MTD off-road romper build.

Thanks all, and they are fitting in the pockets i made for em in the bumper.

Moving onto steering, dropped the front axle and took the auger box out. like i thought one gear was chipped on both the ring and pinion gear.




So i went shopping (salvge yard) for a new snow blower pinion gear. I blow a airens snow blower all apart and the gears are also stripped in that case and got me thinking, well i guess these arnt as strong gear boxes as i would think. I set it aside and went to brouse for some new steel u joints to replace my aluminum steering u joints. Two 280z datsuns with no engines sitting next to each other, i took the steel steering u joints off of them, and the non p/s car i looked at the steering rack and reailised its the perfect candidate to modify for my use.  The steering pinion imput shaft is almost 90deg to the housing tube, tube is steel, and no power steering guts so i took it to shorten. I got it home and blew it all apart (pretty easy actually) and began cutting it up and shortening it 10". Started with shortening the long shaft with the chop saw and welding it back together.




Chop the tube and re weld back together with the long shaft in to keep it straight, and your done! did a small bit of filing at the end of the tube to make the shaft slip effortlessly.


Torched up some 1/4" plate and bent it for mounts. Went and got some 1 1/2" exhaust clamps to hold it all together. there will be some more gussets from that 1/4" plate to the axle beam to make sure its rock solid.



chopped the front of the skid plate up a little and took the thin sheet metal skid off, mounted this up. Looks right at home. I actually gain ground clearance with the setup, so im going to modify the skid plate frame a little to get another inch or so of clearance.



Reason im replacing the u joint (other than the rack swap) is the aluminum u joint must of not really pinched onto the steering shaft or loosened up, causing it to just waller out the bore and wreak the splines, it was about to fall off it was so loose, made steering kinda sloppy. So in the other 280z car i pulled the power steering rack pinon, or splined shaft out, because my old 36 spline steering shaft end had to be ground like a "V" for the old aluminum steering u joints. The new splined shaft was welded in place of the old splines, and has a nice tight fit with the new u joints, shouldnt have that issue now.


New splines vs the old "V" grinded steering splines.



New splines cut off and welded to the new steering shaft, now to make the new u joints to work with the slip steering column and finish a tie rod up.

Looks pretty good. I don't think you'll have any more broken teeth now. Have to see if the ratio is much different now. Maybe it'll be a little quicker steering than with the worm gear.

mr.modified wrote:

Looks pretty good. I don't think you'll have any more broken teeth now. Have to see if the ratio is much different now. Maybe it'll be a little quicker steering than with the worm gear.

Finished tie rod tonight, its 2 1/4 lock to lock. forgot what the old setup was, i think 3 turns lock to lock. Doesnt seem like its really all to different to me, maybe i gotta drive it.

And yea hopefully i dont have to do this again. Famous last words....

this is great Tech Redline, nice work!

New setup looks tough. Nice work

But won't you get more feedback through the wheel with a rack and pinion than you did with the worm gear?

Thanks CC!

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

New setup looks tough. Nice work

But won't you get more feedback through the wheel with a rack and pinion than you did with the worm gear?

Probably, I'll have to see. I wouldn't think its more than I could handle though, besides its better than broken steering.

redlinemotorsportts wrote:

besides its better than broken steering.

This is true.

Finished tie rod and mounts.




Modded the old skid plate supports, moved them around a little and bent up a new skid plate.



All painted up and re assembled.



Made light tabs.


Painted the front half of the frame, grill/shock hoops, fairlead, installed lights.

What type of coil overs are those and where did you get them?

Looks killer. Tim Cameron would drive it. Get brakes figured out?

What's your pulley swap? One to one?

Carshowkid wrote:

What's your pulley swap? One to one?

its 4" to 4"

rarbaugh07 wrote:

Looks killer. Tim Cameron would drive it. Get brakes figured out?

Haha, dude builds buggy in 3 weeks flat and now building another one in his spare time just to beat the hell out of it.

Yep, went riding with doug this past weekend and bought his old RV1 drum brake setup off of him.


Getting up to speed, Tractor was lookin good, but could be better. one of the front rims had a huge paint chip out of it. so i didnt prep it for sh*t. wire wheeled all 4 wheels down and used duplicolor wax remover, and man that stuff is awesome. pick up so much dirt i cant see. Painted them all black,, who woulds thunk. Bought a new camera too. Canon T5 eos rebel. my first dslr. Def digging these crazy good pictures.


Added a hood rack too. Thx for the idea mr.mod

Went to buddys house for a romp. some good pics. Got video of it too.  



Figured out in the grass i can spin a half donut before it tries to catch and flip. Here i am pushing my luck in the dirt haha. No flippage but had to throw a kickstand out



Some screenshots from the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JFKOv3QssY



Now.... Onto the odd part of all of this. Romp went great. Nothing broke. Ran great. Love the new steering. Loaded it up and headed home. Welp deer ran out behind a treeline, hardly saw it doing 60mph with trailer in tow. Hit me in the C pillar of my jeep as it was jumping and while in mid air the body grazed the tractor. Could say i got lucky, didnt hit it in the front. 90% sure i woulda totaled it if i did. Put a hand size dent in the side of the pillar, and pushed my hood in, broke the steering column at the weld, and smashed the dash up when it hit the steering wheel on the tractor.




I already pushed the hood out some, welded the column back together and fit it all back together. Tied the gas tank back up. still have a crack in the dash but i might just zip tie it, lol getting lazy here. Going to hook up dougs old brake system soon and then it should be about done.

Needs new dash.

Now that I think about it, I might have one from when i had my pan frame MTD.

Machine looking pretty high tech these days. Is your dash plastic?

Broken plastic dash - Some duct tape and wood screws lol

Hey redlinemotorsports been trying to message you but keeps freezing when I try I've got some questions about the spings your using I'm currently building a mini rockcrawler 190×70cm will be running 700mm wide solid front & rear diffs with 4 link suspension setup geared at 3.89 through a company in China with 23/7-10 ATV tyres I'll be running a big bored performance 125cc semi auto 3+R ATV motor with an atv reverse drive shaft to a Suzuki sierra/samurai transfer case geared high range 1.4 low range 2.5 roughly to run both diffs custom chassis/rollcage motor in front was gonna mount the fuel tank in the back and have a small fuel pump for pressure as far as front shocks I want alot of flex and was wondering how your springs are holding up? how much more flex could you get out of them? What setting do u have yours on? i was gonna run 400mm adjustable atv front shocks up my hole build will weigh as much as a 150cc buggy so any advice would be awesome thank you