Shaft vs Belt Drive

Witch would be better I am wanting to build a off road tractor and would like for it to be diesel but from what i am seeing i can only get on with a shaft can you make a shaft drive put out speed or can i get a diesel with a belt drive
thanks
Coldroadbear

I dont think you would be able to make a diesel belt drive just because it would be really hard finding a Vertical shaft Diesel Engine. but it would be alot better with shaft drive because there is no belt slippage and you wont have to worry about that. If your using a diesel you have to think of that your going through and think of making a meter for your fuel so you dont run out. If you Run out of fuel its sort of annoying to prime them, and if you flood a diesel you'll have fun getting the water out. Ive thought of a diesel for trail riding(Fuel efficiency and TORQUE), nothing through mud pits/water holes just because its a little harder to get them cleaned out. Plus Diesels are expensive.

I know about the diesel and that stuff but how would you set up the shaft driven tranny just open it up and switch the gears around or what

Shaft drive might be hard if you dont already have a tractor that is shaft drive, if you have a tractor that is belt driven right now you would have to make the drive shaft, I would make the drive shaft your making fit the original shaft the trans pulley goes on and put a couple u-joints in it or find a high speed gearbox that has the output 90 degrees from the input and is a 1:1 ratio and run that to your engine(you would need another u-joint still). It would be alot of work and you would need a welder but if you have an old cub cadet shaft drive it would be fairly easy, just mount the drive shaft to the crank(make a sleeve for it) or to the flywheel(I don't know how its done but there are videos of builds on youtube with the drive shafts attached to the flywheel).

Well i am not trying to make a belt drive in to a shaft drive. i mainly wanted to know what has to be done to a shaft drive in order to make it have some speed. i mean i don't need to to do 90 in the woods. As far as a diesel it would sound better in the woods lol.

Ooh that would be fun...umm probably tearing the transmission apart is the best way to do it but I dont know where you could get gears. Or trying to mount the motor and attach a high speed gear reduction box on and turn it around so you use the output as an input and mount your engine a little forward at the same time.Or put a two stroke snowmobile gasser in it and get it ripping upto 7,000rpm all day:P

lol true and thanks for the help

Do you have a specific tractor in mind?