Mastercraft Off road project

Nice does it run?

Actually it runs very well, the engine is near new. Problem is the busnings and bearings in the driveline are beat out of it

I have a 13 hp horisontal honda clone to go in it. The vert shaft i'll asve for something else

how are you going to put the clone motor in it? make a new rear end and put a chain linking it together?

I'll be watchin this one so post alot of pics

I'm using a quad swing arm , with a jackshaft and chain between the motor and rear end. It will use the quad sprocket and hydraulic disc brake.
I'm keeping the stock wheelbase, but the ride height will be adjustable from 4-5" to 10-12".

I'll try to post some pics later this eve,

so are you using the quads suspension front and back?

greener179 wrote:

so are you using the quads suspension front and back?

Yup, Full Suspension from a 91 Warrior, with adjustments. basically copied the stock warrior geometry for long travel off road situations. Need to make some alternate upper a-arm mounts for low travel race situations.




BTW, the front of the hood and the grill have been lowered 2"

thats going to be a cool looking lawn mower, I just got the same type of lawnmower in a bundle package(same package that I got the dirtbike from). Have any pictures of how its suppose to look from the front or do you only have one side done?

Tearing it down



Figuring out the base frame. its 1 x 2 x .100 wall rectangular tubing



Mocking up the engine location. In order for me to make space for the front a-arms, I had to move the original engine back 12". This left me with very few options for aligning a belt drive setup. I decided it was easier to just get a new motor, and go with a single cent. clutch, and a jackshaft. I picked up a Princess Auto 13 HP 390cc honda clone for $350. I was a bit pissed that I missed the $250 sale by a couple days.



Another similar shot after the base frame has been welded up and boxed in.



I've mocked up the front end with the lowered sheetmetal, and the a-arms bolted in. This is with the stock tractor front tires stuck on the warrior spindles. I'll have to make some new rims if I want to runs these tires on the yammy spindles.



Same ride height with the stock warrior front tire, just for giggles.

is that going to be a racer or a mudder, looks a little low for a mudder of thats you plan.

Either, I'm building it interchangeable.

Ride height is simply a function of upper shock mount location, upper a-arm location, and tire size
Ditto for the rear, except the rear has a linkage to cope with.

Im working on a similar motor setup on a 80's MTD wizard - ill be using a honda clone 6.5 horizontal ( greyhound) as a 'test run motor' - itll have a go kart clutch and chain straight back - wizard will be low, straight rear axle and beefed up , for a future horizontal twin motor.

With the 6.5 it should be a cool 'go kart' .

Nice metal work - should be strong enough to use and abuse.

latest mockup pics

Swing arm bushings, and uprights. Uprights need to be tweeked a bit, its a job to get the pin through. The stock swing arm bolt is close enough to 5/8" standard size that 5/8" round bar will work for a pivot pin. The bushings in the frame are 1" OD DOM tubing, 1.75 inches long drilled out to 5/8"



Mocked up with the stock atv tires. Ground clearance is 8.5 inches at the front a-arm brackets, and 7" at the rear sprocket. The two lowest points. It should be able to go over most things. Frame clearance at the engine is 12" so it will be able to crawl over a fairly big tree.





Mocking up the upper side frame tubes, this one bent crooked for some reason, I'll need to make a new one, but you get the idea. The side tubes will extend back to the rear of the stock body tunnel for support, since I need to cut away under the fenders for swingarm travel. Also, the rear plate of the tunnel will be notched for sprocket and rotor clearance. It will be reinforced so I can still have a hitch.

Looking good, can't wait to see it with the body back on it.

Are you going to repaint it - if so - are you going with a stock paint job or a custom one?

Keep up the good work.

muddstir wrote:

Looking good, can't wait to see it with the body back on it.

Are you going to repaint it - if so - are you going with a stock paint job or a custom one?

Keep up the good work.

Paint will be custom spray bomb, I'm too cheap to buy powder coat.

Torn between flat black with old school flames, or candy red flames over black, or candy blue over black , or maybe metallic silver with a graphic of some sort, or maybe candy ppurple lace over black, or maybe......


Got some work done last nite, and plan on more today.

The swingarm pin now slides in perfect, and i got my bend problem figured out.
pics to follow

this is cool!

OK This is me trying to upload pics again. Hopefully it works this time


More Frame work. A few more gussets and it will be gorilla tough



A mockup with the body, ride height not set yet



Its got a rear suspension. I'll set the preload on the shock to give me the ride height I want, and build front upper shock mounts to match.



Got a new idea the other day. I'm thinking a race style flip front and rear end for access to driveline stuff.
I need to mount the battery under the fuel tank up front, and the only way i can figure to do it is to have hte whole front end flip up, instead of just the hood. It will take some extra fab and detail work, but i can do it.

The frame is looking good, looks like every thing is going smoothly.


I say do the flip up rear fenders, my allis chalmers has that and its great, pull a pin off pull the long bolt out and then the fenders and seat are off.

that seems like a cool idea, I wish I could do that on my Toro but the fenders, seat, foot rests, etc. are one piece.

My 70 toro has a whole hood/grille tilt setup - original setup was a piano hinge setup - that rusted up so i used a piece of pipe and a round bar of steel - welded a piece of angle to the bottom of the grille, cut the pipe in short sections , drilled holes in each end of the round bar ( to put pins in to keep it from falling out) - welded a couple of the pipes to the hood, couple to the tractor - instant hinge and its easily removeable.

If small enough pipe/bar was used it could almost be invisible . Its a similar setup to a utlilty trailer with the fold down gate.


You could still do that to your toro - with the rear fenders - youd need to do a lil cutting and probably extend the hinge out past the body under the rear part of the fenders, and could still be hidden.

That would work, never thought of it. Im not going to have it a flip up rear fender because the shifter would be in the way, but I would probably need to cut the fenders up to make mine work. Im probably going to skip that until later though, I really want to get the tractor running and moveable first before I do any of those things.

I'm up in the air about the flip front end.. I want to put a winch and bumper, on it, and the bodwork involved is extensive, this is a newer tractor with the widea$$ front body.

However, do have some new pics

got the front upper tubestacked into place. trying to figure out front upper shock mounts. Still thinking about adding a bush bar out front, just in front of the sheetmetal and hiding the winch behind the chin grill.


The lines look good



I have a whole winters work ahead of me.

It sorta reminds me of a tractor pic i saw a long time ago :



I cant find the pic from the front - somthing like a small toro or MTD - had a fully polished and chrome tins on the twin flathead motor - mustve took a lot of work .

Update: looking thru some old CD's i found the front pic of it :

dangeroustoys56 wrote:

It sorta reminds me of a tractor pic i saw a long time ago :



I cant find the pic from the front - somthing like a small toro or MTD - had a fully polished and chrome tins on the twin flathead motor - mustve took a lot of work .

That looks pretty cool. The axle is a little wider then what I think his is going to look like though.

If I had a Atv that I could use for parts I would deffinatly build a mower like this.