Agway offroader project

Its a murray - must be they also made my one LT11 craftsman- has the same deck adjustment setup as the murray.

Yup, its definatly a Murray, sold under alot of different names.

Update: Managed to get some shed time yesterday- finally bolted the motor to the agway ( with some technical difficulties) - the holes are large enough to adapt the motor , the agway had these rubber isolators with small plates holding the motor down- which was ironic because the thing vibrated like crazy anyway.

After some trial n error, i managed to bolt the motor securely down, put the pulley i bot up north on it and the belt. As i crawled out from under it , i was like - "Is the hood gonna fit? " - barely - the OHV cover sticks out too far - ill see if i can slide the motor back another inch- about all ill need to bolt the hood on - otherwise might have to slap a 12HP on it- the other issue comming up is the exhaust- exhaust on that motor goes out the right side- while on the 10HP it went out the left side- ill see what can be made up - itll have to go either down ( dont want to for clearance) or to the back.

Another thing i did was put slightly smaller rear wheels on the front - just sat too high in the front.

Should be able to fire it for a test ride here soon- got to seal the valve cover ( leaks) , change the oil and hook up the gas line. The starting system can wait.

I tried fitting an 11hp flat head into a Westwood originally with an 8hp. Back in the day, 10hp was the largest they came with. So it just wouldnt fit, the sparkplug hit off the front of the grill.
Luckily I had a really stubby spark plug laying about, and it made all the different. It sits about 5mm away from the hood, it's super tight, but it fits!

What size wheels and tires do you ahve on the front now? I'd go for the exhaust at the rear, I reckon it would be cooler coming back, under the footrests and then out above the rear axles.

I shouldve taken pics- forgot to take the camera out with me. The 1st set of large tires i think were 20" tall - the new ones are off a craftsman like fearlessfront's - ill see what happens- might change em around again.

Yeah its like the 10HP i shoehorned into the simplicity- tight fit - barely fits in - it had an 8HP.

Ill figure something out- might have to drill new holes anyway.

Update: well i drilled some new holes about an 1" back and bolted the motor down - now the belt is too short, so ill have to find another one in my pile of belts. Hood fits with about an 1" to spare - ill have to get some pics tho. Another thing i had to do moving the motor back was to turn the gas tank around - itll make for harder fill ups , but necessary to fit the motor in.

With the slightly smaller front tires i might chop those steering stops off n see if itll hit the floorbords or not- with the stops my steering is horrible.

Lil more tweeking and itll be ready for a test run - im thinking about a gas pedal as well- right now its just a stock throttle setup.

Gas pedal would be cool. People say bad things about the 1 cyl OHV motors, I still really want one though, like a 17hp or soemhting, it would gas amazing gas mileage (or muddage? )

Chunk wrote:

Gas pedal would be cool. People say bad things about the 1 cyl OHV motors, I still really want one though, like a 17hp or soemhting, it would gas amazing gas mileage (or muddage? )

yea, i like twins but a 17 hp or bigger single would be awesome. my grandmas mtd has a 17 hp briggs single cylinder and that thing is huge and never bogs down when i'm cuttin the grass

Well- i have 4 of them actually - 3 14.5HP OHVs and a 16.5HP - my mild mod MTD has a 14.5 , the 97 mastercut has another 14.5 - the agway has the last 14.5 - the 03 murray has the 16.5 - the one im putting on the agway was the 1st one i bot that had issues back north - it runs now, just leaks oil ( gaskets) - the 16.5 i had issues with in the beginning, was the antifire solenoid ( i snipped it off and works fine now - just mowed with it the other day) - it also had a 'dieseling' issue when i turned the key off ( probably a valve adjustment) - to fix that i shut the gas valve off n just let it shut off on its own. Oddly the 16.5 seems to be underpowered - not sure why - my 13HP seems to be stronger then it.

If im not mistaken the 12HP teccy that was on the craftsman might be an OHV as well- cant remember( burried in the shed now) .

Ive never had any issues with the other 2 14's - even the one filled with water works great- those 2 start right up and run good.

Im seriously debating about wether ill finish this project or not- technically i really dont have a need for an offroad tractor- i do plan on sometime building the GT6000 tho up as a 4x4 - more then likely ill go in the reverse direction and make the agway a mild mod or just make it a mower again.

I think you should finish it! The GT will probably be a while down the line, it'll take alot of work. Plus its a mean looking tractor, love the really square hoods

I sorta lost intrest in building it-ill slap my good old 11HP on it and return it to stock. id rather finish modding out my mutant and mild mod tractors, then work on the mod murray and redo my LT11 mowing tractor........

Change of plans - im still making it an offroader because i need the deck for another tractor . Ill try n make mods that are bolt on so i can go back to stock if i want.

Ideas ive come up with for now are adding a back rack , mounting the winch and probably just use one of my 11HP motors . When its up and running, next round of mods are mounting a set of GT back tires on it all around and eventually making it a 4x4 possibly using a home made noma style setup up front on one of my stock transmissions.

can i see some pictures of that toro you posted on the first page? i think we had one of those a long time ago and i still have the tranny out of it
i assume its a 3 speed tranny with a chain drive to the rear axle?

No problem - at the moment its sitting on a table in the back of the shed , i found some original size tires i plan on putting on it , along with making it mow again ( ocassionally ) - ill probably straighten some of the metal and clean it up a bit, i wont full on restore it tho. I plan on keeping that one- it kick started my tractor tinkering many many years ago...



In this pic- the original rear wheels are on the front - the back wheels came off another tractor - was back in the day i took it thru the swamp behind the house - mean lil mud machine. Yeah its the original 5HP briggs with electric start and a 3 speed manual with chain drive to differential axle - i did replace the worn out factory axle bushings with pillow blocks - other then the wheel change in the pic- its all original. I do plan on rerouting the exhaust - it starts burning my sneeker when i push the clutch ( has separate brake n clutch).

thats the exact machine we had years ago, my brother and i had good plans for it just not enough time when we got it there was a small piece of the fiberglass hood missing right at the scoop and that was all that was wrong body wise and the motor was shot, we had the bylaw guy after us tho so it was stripped and scrapped

Besides mine- ive only seen 2 others - they were in a tractor junkyard an hour from my house - one i shoulda bot whole for spare parts, but i only bot a few bits off it - i did get the oppertunity to buy one with a twin on it that mowed for $400 from the junkyard owner - was more then i could afford tho as tempting as it was.

I always thought it was a neat lil tractor - bot it off my freind for $50 , got it running and abused the heck out of it then decided to see if i could set it up for mowing again ( its missing a bunch of parts for the deck) - i think with a junk snapper deck i have i can finally get it to mow again- itll just be a lil different then it was stock.

Sorta an update- my nephew came thru and i got 2 ATV tires - front tires, for $20 - theyre like brand new too.

So ill put em on a couple rims and mount em on the agway - need monster traction since ive harped on the nephew about how my tractor will whup his ATV .

Its still on the backburner at the moment - i picked up one of those 10x20 auto shelters for $50 on clearance ( normally a $300 ) and i need to put that up in place of the old temp garage.

I had one of those shelters and I will say this, make sure it is heavily anchored. The wind took mine, then later 2ft of snow crushed it.

I already have one of those lightweight 'white' temp garages - the new one is tan and is heavy duty ( heck box weighs 140lbs) - comes with anchors and a one piece 'roof' and sides.

Ive had that white one now for quite a few years, its withstood some serious winds and rain ( no snow here) , just the intense sun is slowly deteriorating it ( tarp is flaking a bit) and has ripped in a couple spots. Im not really too happy because the sides dont quite match ( sides/ends come as a separate package - roof and frame are another package).

Another snafu is the new ATV tires are 10" rims - i have 6", 8" , 9" and 12" rims - no 10" rims..... haveta find a couple somewhere and adapters to fit the 3/4" stock axles. Least i do have the pretty much brand new tires tho- one step closer....

Score! Got a couple 10" steel rims off EBAY - im still debating how ill mount them to the agway, wether ill do the stock cut down rim welded to the new rims or build my own adapters - might be easier doing the welding thing- then they can basically be transferred to any tractor easily - im thinking about using tubes to keep potential flats away and the ability to air em down.

Another thing to add to the tractor would be a small air compressor- i have one of those 'slime' kits- came with the slime, and a small compact air compressor that runs off 12 volts- id need to put some aligator clips on the end in place of the cigarette lighter end and clip it to the battery when needed.

Im seriously psyched now- got my ATV rims! I have an idea how to mount them w/o welding them ( theyre steel) - have to wait for the rain to stop tho.

Im thinking of cutting down a couple old stock 8" rear rims, then using bolts thru the atv stock bolt holes , weld the bolts to the old tractor rims and that way can remove the ATV wheels easily if needed, and not destroy them. It should be a solid setup, ill haveta see tho- might need to weld tabs on the tractor rims to locate the ATV wheels.

That thing is cool. Nice project.

Its still a work in progress - i just havent had time to work on it - i was going to use one of my 14.5HP motors, but ill most likely use a 11HP ( stronger motor) for now .

I put a slightly larger motor pulley ( 4-5" ) and slightly smaller rear pulley ( 8" ) - i didnt want super sonic speed, just faster then a turtle.

I do have a 4x4 mod planned for it eventually - ill get it together and then set it up for a trans under the front.

Yeah i like how it looks as well- sits pretty good looks whole lot better with the larger front tires - i do have to do something about the steering- the wheels hit the footrests at full turn, im debating about hacking the factory footrests off and mounting another set.

looks pretty kool

Major score for the agway today - i mentioned i got a pair of ATV tires from my nephew for $20 - those are smaller front tires- bot a pair of 9" rims off ebay for $30 - i was planning on putting em on the back, BUT theyre just too small.

Well today at a local fleamarket i scored a pair of 25x13.00x9 wooly booger tires with rims for the huge amount of $25 - they are huge compared to the ones on it now, have nearly new tread and are holding air nicely. Brand new one of these tires this size run around $70 each .

Looks like my wheelhorse rat rod will need another set of hubs, as my set now are going on the agway .