TMJ's Craftsman LT1000 Conversion Thread

Can high compression ignite gas like a diesel engine? I might have to take the head off and see what's up. There is tons of compression.

Tractor Man Jeff wrote:

Can high compression ignite gas like a diesel engine? I might have to take the head off and see what's up. There is tons of compression.

It has been known to happen.

Oil in the cylinder will cause very high compression, and may even lock the cylinder altogether

Yes high compression can cause gas to ignite. This is what causes pinging in high performance engines when too low of octane gas is used. Pinging is early ignition of fuel in the cylinder. Higher octane gas is less volatile, so it does not detonate prematurely

H'm, I guess I better pull the head off. Will I need any special tools to do that?

Just don't use a prybar between the head and cylinder, when you try to pop the head off. Usually, a few whacks with a rubber hammer along the edge of a solid part of the head will loosen the head from the gasket. Avoid scratching the gasket mating surfaces.

Don`t bang on the fins.

Will I need a torque wrench and a new gasket to put the head back on?

yes

OK, I'll see if it says in the manual on how much to torque them down.

OK. An update will come some time after the weekend. Been looking at this piece-of-crap golf cart I have and Have decided to take the whole front axle and steering components off and put them on the tractor. I can later put some big 4 lug wheels on the front than. As for the rear axle( Some kind of DANA axle) I'm going to try putting it on the ATV/Go kart project.

Ok. Got the front axle off and out of the way. Cut the front suspension of the golf cart last night. Jacked up the tractor and slid the golf cart suspension under the tractor. Blocked everything up and stood back to see. It looks better than I had anticipated. Shocks are shot! Will make for a springy front end. I'd also like to put the real nice rack&pinion steering into the tractor as well. Will make for a nice tight front end.

Been tinkering with the golf cart steering and am completely stumped as to how I'm going to make this work. I hate to use the stock steering parts. I like the tightness of the golf cart steering. I'll figure out a way. Can't be that hard. Any ideas?

If it were siting in front of me i could help figure it but it looks like its going to take alot of fab work. Arent you going to loose alot of front ground clearence.

Took the leafs off so all that's left is the solid axle. Flipped it upside down and the clearance increased. I'll just mount it like the stock axle. The problem is the getting the steering hooked up. I'm having trouble fitting the golf cart steering into the frame. So much in the way.

Update as of today. I had to accept defeat with the golf cart steering assembly, so I put the stock steering assembly in. A little welding later and I soon had the golf cart axle bolted on. I bolted it to the stock axle bracket, lower than the older one so I could get more pivot. Hooked up the steering linkage and took it for a spin. Right away there was some issues that I figured would happen as I was putting the axle on. The axle wobbled way to much because the axle didn't fit snugly into the bracket. There was a lot of space. Also, I figured if I hit something would quickly bend the bracket. So I next Tried bolting it the bracket higher up, with the frame sitting on the axle. This proved much better and was very tight with no wobble or slack. One big problem with this is there was no pivot. So now I need to decide what to do. I'd like to have a little pivot, but it will most likely make it weaker. I could fab up a bracket for it, but I'm sorta at loss as to how to go about doing that and it still be strong. I know some of you guys did that.

Nice.thats a cool setup u got there.

Thanks. Took enough head scratchin too. This had to be the hardest mod to do.

Nice build. I don't know how I missed it. I may have to borrow some ideas.

Thanks. Help yourself man. That's what this thread is here for. It's just a bunch of ideas and mods archived for others to use.
Here is some shots in the daytime.











How about an aerial view?

Way cool! You need some ATV tires or chains tho. Where did you get the hubs that you had originally used?

Thanks. The guy I got the 4 ATV wheels from(Two of which are on the back) had also an ATV frame with the shocks, steering parts, and the hubs all included with the frame. I bought it for $50. That's where I got the hubs. I'm not going to keep the front ones. I'll try to find some better ones. OK here is the updated tractor. I had to put handle bars on it. Now I know this was discussed before. It is hard to steer with them on. I'm going to be doing a direct steering setup soon, so it will work better. I've also added hood hinges so it will open like a car hood does.

Neat! I've never really liked handlebars, they're big and dangerour in an accident. But either way, cool.

Handlebars would work better with direct steering - since its lock to lock, not hand over hand like on a steering wheel - i wouldve waited till the direct steering was in.

The local Restore is the place to go for stuff, i bot two golf kart wheels there for $1.50 each and they held air - but the tread was worn off. I figure theyre good for doing burnouts when i get my tractor together.

Im hoping some metal and or golf kart parts show up sometime.

I'm going to fix the steering to direct steering tomorrow. I'll once again use some of the steering parts left over from the golf cart. Should be very stout when done. As of the moment, I'm getting rather tired of this engine. It's running terribly. Every once in a while, it will clear out, but if it gets bounced around, it starts revving up and down and backfires like crazy. Also when it's hot, the valves squeak. I'm ready to just ditch it and find a flat head. I'd really like a twin, but they'd suck up my fuel in no time.

Well let me see. Kinda taken a break. Right now my tractor is sitting partially in pieces. I've kinda run into a wall with this direct steering thing. I'm completely stumped on how I'm going to do it. The engine and belts underneath are the kickers. Aside from that, the rear hubs need to be redone as I only have two bolts holding one tire on. Also the engine is just about had it I think. Just gotten a little tired of working on it so I've taken a break.

Tractor Man Jeff wrote:

Well let me see. Kinda taken a break. Right now my tractor is sitting partially in pieces. I've kinda run into a wall with this direct steering thing. I'm completely stumped on how I'm going to do it. The engine and belts underneath are the kickers. Aside from that, the rear hubs need to be redone as I only have two bolts holding one tire on. Also the engine is just about had it I think. Just gotten a little tired of working on it so I've taken a break.

If we lived closer I would donate one of my repairable flatheads to you.

Im kinda stumped on what to do with my steering too. You use a rack and pinion now, right?

Yeah, stock rack and pinion.