Craftsman GT3000 "MUTT" Part II

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

First side done on the hub


Second side just before finish turning


Shiny. The bore is still .003” under, I bored it half from either side so I didn’t have to fight with chatter on a long bore(like I did on the hubs), I will take it to wor and hone it up to size before I cut the 1/4” keyway in it.


Had to true up this boss on the side plates before I could chuck on the boss to indicate the step in the side plates true so I can true up the OD of the plates so I can chuck on the OD to cut the bore of the plate *gasps for air*


One side plate done. It’s bedtime for now, I’m not quite the young whippersnapper I was in 2017 posting the nights work at

Boy! excellent machine work and Idea, should be stout enough for sum good romping!!!
Wonder what will break next?
Gears? Guess will discover soon enough ! LOL

Hammernco wrote:

Boy! excellent machine work and Idea, should be stout enough for sum good romping!!!
Wonder what will break next?
Gears? Guess will discover soon enough ! LOL

The next weakest links are Shift keys and reverse chain.

MightyRaze wrote:

Hammernco wrote:

Boy! excellent machine work and Idea, should be stout enough for sum good romping!!!
Wonder what will break next?
Gears? Guess will discover soon enough ! LOL

The next weakest links are Shift keys and reverse chain.

If its a spicer doubly so Peerless I find you can beat the hell out of them so long as you keep the stock tires, spicers just shift like crap and fall to pieces

Truthfully I don’t know what’s next weakest. The shift key issues come from user induced shifting issues, not being fully in gear, clutch dumping when the keys aren’t fully seated. When the keys are seated there will almost certainly be something else in line that’s not as strong. In my case it was the locker. It would have been the upper case half if I didn’t have my input brace and through bolted case. The factory reverse chains are really weak as I’ve found, but a good quality replacement seems plenty strong. I have broken gear teeth off of the shifter gears before, they may be the next weakest part internally, at least if this locker is worth a damn. I just don’t know if I’ll have enough key engagement.





Last night I cut a pair of flats on the hub so I could index the keys more easily.


Easy to hold onto now. Cut one keyway, flip it, cut the other. Should be simple.


I spent the rest of last night whittling out some bull gear keys. They are some kind of tool steel I had laying around, it was just a convenient size, I would have made them out of mild steel if I had it.

Very nice. Great skill in using the tools at your disposal. Very nice. That thing is going to rock when complete.

That's looking great man nice work!

Finished up the bull gear keys. Two counterbored holes and one plain hole in the center for a roll pin. Using 1/4-28 socket heads because that’s what I had laying around in the right length. Roll pin is honestly probably a little overkill, but it will take any side loading off of the bolts themselves.


Set up cutting the slots, making use of those flats from yesterday.


Nice fit, they sit in there on their own!


Went ahead and drilled and tapped the hub and bolted the keys in. I’ll save the roll pins for final assembly. I honestly probably would have skipped bolting the keys if I had just made the center section of the hub the right width. These little details do tickle my machinist brain though.


Everything fits together perfect!


1/4” keyway and a couple set screw holes is all that’s left for these parts!

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

Finished up the bull gear keys. Two counterbored holes and one plain hole in the center for a roll pin. Using 1/4-28 socket heads because that’s what I had laying around in the right length. Roll pin is honestly probably a little overkill, but it will take any side loading off of the bolts themselves.


Set up cutting the slots, making use of those flats from yesterday.


Nice fit, they sit in there on their own!


Went ahead and drilled and tapped the hub and bolted the keys in. I’ll save the roll pins for final assembly. I honestly probably would have skipped bolting the keys if I had just made the center section of the hub the right width. These little details do tickle my machinist brain though.


Everything fits together perfect!


1/4” keyway and a couple set screw holes is all that’s left for these parts!

That should do the trick! Nice machine work once again!

Wow, that is solid, this machine will be super tough!

It's a thing of beauty!

Excellent work man, that looks minty!

You... really don't ever want to have to do this again lol. That is what we call overbuilt, short of putting a jeep rear end in there or something...

TechnoChicken wrote:

You... really don't ever want to have to do this again lol. That is what we call overbuilt, short of putting a jeep rear end in there or something...

Well...it's funny you say that, because if this one turns out good then I'll make at least one more for me to drop in a spare trans and maybe another to sell

Keyway cut in the bore. Used the same tool I cut the keyway in my hubs with.




Something a little extra for fun


   


Last pic there you can see two of the six set screw holes I put in. I’m pretty confident that that’ll come loose just like the set screws on my hubs, so I put them where they’re underneath the side plates and can’t fall out into the transmission lol.

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

I’m pretty confident that that’ll come loose just like the set screws on my hubs, so I put them where they’re underneath the side plates and can’t fall out into the transmission lol.

That's what blue (or red) threadlocker is for! Beauty job on that whole unit btw!

Figured I’d throw this in the thread as I did it to the last trans too. Still waiting on axle bearings at the moment.


Boy a parts washer sure is nice. I don’t know how I ever lived without one

Picked up an actual mikuni at the local ATV shop. Think it’s a VM28, just an old round slide. Hopefully gonna be more reliable than those damn china clone carbs. If this carb doesn’t work I may just go buy a brand new 32mm mikuni


Oh and the straight axle is just waiting on a couple keyways.

Progress continues at snapper racing headquarters. Three keyways cut….


…and a lot of green loctite wasted. I will make sure to let this stuff cure 24 hours. Gonna be a hell of a time getting it back apart if the time comes lol. Also that key was a good press fit and I had to hammer it into the shaft. Hopefully that helps something.

Pulled the battery out of mutt a while back to keep it on the tender during the cold weather. First pull on the pull start and she came to life! I guess the dang china carbs are never reliable when it matters.


Dropped the trans. I don’t even remember where all this mud is from!


Here’s the carnage on the old locker. There’s a ring around the outside of the material that you can tell cooled faster than than the inside and produced a surface hardened layer. This broke in a different way than the rest of the cross section, which is just kind of a mess lol


Trying to get the axle assembly together tonight so the green Loctite on the hubs can set overnight.

New axle all set up


This was right about the time that my back camera broke


While the silicone was setting up I cut the weld off the steering shaft and actually phased the U joints right. Seems to have helped the lumpiness in the steering lol. Had to take this with my front camera lol


When I got the bolts all torqued down I realized there’s a crack around the input shaft…oof…think I’ll drill the ends of the cracks and run it

Today I helped feed a lost cause! (Holding oppy torque inside a peerless 820)

drilling the ends of the cracks


More supports for my support! My hope is that if the cracks propagate all the way around the input shaft and it comes loose, the support may hold the input shaft down far enough to get me home. Or maybe the idea is completely pointless, who knows!


Took her for a rip around the yard, even gave her a few clutch dumps, everything is somehow holding together!


This VM30 mikuni is next in line.

Well hey when it grenades it would make material for the fail thread!

Brianator wrote:

Well hey when it grenades it would make material for the fail thread!

Very true

Finally have a new phone and can take decent pics again lol


Whipped up an adapter for a normal intake boot so I can swap between carbs easier lol

So here’s the "snorkel" adapter for the old carb. I wasn’t sure how it would fare in contact with gas, if it would melt or distort or whatnot. As far as I could tell, all it did was shrink a tiny bit, enough to make me have to beat it off the PVC elbow with a hammer lol.


So I set my little black unpaid worker to making me an adapter for the mikuni


Here’s the new setup! The new “snorkel” adapter is just really a sleeve bushing to go between the carb and the elbow.


For the minute or so I was able to run it, it seems the low speed jet needs drilled out a few sizes, as well as possibly the high speed. More conclusive testing will be done tomorrow hopefully. I also realized that the adjustments on the mikuni are on the opposite side as the knockoffs, which is interesting.

Spoiler:

Wound up swapping in a bigger idle jet and tried bigger main jets but wound up going back to the small one that was in the carb. It’s running well enough for now!

Mutt has come SO far since the first time I saw it. I wish I could have stuck to one tractor all this time. I'd have more $$ and probably have something bulletproof.