W.H.A.M.S.

CornShuck4CE wrote:

What i ment was get a murray. (Sarcasticly. There the best. ) haha. I really like the base frame on a murray easy to work on and build lots of options. Get a cheap one blown motor or something and try it. I built a murray and a craftsman at about the same time and thats when i noteced the rear axel on da murray is just a lil further back. Andi think a murray is a lil longer. My murray could go up stuff that the craftsman would flip or almost flip on. Thats why i say that. An if i dont make since sorry. Im just an ol country boy who cant spell or know how to word stuff not very good with computer junk. Mor comfortable with a wrinch in my hand.

Good thinking! Excellent idea! Start with a good frame and build from there.

I am really liking the frame on the ariens, and not liking it at the same time.

I like that it is lower in the 'saddle area', (between the seat and the dashboard.), than the other two tractor frames.

And the way the front axle is put on actually looks pretty solid. As well as there being plenty of beef up there for a good bumper and possibly battery mount, etc.

Still, the frame is kind of strangely shaped. And looks thin.

But I'll get to that in another thread.

~~~~~~~

I tried the clutch adjustment.

If you look at the pic, the red line is the linkage going from the clutch pedal to the vari-drive pulley. The green is a sort of knob that that rod threads through. Remove the cotter pin on the right, pull the rod off the pulley, then you can thread the rod through the green part. Move the rod to the left and the clutch pedal engages the pulley sooner. Move it to the right, and you have to push the pedal farther before the clutch engages.


Soooo, I moved the rod to the left.

Good news is that I now have brakes. And the clutch engages sooner. No more pushing the pedal farther than I can reach.

Bad news is that the clutch pedal now comes a lot farther backward. And the tractor is a lot slower.

Gonna have to revise the names of those seven speeds.

7. I'm tired.
6. I sprained my ankle.
5. Someone tied my shoelaces together.
4. I swear, that turtle must be on speed.
3. Paint dries faster.
2. Tectonic plates are speed demons in comparison.
1. Backward.


Tomorrow I will pull the ariens up here and start stripping it. Then I will start a new thread.

I must have a whole troop of guardian angels.

And I am never taking a tractor down that trail again!!!

I was on my way up the first steep part, and ran into a root that someone had exposed. I mean, it was exposed! A good ten inches, and a hole right in front of it. No getting over that root!

So the whams stopped.

Then.... It popped out of gear.

Next thing I know, I am racing backwards down a hill that is more than 45 degrees angle.

A few days ago, they put huge rocks at the bottom of the trail, to keep cars from going up it.

The rear wheel of the tractor hit one of those rocks at about 35MPH. The entire tractor spun, and flipped at the same time. Then landed on top of me.

A friend was at the top of that hill, watching, and thought surely that I was dead.

Well, this time I hurt my shoulder, my neck, and really tore my arm open. But still no broken bones, and I am still alive! LOL

I think I have given those guardian angels enough of a workout now. I will never take a tractor down that trail again. I am just going to have to ask people to bring things to me, until the bridge is open. Luckily that will be less than two weeks.


I am also not going to be working on anything tractor related today. We'll see about tomorrow...

Here is the sleeve of the shirt I was wearing...

holy cow! glad to here you are ok! err not dead lol

Do you have any brakes?

Creepycrawler wrote:

holy cow! glad to here you are ok! err not dead lol

Thank you. But you ain't half as glad as I am! LOL

redlinemotorsportts wrote:

Do you have any brakes?

On flat ground, yes. And they seem to work pretty good.

Speeding backwards at a greater than 45 degree angle? No. It didn't even THINK about slowing down!

I am SO glad you lived thru that. I'm also quite happy that you're not going to give up on our moderately insane and occasionally painful hobby.

Doc Sprocket wrote:

I am SO glad you lived thru that. I'm also quite happy that you're not going to give up on our moderately insane and occasionally painful hobby.

I can't blame anyone else. Nor even the tractor.

I went into this less prepared than I thought I was.

For one, I really should have separated out that brake and put it on it's own pedal.

For another, I should have had at least a hand crank boat winch on the front.

O man. Glad your ok. Dont give up on us we really like you. Just when you thought you have salved the problem something else pops up. Well i for one would bring up your supplys if i were closer. Thank GOD for gardian angels.

CornShuck4CE wrote:

O man. Glad your ok. Dont give up

About 3 hours ago, I swore off tractors forever.

Now I can hardly wait to get started on the next one!! LOL

It might take me a few days to recover. Or I might be back out there tomorrow started on the next one. LOL

By the way, the all wheel steering on this is toast.

When that rear wheel hit the big rock, it was an almost irresistable force hitting an immovable object.

When all was said and done, that wheel was almost 45 degrees to the other rear wheel. It bent all the linkage including the really thick steel plate right there at the wheel.

It took me about an hour and a half to get it jacked up, get the wheel off, remove that plate, straighten it using a sledge hammer and the very same huge rock as an anvil, get it all back together, and then adjust the llinkage as close as it would go... before I could limp it very very slowly back up the hill to home. Zigging and zagging the entire way.

Minus all the supplies. Those had to be carried up separately. The tractor simply doesn't have the guts to carry anything more than me up that hill. And that's why the tree root was a problem.

If I want to drive this one again, I am going to have to disconnect the rear steering, and set up some plates to lock the rear wheels in place.


Some kind of damage was done to the engine. It is very difficult to start now.


And for some reason it will not even move at all in first through 3rd gears.


I'll know better tomorrow what I am actually going to do. But for now it looks like I'll be setting this one aside and working on the ariens. I NEED a tractor that is going to be safe to use on my own property, (Which has some elements pretty much as bad as that trail), and at this point the ariens looks like the best candidate for the major changes.

I think I need to just get it running, and drive it up and down the road, first. If it ends up being a gutless wonder as well, I'll go back to the beast. Because it, at least has guts, and a very strong frame.



So.... If I can move myself at all, tomorrow, I will try to bring the ariens up here, and get it's tekumseh engine running...

Well, glad to hear that you survived.


You should film yourself. Your posts are like watching a movie unfold; Man vs. Hill

So far the hill has taken two tractors. Something must be done to defeat it!

i gotta try this trail on the bolens...   

glad you're ok

I know, right?

If I didn't live so far from everyone else who is into tractors, I could try to charge an admission to the trail. Let people challenge the trail. Or let it challenge them! LOL

It's a shame, really. If people hadn't been driving on the trail with their vehicles, it never would have gotten bad enough to do all that damage to my tractors and me.

I just saw some pictures on facebook of the bridge construction-looks fantastic! And quite nice backdrop. Hopefully it gets done quick!

redlinemotorsportts wrote:

I just saw some pictures on facebook of the bridge construction-looks fantastic! And quite nice backdrop. Hopefully it gets done quick!

I'm thinking it'll be done before the end of next week.

I can easily hunker down and wait for that long!

1) You just scared the crap out of me, Angchor.

2) Like everyone else, Im thankful youre ok, and escaped with (hopefully) with nothing more than temporary injuries. I am sorry to hear WHAMS may be DOA, but its not a loss. I can tell you have learned a lot and built your confidence and skills up even as you built that tractor. Education is never a wasted investment on yourself.

3) You've given me pause to think about safety on my tractor. Phase 2 will be revamped to include a lot more safety items. (Im still in Phase 1 -" Get it running with the body on it.")

4) Yeah, now *I* also want to come see this trail, and test my tractor on it. I've been wanting to take a trip out to see the Left Coast before it slides into the ocean. Ill add you and that trail to my list of "Landmarks". Heck, now that I think about it, taking my tractor to a whole bunch of places and driving it around and taking pictures of it perched somewhere it shouldn't be; would be an epic vacation. Im going to percolate on this..

5) I think the score should reflect number of successful trips up an down, Number of rollovers, and then number of tractors destroyed (Think Wins\Ties\Losses). I think youre still winning if we score it like that.

6) Take youre time man, and build it slow and easy. Let us know if you need something. We all want to see you safe, on a safe tractor, and might be able to send stuff you need that you cant find locally.

glad you are alright, get a tranny that has breacks outside of the transaxle and not coated in grease! lol

This one is dead. But that doesn't mean it might not come back to life, later.

I am building the frankenstein right now. If I like what happens after stretching and widening it, I may just come back to this one and do the same.

But if I do... This one WILL have exterior brakes. Probably on the axle. And the brakes will be separate from the clutch.

Even though the brakes on this are packed inside, in the grease, I think that if I had simply taken the time to separate them and have them on a separate pedal, before trying the hill, I might have been ok.

Our new bridge is supposed to be open this thursday. So I can take my time with the new build. But like I said before, I have now been bitten by the bug. I will not be leaving this hobby. Plus, I do need the new tractor in working order as soon as possible, just so I can get some work done here on my property.

Heck, I get out of breath just walking to the end of my driveway. (Heart problems.) So I need this, just to get myself and my tools, around to different places on the property. From this point on, no matter what I build for my own self. It will always be an all terrain mobility scooter in addition to anything else it does. LOL

This is almost as steep as the hill I was climbing when it rolled backward. (This is from the opening vid on junkstar's youtube channel.)

Now imagine rolling backward in essential freefall for more than 50 feet, because there are no brakes, no gears, nothing to slow you down. You, your supplies and the tractor, together, weigh most of a thousand pounds...