Craftsman GT3000 "MUTT"

Oh don’t worry, I’ll find a way. I’ll take her out this afternoon and see how she handles but I’ll probably pull the wheels off and put them on the GT6k. I can already tell the mudlites are too old and stiff for my liking.

I found some carb mounting boots that use the same mounting spacing. Planning on switching to these so I can switch between the 34 and 28mm carbs easily. The maxxis sticker is for her too


Something else, I’ve been brainstorming on an auxiliary accelerator pump, with an injector over each intake port. We’ll see about that. Still very much in planning stages.

I got one of my carb boots in and immediately decided that I didn’t like how that kind of mounting was going to turn out. Just too big and bulky

What could this fool be up to now…


There wasn’t much of a groove for the set screws in my mount to catch so I made a nice bigger one.


I don’t think I spun the carb fast enough to hurt it, only 200rpm or so.

Running that same carb on a moped polini kit, sure it's gonna be enough carb?

In hindsight, going from the 34 to the 28 seems a bit extreme, but if it aids responsiveness and doesn’t hurt the high end too much it’ll be fine with me. It’s still more carb than stock and I can always swap back to the 34mm and save this one for another project.

Here’s the cracked brake caliper mount.


Cut down a piece of 2x1/4” angle for a new mount.


Measure hole spacing from the sides of the holes, it is much easier than eyeballing center.


Scribe the center of the first hole with calipers. I just use the readout on the mill to get to the second hole position, as I know the hole spacing from earlier.


Using a pointer to find the intersection of the scribed lines.


All better, should be plenty rugged!


BUT WAIT!

Upon reassembly I realized there was something missing…I looked high and low in the shop and couldn’t find it…a whole brake pad was missing! Upon inspecting the pad I had left, I saw it was wore down to almost nothing. I think the cheap pads I had wore out quick and one of them fell out. I did have a few empty pushes of the brakes at LCQ, that must have been when they fell out. Luckily the brake pistons had little plastic pushers in them and didn’t score the rotor. I just reinstalled my old brake pads for now.


Just for fun, here’s some measurements I came up with for mutt. I don’t fully believe that weight, it’s way off what I came up with last time.


And here’s some size comparisons on tires. Left is the 26x11-12 Bighorn 2.0s, center is 27x12-10 mud bugs, and right is my 26x10-12 executioners. The executioners really get kinda small when you run with no air in them.

Interesting Stats! I need to get some for mine.

Wheelbase and weight distribution are the two most interesting stats to compare between tractors, in my opinion. Mutt is a short wheelbase tractor compared to a Sears or wheel horse, losing stability on hills, but has more weight distributed up front compared to most other tractors. Its a combination that has definitely worked out in my favor.

A machinist trick to hole spacing, measure outside of both holes then if holes are same size deduct the width of one hole and you'll be dead nutz center on both holes.

That way works good. I’ll also measure the shortest distance between the insides of the holes and the longest distance between the outsides and just average them. That’s if I don’t feel like measuring the size of the holes. Holes still have to be the same size though.

Mounted up these 25x11-10 mudlites. These rims are a bit narrow for them. Need beadlocks to add some extra width to the rims


Went out and found some rocks to try these babies out.


I have the mudlites at 3psi and they’re still just about to fall off the rim. Isn’t really any good safety bead on these rims. It is super impressive how the tires run at 3psi though. Seems the 10” rims make a nice difference. They don’t really beat my bighorns though.


Sadly it seems I’ve given my old exhaust one too many snap crackle pops. She let go on the drive home   Guess I’ll have to go find some welding gas