but saves time not having to bore out a bunch of material.
Had an absolute blast out at GIVERTHEBEANS yesterday!
No big problems other than a bolt or two coming loose, and my throttle cable getting a little stiff after I hit water. I hit some pretty crazy hills, and the guys seemed to be thoroughly impressed with how I hit them on a near stock wheelbase. Turns out the PTO winch and heavy front axle are worth double just for the ballast! Mutt is absolutely excellent for keeping the front end down, and when she does come up it’s easily manageable with a bit of clutch work.
Mods to do… Engine cage to minimize smashing of hood on a roll Shorten up throttle cable a bit to minimize cable resistance. May wax the cable too. Reinforce the poor old snapper steering. She’s tight, but flexible. Haha. Means she’ll skip under a good load. Think I’ll just add some steel to prevent that, and maybe revise the mounts a little bit. I did have one side of it come loose at GER.
I came here to post that video, haha. Josh makes some awesome videos.
Started taking the steering out of her last night. I realized the roll pin holding the pinion gear to the steering shaft has actually wallowed out the hole in the steering shaft, making a fair amount of slop. I guess I’ll fill the hole in the shaft with the welder and drill and ream it for a better fit. I probably just drilled it the first time, so it was oversize and got loose.
Oh and yesterday I trimmed down the flanges on the winch drum so they’d stop trying to cut through the peerless 700.
You're a madman Richie lol. Maybe it's just been too long since I've been on the MM but I don't think I would attempt some of that stuff even when I have it completely dialed... Mutt is most definitely a beast!
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RichieRichOverdrive Moderator
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Age : 21 Join date : 2016-10-29 Points : 6632 Posts : 3646 Location : Lewisburg, KY
Hahaha thanks MM. I’m definitely not afraid to have some fun with it.
Haven’t been all that productive the past couple days. Bent a piece of 1/2x2 and put a hole in it for a new steering arm. It’s about all my HF bender wanted lol
Practicing my CAD skills today- Cardboard Aided Drafting
I still have a brace to add to the other side of the steering but for the most part it’s done. You can see how the steering arm is moved to the left to get the steering arm out of the belt and hopefully have a better angle to the steering arm on the left knuckle. The bolt in there was just to align the position of the new steering arm.
This red I bought might be a little too bright for the rest of the tractor lol
I left the old steering arm part because I didn’t see a reason to cut it off
If you have a tall frame craftsman with the first gen steering you’ll recognize this hole in the side of the frame. The half of a hole at the top of it is where the mount bolt for the snapper steering wound up. Years ago I bolted a plate over the whole area so I could bolt the steering there and not have it fall out. I cut out this patch and tomorrow I’ll pull that part of the frame off and weld in the patch and grind it all smooth and paint it.
Oh, and I still have to weld up and re-drill the roll pin hole in the steering shaft.
Patch welded in and welds ground down some. Paint is drying now.
Turned new steering box mounts on the lathe out of some 1/2” stainless rod i scabbed out of a scrap bin somewhere. These stick out from either side of the frame and suspend the steering box in the frame. Had some trouble with the ones with 3/8 course thread coming loose, these have 1/2” fine thread. If they have problems with coming loose I have ideas for other ways to mount the box, but hopefully they won’t have any issues.
Pulled the old oppy out of her tonight. Hell of a step in the bore. Seeing almost .005” of wear in the bore of the cylinders at the worst points. When you spin the engine over you can hear a bunch of air sucking past the rings.
It’s a wonder I never fouled a plug
Steering looks nice in there! I can still identify some flex in the setup and I may address it in the future if the current mods don’t stop it from skipping.
I also lowballed the hell out of a fella on eBay selling a new one of these sector gears and somehow he accepted my offer, so now I’ll have a nice brand new gear as a spare
Subject: 
April 25th 2023, 9:29 am
