Muddstir's P.O.S

Well i really shouldnt but i am - going so start a new build for the build off.

Here is my P.O.S (was going to call it "1st place" )
The plan is to make it a trail beater.  
Tires, speed, brakes, handling, body protection, and cosmetic doodads will be addressed.
The final goal is to keep it as stock looking as possible.






-Approved by Doug, 2/5/2018

Rims and tires ordered yesterday.  Should be here monday.

About 2 hours after ordering i realised i ordered the wrong front rims but i left it go, should be  interesting making them work.

Just been making lists of what i need and trying to source parts.
Official building start will prob take place around end of the month. Trying to get a few other projects wraped up.

Any plans for the MTD trans and mods for the vary drive setup?

Maine Mud Mower wrote:

Any plans for the MTD trans and mods for the vary drive setup?

The mtd trans may stay, it really depends on what parts i can find for this build. The parts i find will determine the way i build it.
The vary drive will be removed.

Well if you remove the varidrive and keep the transaxle, you’ll only have one speed forward, one speed reverse. Maybe you’re fine with that maybe not.


Little off topic but I wanted to enter into a mower demolition derby with an mtd. Lower it a bit, cut the turf tread (only stock tires allowed), lock the diff, and gut the varidrive with a ridiculous pulley swap. That way it’s a single speed and I would only have to worry about throttle input. Maybe give that idea a little thought? Wouldn’t be practical all the time but should be feasible

Ok, thread jack over

If i keep it ill make it work.

Running in a mower demo would be a blast.

One pair of tires showed up yesterday and rest of my order showed up today. But when i open the rim box they had goofed up my order, by sending me 4 rear rims and no front rims.  Had to call and get it straighten out, now the new fronts should be here around thursday. All I got to do is send 2 of the rims back.
Ill post pics when everything is here and right

I also left work early today to goto the metal supplier, i bought a pc of 2x4 - 3/16  plain plate aluminum for this build.

Good luck and best wishes, very happy to see your entry. cheers.

The front rims showed up on monday.  The final tire/rim specs are:

         Front
Rim: 10x5 on a 4 x110mm
Tire: 23x7x10 bearclaw

        Rear
Rim:  10x8 on a 4x110mm
Tire:  23x10x10 bearclaw

I chose Douglas.125 polished rims, mainly becouse i wanted a aluminum wheel that had a solid hub area that was lite and cheep, had to be 10in, same bolt pattern.  

Tires i picked becouse of price. But the factors were, they had to have same tread pattern on front and rear, had to have same rim size, had to be the same height, and had to offer different widths.

i'd be afraid to get them rims dirty! LOL.. In all seriousness, those are going to look nice!

I was going to buy the black ones for the dirty factor but the polished ones were cheaper. Once they get all beat up looking ill end up painting them.

LOL, I think the chrome will look nice.

All i see is dollar signs. Not sure how a mtd fnr is going to work very well with those tires, but should look good. How are you planning on doing the hubs?

For the hubs i always make my own, fronts use 3/4 sealed bearings and rears use whatever style of center i need to fit axle shalfs that i have. Will go into more detail on that when i get to that step of the build. The fnr is still up in the air if im going to use it. Parts collecting hasnt been real successful lately, will head out this weekend and see what i come up with.
Did manage to make it to the metal supplier this week and buy 24ft of .750 x .750. - 14 gauge wall thickness rectangle tube. That will be used as frame supports. Hoping to start that next week or that weekend.

Must've missed this build. Sounds good, always wanted to see a modded Troy Built, they look really good.

Finally some fabrication time in on this

Its not much but its a start.  One of the areas i want to modify is the wheelbase and i figured id start with the front. But there is a problem, the frame ends right were the front axle beam begins. So to move the beam forward 6in there needs to be something to bolt / weld it to and there is nothing.  So i need to make a frame extension to mount the axle to. But then they made these huge hood mounts that are in the way of everything.
So long story short i need to mod the hood mounts to the original frame then cut all of the not needed mount out of my way to extend frame.

Here you can see stock setup with hood mounts in the way
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Here is what i had to remove to start revamping the hood hindges. I did have to cut some of the axle mount out of my way and add a brace in from one hood hinge to the other. I had to do this to both sides.   
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Ok with cutting that metal out of the front i realized that its going to be hard to section in a chunk of framework for the frontend to attach to. In other words there is no good spot to tie into. Then i looked at the original frame more in depth and saw that there was really no frame to it. They bolted the front motor pan to the rear hitchplate / seat support with some small bent c-channel shaped brackets that appear to be somewhere between 14 -16 ga thick (.072ish to .062ish)  not very thick.
Now i know why this thing flexed and twisted all over while i was just mowing grass with it.

Now it looks like im makin a frame for it.

Material-     1 x 3 - .125wall rect tube.

Cut list:  2 - 60in long pcs,   2 - 11in long pcs
Now this tube wasnt flat (only places that matter are the very front and back of the 60in pcs since thats where the 11in pcs get welded to)


So the press takes care of that.



And now im ready to weld but my fume extractor isnt working right now so i will wait till i get that fixed

Cool. I'm excited to see another tractor with a custom frame in the build off. Off the top of my head I think there's three.

I really wanted to make the original frame work but i also like to build stuff right and the only way i see fit is to reframe it.

Yeah. Mtds aren't very good frames stock

Reading through the thread, when you described the frame, sounded like you was talking about my car I just got rid of. My car, I would drive it with one foot on the pedals and the other foot bent and leaning on the door. I swear I could feel the frame shifting while driving it, LOL.

I need some brackets for this new frame and here is how i made them. Took some 2 x 2 - .125 wall square tube and cut it into 1in tall pcs, needed 8 of them.



Then marked out and drilled 4 - 3/8 holes per pc.

 

Then i cut them in half to give me 16 final pcs. There not completely finished but rest has to wait till their welded to the frame.

Wow that's some nice fabrication skills ! They all look uniform and very clean. What are they going to be used for?

Got quite afew things-steps started on this now but nothing fully complete yet. Kinda goes like this- figure what part I need here, get that so i can half build this section to figure out what this measurement will be. Then that measurement lets me build the next part that has to match the frist part but be different in most functions. Then see what parts i need to buy to get everything working together and finished.
Then comes online shopping see who has what and cost, shipping time.  Then swapping this style of part for a different style but that style takes another part to make it work, then the cycle repeats.
So by friday i should have something in the mail that might allow me to finish something

But here is where my frame sits. It is welded together (i should say half of the frame. I got a whole lower section to add to the first section thats welded together.)  

That frame will definitely be strong enough. I love those F style clamps. I have a couple of mini 4" and big 12" ones at work and at home. I use them all the time. They make a handy press or spreader in a pinch too.