4 link Murray front suspension

Ight den her it is the 4 link murray. This all was dun in about a month out of mostly lawnmower parts and a small atv. Everything was hand made ecept for rod ends tierod ends and shocks. I first mocked it up with turn buckles from TSC. with bushings in it to take up the slack.  This is the first mock up.  
Then i hit something hard enough to bend those turn buckles. Since it worked for the most part time to perfect it. So i bought Raced rodends. 5 righthand and 5 lefthand. Then took close mesurments and placed the axel on a 10 degree angle and got my brother inlaw to make the link bars. i places a 2x4 between frame an axel to extend te wheel base 1an1/2 inch and lifted it 1 inch. i then built the shock towers  and mounted shocks and welded link brackets to axel. then the link bars come in.
So i proceded to put it together.
I knew i would have to make somekind of shock tower support. But had to go for a ride. After about 5 minets. And one tower about to hit carb it was time to figur out the supports. After a day of ponderin an lookin at it. This is what i come up with.
After that took it apart and built bumper and painted it and mounted the hood

Hood is removeable with thease removable pins in bumper.

Ind then you have the final product. I redone steering also. But  ill do a post in steering for that.

Thanks for your intrest. If you have any questions feel free to ask.  And also jamcco asked how much it flexed so here is a pix of it on a 8 inch cinder block.

Very nice. Glad you did a writeup, something to take note of, nice work. How much travel total can you get if you were to do something simular to a RTI ramp? I get maybe 6" out of my leafs.

How does it steer because I see your tie rod is in front of the axle now. Just curious cause that throws off your Ackerman angle.

How does it steer because I see your tie rod is in front of the axle now. Just curious cause that throws off your Ackerman angle.

The steering on it uses spindls off of an older murray garden tracter. That i placed a wider stronger axel in. The spindles where already set up. I didnt need to do any thing accept make to tierod longer and custom fab the drawbar from steering gear.

thats awsome! great engineering skills! thats actually really well designed. did you do it completely yourself or model it after something?

Seeing as you have a Panhard Bar in there, wouldn't it be a 5-link?

Well done.

did you mention somewhare that you had an opposed twin? how does that fit with the suspension?

I did it all myself. I use to rockcrawl toyotas and knew how suspention worked so i just based it off of that.
To doc. I recon it still falls under 4 link. The panhard is a stabliser bar. When you talk about 5 link from what i understand. Your mostly getting into. Buggy long travel suspention. Where there are 5 link bars going down to each indevidual tire. Fully indepindent. Thanks for the complaments guys. When i do the rear ill have to take more pix.

1997 Murray wrote:

did you mention somewhare that you had an opposed twin? how does that fit with the suspension?

Na i got a oppy on that old murray. 20 hp i think it would fit not sure i know i would have to rebuild shock tower support. i was wonting to build it around a v twin. I dont really care for oppys myself.

I was thinking if a three link setup for me, but do you get any body roll while turning?

Nice setup. Turned out good.

If it does i cant tell it. Ii thought about a 3 link. I just didnt wont the to put one link on one side and two on other. There really aint a whole lot of options of location on a lawnmower.

very cool idea, how does it ride?

MUCH BETTER ride. Thats why i say its one of the best mods iv ever dun to it.

the pan hard bar is a MUST if you dont want the front end every which direction. i just finished up this design on my tractor as well heres a quick pic of my tractor....ill have my write up done in couple days.....i still need to to do some final adjustments your build gave me something to glance at when i hit problem  


this is a picture before tower supports were put in and before i adjusted the tierods so thats why things dont look quite right

Lookin good craftsman has a lil more room to work with looks like. Like to see how she turns out. Nice teaser.

im very close to being done, i just have to get the pan hard held on differently i do need to redo my exhaust now.....just my excuse to make it louder  

I had to redo mine to. I dont really care for loud exaust myself. I ride in the woods alot and loud kinda sux. I was lookin at your setup and was wondering i you braced your fram any where the links tie on. There is going to be alot of stress there and i know craftsman frams like to buckle in that area. And also you may wont to consider making the parallel of your links wider so it can handle more tourqeing ont the fram and front axel. Also make sure to brace shock tower well.

yah the frame is going to get braced... ive already had it buckle once. i have some metal ive been looking at doing that with. i also ran some angle iron from shelving down from the front of the chassis to the towers. i think the suspension is solid enough as is i may have to add things along the road, matter a fact i know ill have to add stuff. ill get this done by the end of the week.. i hope

Allright bubba sounds good. Just remember do it right the first time and you wont have to work on it later.

yup nothing worse than fixing your own mistakes

ok first off are the links 4" and 6" turn buckels? and till you hit the "Tree" did they work ok?

Na they are from eye to eye top is like 6-3/4 and bottom is 10 inches. Didnt hit a tree i was flexin it out. I ran off in a ditch and the eye come apart and axel wrapt up under the mower. If you use em weld the eyes closed.

that was the idea. did you put bushings in the eyelets to keep slack out?