LawnBoy UTLTV aka MULE

Stiches. Luckily, didn't drill anything too important. Spent that haspin with one less finger working.

You know the curls of metal you get when drilling steel? Your flesh does the same thing....

Stretch44875 wrote:

Stiches.  Luckily, didn't drill anything too important. Spent that haspin with one less finger working.  

You know the curls of metal you get when drilling steel?  Your flesh does the same thing....

At least you didn't try to weld it

prometheusedi wrote:

Looks good Doc, looks really good. While you research those colors for the camo, look up pine straw patterns. Now I'm thinking of doing this to war machine mk 1.1 (lol) but with colors more specific to my area - Slate Grey, Sage Green (and brown), Sand Tan, and whatever others I can identify with a paint equivalent. Mule II with the pine straw camo and relevant colors for your camouflage would be pretty cool to see  

You... basically read my mind. I was looking into this, and opted not to do it THIS time. I wanted to take some time to practise and learn more before doing a tractor. Meanwhile, I just wanted to get MULE painted, so I went for quick and easy first. Besides- that's what MULEII is all about, right? Improvements upon the original design!

UPDATE-

After a long week in the hospital, I started turning wrenches again yesterday. MULE's got a gas pedal now! I had that annoying dashboard control that regulated both the throttle and choke. I separated the choke control, and now the dash lever ONLY runs the choke. I used the brake pedal from a 1989 Yamaha Virago motorcycle for the gas pedal. It features it's own return spring, and adjusting screw, and it's strong enough to put up with lead boots. I simply bolted the whole bracket to the side of the tunnel over the right floorboard. A little fine tuning of the cable pull and end points, and hammer down!



For my next magical trick, I will be doing away with the floor shifter. I hate it. The knob rests right at the plate and I have smacked a finger more than once shifting. Plus, I have no interest in reaching between my legs... LOL

I'll save the "underneath" picture for a time where it's a wee bit more comfortable to shoot a pic in that orientation, BUT-

I re-did my shifter this afternoon. I hated the console shift on this thing. So... I cut off the factory shift lever mechanism from the tranny shifter arm, welded another tab on the arm, made up a linkage rod with some 1/4NPT and a couple of old heim joints, and tied it to the old PTO engagement lever in the dash. Presto! Comfortable shifting, up where you can reach it.

I've marked the gear positions temporarily on the dashboard, as well as the "new" choke control. Once everything is said and done, I will re-paint the dash and apply better markings. For now, here it is!



The funny thing is: Between the foot throttle and the better shifter, this thing is actually more fun to drive now!

Ooo... I like them both. It is always fun to change the function of a stock lever. One of ours uses the deck lift as a shifter, push button on shifter to take it out of neutral.

Do you find yourself skipping gears, with the short throw of the shifter?

When you do relabel, don't forget the operating instructions!

Operating instructions... D'oh!

As you probably noticed (by the marks on the LEFT of the shifter) the first try left me with a REALLY short throw. Too short. The re-do came out more comfortable. I could lengthen it more, but have some clearance issues underneath that would make it more trouble than it's worth.

In testing last night, I found that it doesn't prove to be a problem to me. I am not going through the gears sequentially like you would in a car or bike, just grab and go really. I up-and down-shifted a few times as a test, and was able to put it where I wanted it, fairly easily.

It was pretty trippy with the new throttle. I was able to do things like coast down hills with the clutch in and the engine at idle (without reaching for the dash lever). Nice. Also made for more controllable engine braking.

Well... If you're gonna mess something up, break the snot out of it. Go big or go home. Wrench, wheel, wreck, repeat.

Went for a toss today. Took a bad bounce climbing a steep, bumpy hill. *BANG!!!* This is bad... right?



To make matters worse, it broke like a mile from home. I had to hoof it back, and return with my quad to tow it home.

Keeeeeeruch! Ah, that lonely walk out of the woods... Bah! Nothing that a little JB weld and duct tape won't fix LOL

Dang... I wish...

I done blowed it up REAL good. Now, what to do. Having been off work, I can't really afford anything. I DO have the shell of a Peerless 800 (this WAS a 920) and enough 800 and 700 parts I think to build a frankentranny. The current issue du jour is that there are a couple shaft bearings from the 800 that are pretty rusted up and I have no spares of the right dimensions. Not sure what my local OPE dealer would charge, if I can even get them. Crap.

Well you finally have carnage. Doesn't look to bad, maybe some self taps and tape?

Eeeew!

And what did we learn from this?
Think some sort of subframe around the transaxle would help?

I don't think you can really support them from the middle, securely. Only the sides. I think what we learned is that aluminum cases stink and you have to get a new axle lol. Doc- did you at least try to put it in gear and go home?

get a tig welder

Some slick drill and tapping could possibly help, in the middle of the thing to bolt it to the sub frame?

motorizedeverything wrote:

get a tig welder

That reminds me, we will be learning how to weld aluminum sometime this year.... I got a 5hp briggs funpower with a broken side case, if I can find the piece that cam out Id like to weld it back up.

Okay- Progress. There's a guy not far from here (mile and a half?) that's always advertising various tractor parts for sale, so I went for a visit. I dug through his "junk" trannies because he wanted $125.00 for a "good" one.

I Found a Peerless 930, figuring it was pretty close to my blown 920. Figured I could just drop all my good guts in the "new" case. I paid $20 for the junker tranny, which included a good pulley. Good thing too, cuz I bent my old pulley getting it off (aargh).

Inspection of the "junk" tranny revealed damage to the input pinion and bevel gears. No biggie- whipped them outta my broken 920. So far, so good. As I got further into it, I found a couple of crappy-looking spider gears, and swapped them out. I also chose to re-use my old axle shafts, because the spiders were already on them, and there was a bit of a length difference on one side (odd).

I noticed that the bull gear on the broken 920 is beefier than the 930's. Dang. Oh well.

I assembled the tranny and gave the pulley several spins. Binding. Dang. After multiple inspections, I figured out that the axleshaft from the "broken" side of my old tranny, must have bent slightly in the "incident". Swapped it out, all good.

I ran out of light before I could complete the installation, but I can see I'm going to have to ply with the hole on the shifter arm. Square on the new one, oblong on the old.

I DID get a couple of "unadvertised bonuses". The new gearcase is a 6-speed (old was 5), and features a 4-key shift shaft instead of the more common two keys.

MULE oughta be riding again tomorrow. Stay tuned!

That is some seriously thin casting.  And for it to break on the Mule, which is not a high speed racing/jumping machine, means that it wasn't heavy duty to begin with.

I can see one contributing problem, spider gear is not inside a diff carrier, and uses the case to hold it in, making for a nasty flex point where it broke.  The 3/4 transaxles we used before had a diff carrier, and we welded the gears/axles together.  This made it more like a solid axle, and would take some of the stress off the case.  Only time we broke cases, was because of broken welds/gears would jam and pop the case.  One time it was because of extreme abuse(like big air jumps).  Even that one we ran for quite a while after, since the axle was holding the case together.

Best bet would be a solid axle in the case, but if you want to keep the diff, which I think is what you are doing, that's not an option.

Maybe an 820 would hold up better, but ours use solid axles, so I don't have experience with them in stock form.

As mentioned by others, I don't see a subframe helping any.

Good deal on the new tranny. Going to do anything to help beef it up? What is the difference between 920 and 930?

On the 4 key shaft, we used 4 keys for a while, but have much better luck with 2 keys. They last much longer. Don't know why, doesn't make sense to me, but others have had the same thing. And half price to replace!

Im not sure what your opinion of "locked" transaxles are, but back when we used to run smaller tractors we started using 3/4 round stock and running it completely through the transaxle, then cutting the pin that the spiders that engage the bull gear in half and cut 13/16 out of the middle then mocking it all up and welding them on so that they transferred the power from the bull gear to the new axle. then you get the heavyest washers you can find, grind all the galvinizing off and weld them to either side of the drive pin, and I dont mean a couple welds I mean weld, weld and weld some more. the extra 1/16 you take of the drive pin allows for a little mis-alignment. the ones I did I used our mill to put keyways back in the new axle, but a couple people I used to ride with just welded the axle to the wheels. its redneck, but it cuts way down on case breakage because the one piece axle helps hold the case together, where the two piece try and snap it when you get to bouncing.

Stretch- I agree with what you've said, and am less than thrilled. For now, I'll get this 930 in and running so I can drive it. I will have to look at other options though.   It's kind of screwy how these 920's and 930's APPEAR to be gusseted and therefore stronger cases than the 800, but yet this old 800 I have floating around has the carrier you describe. Go figure. The 920 has a slightly beefier diff bull gear, everything else is interchangeable.

Creepycrawler- Been thinking about THAT, too. Unsure as of yet. I'm gonna have the guy down the road keep an eye out for an 820 for me. He's also got a 42 Oppy block I wouldn't mind laying hands on...

u mean 930 doc? lol

Friend of mine has a diff axle, 1 in, in his go kart. Uses an extra set of bearings next to the diff to support it, for a total of 4, 1in bearings. That would work out well if you go the 700 route, and want to keep the diff. I have seen them in mowers also.

My personal preference its to lock everything. I even had a mower with a solid axle, worked fine for me.

Funny you should mention that- it is EXACTLY what I set up on the go kart I built for my kids- peerless 100 diff axle out of an old lawn tractor, 2 bearings per axleshaft. Pretty strong for what it is.

And... MULE rides again! Sweet. $20 and a few hours of wrenching. Much better than I had expected. With my current budget, I thought I'd be down for MONTHS!

Happiness is a running offroad mower!

You could build a truss design.   Flat stock steel, bolted to the bottom of the case, where the frame bolts to the transmission, connecting the two sides, and supporting the bottom of the case.  Would have to bend the steel to fit, and probably tension it some how.