W.H.A.M.S.

You're doing great, I'm diggin' it!

I got lost here, though-

Angchor wrote:

Also, I removed the rod that was originally in the choke linkage, that the governor is supposed to hit, when the gov kicks in. It never came anywhere close to touching the gov, anyway. It was just sitting there, doing nothing.

The governor doesn't actuate the choke. Shouldn't ever, anyways- unless a previous owner seriously screwed things up. Normally, the dashboard throttle control causes the arm to push the rod, when it's jacked up full to choke position (on machines that have a combination throttle/choke lever). unless I missed something somewhere?

Also- I think you're right about the gasket thing- probably had insufficient crank endplay.

Doc Sprocket wrote:

The governor doesn't actuate the choke. Shouldn't ever, anyways- unless a previous owner seriously screwed things up. Normally, the dashboard throttle control causes the arm to push the rod, when it's jacked up full to choke position (on machines that have a combination throttle/choke lever). unless I missed something somewhere?

Also- I think you're right about the gasket thing- probably had insufficient crank endplay.

You are correct, Doc.

If I am going to try to include details, I should be at least as careful about what I say, as I am about what I actually do, on the machine. LOL



The yellow arrow points to the rod that is now removed. In that picture, the 'throttle' is pulled as far as it goes, and as you can see, the linkage never came anywhere close to contacting that choke rod.

The red arrow points to where I had to drill a new hole, to put the choke strictly on the control of the cable.

I am going to try to repurpose that rod that I removed. (The yellow arrow.) In my foot throttle setup. But that is all I will say about that, for now.


Also, of course, now that I have run it in, and the crank endplay is now sufficient... If I decide to put a gasket in it in the future, it'll have too much end play. LOL


Thanks for watching. And correcting, when I need it.    

The past few days were a bit frustrating.

I was working to get it to the point where I could actually drive it. This meant getting things buttoned up with the engine, and several other things.

I had setbacks because things broke. The attachment for the gas tank. The starter. (This was AFTER rebuilding it. It broke the plastic part on the bottom, when I tightened the bolt to hold the battery cable on. I fixed that with JBWeld.) And some other things I can't remember right now.

Then I find that the new engine pulley that I was so proud of, was not going to work.


The story on that pulley... I went to a local tractor place, to get the pulley. (Town and Country Tractor, in Monroe Wa.)

I went in and asked for a pulley, strictly by pulley information. I wanted a 4&1/2" pulley with a 5/8" pitch, and a one inch bore. It can't get any simpler than that. They could have just gone back to the pulleys and looked to see if they had one that size. Instead, they spent half an hour asking me all kinds of stupid questions.

What is this off of? What is it for? Serial number, because make and model isn't good enough. Why are you putting on a different size? Are you sure it will work? What are you going to do about belt retainers? Etc... All very stupid questions, because I had already TOLD them exactly what pulley I wanted. None of that other info mattered.

They don't even bother going and looking at their existing stock of pulleys, to see if they have one. They want to special order it, or nothing at all.

So, ok, we order it.

It's going to cost 45 dollars.

WHAT???!!?

Ok, I want the pulley, so lets go ahead and order it.

He goes through the motions. Even calls the 'warehouse' to make sure they have one... I pay for it. And he tells me that it will absolutely be here by tuesday afternoon. (This is a friday.)

I go back in, on tuesday to pick up my pulley. It's not there.

Now, understand... I am still stranded up here above the landslide. Every time I want to go to town, I have to make arrangements with a friend to come and pick me up.

The conversation with the tractor shop guy:
Did we call you to let you know the part was in?

No.

Then why did you come to pick up the part?

You told me it would absolutely be here by tuesday afternoon. I didn't know I was supposed to wait for a phone call. (They never told me that they would call when the part was in.)

Yeah, you were.

Well, if you knew it wasn't going to be here on tuesday, why didn't you call and tell me that it wouldn't be in?

We don't do that. We'd be on the phone all day long calling people and telling them that their part isn't in yet. (More words than that. The insinuation being that if I ordered it on friday, and it actually came in on tuesday, they would have to call me saturday, sunday and monday, all three days, telling me my part isn't in yet. When what I meant was... you TOLD me it would absolutely be here by tuesday. When you discovered it wouldn't be, it would have been courteous of you to let me know that.)(He slipped and let me know they knew by monday.)

Ok, whatever.


I go home and think about it. I call the next day, and tell them to cancel the order and put the money back on my debit card.

So, I am waiting and watching, to see when the money gets put back on my debit card.


Two weeks later, I get a call, telling me that the pulley came in.

After I pick my jaw up from the table, where it dropped at the audacity of them just leaving the order intact instead of doing as I asked and cancelling and putting the money back in my account... I thought about it for a minute, and decided to just go back in and pick it up. If I didn't, I'd still be waiting another two weeks for them to put the money back in my account, anyway.


So, I get the new pulley home. I notice that it looks like it is 1/2" pitch, and it doesn't look any more than maybe 1/4" bigger in diameter than the pulley I took off. (He obviously ordered the diameter according to the make and model of the tractor, instead of ordering a 4&1/2" pulley, like I asked.)

It looks like the belt will ride in it, ok, even if it is only 1/2" pitch, and I am thinking, that that will in essence make it a larger size. It IS a 1" bore w/the right keyway. It's nice solid steel. And it has 2 set screws. One right on the keyway. So I decide to go ahead and try it.

Took me most of a workday, to get that done. I had to machine some spacers, etc... Get it installed. (Picture above) Ok, it looks like it does act as a bigger pulley. Yet if I put the clutch in, it probably lets off enough to let go. But there will be no idler necessary.

So that sat like that for a couple of weeks, until I finally got it to where I could test it yesterday... And it's a no-go. (Or I guess technically, always-go. LOL Because it never lets off enough NOT to send you speeding forward or reverse, even with the clutch in.) I had to put the old pulley back on.

So... 45 dollars wasted and a BUNCH of frustration with that company. I'll never buy anything there again, if I can help it.

I'll probably eventually rescue most of the wasted time, by ordering a bigger belt for the front, and trying again.

~~~~~~~

Ok, so I did get it running yesterday.

I put the old pulley and belt retainers back on. And that took care of being able to use the clutch as intended.

The carb needs a real rebuild kit, with new needle valve. The engine starts, and runs until the bowl runs out of gas. Because the needle sticks closed. Tap on the bottom of the bowl. It lets go. You have to get it started again. Then it runs fine. But now you have to tap on the bottom of the bowl again, to get the needle to re-seat, and not just keep dumping gas into the crankcase once the engine is turned off.

I replaced the spark plug, with what is supposed to be the correct plug. (What was in there was a plug meant for a truck.) You can get the engine to run, but it takes a LOT of nursing. And it dies at the least provocation. After I put the truck plug back in, the engine starts at the first crank, and runs like a champ. The truck plug goes WAY farther into the plug hole, than the stock plug does.

The one on the left is the one that the manual says is supposed to be in there. It ran crappy with that one. The one in the middle is the plug that was in there. It runs well with that one.


The plug on the right is the one I decided to try today. It's a bit of a compromise between the two. The engine started on the very first crank, and ran smoothly. So I think I have found my plug! LOL


I plan today, on trying to take her out on the road, and see how she does. I've got a bunch of other stuff to do, so I might not get anything other than a test drive, done.

If she works ok, then next it'll be on, to reassembling the hood. Working out the battery mount. (To box or not to box, that is the question.) Then possibly working on a gas pedal, and a brake pedal.

I plan on going ahead and using it, if it works out today. And just keeping the other one running, just in case I have down time on this one.

~~~~~~~

Now THAT is a wall of text!

be careful with those plugs. remember, the more threads, the further it goes into the cylinder. could cause some damage. i believe the CORRECT plug is a Champion J8c. i would cross refrence that to an NGK plug

Man, that's 3 times that I wrote this post, and it just disappeared!!! One more try, and that's it!

That middle plug was in the engine when I got it. It was running fine, so I will assume that a plug of that length will not damage anything. Nevertheless I replaced it with the plug on the right. Which is a simlar type of plug, but it is almost as short as the 'legit' plug.

I did get to do a test drive today. I had some problems.

1.) I need to replace the kill switch. The one I am using is internally bad, and will kill the engine without me touching the switch.

2.) The rear belt jumped. This was within the vari-drive pulley. The rear belt is on top, and the front belt is on the bottom. The rear belt decided it liked the looks of the bottom of the pulley, and it joined the front belt down there in the same groove. I am going to have to have a better look at the belt and pulley geometry and see what the problem is.

This happened at the bottom of the hill. I had a few coniption fits for a bit, until I figured out what the problem was, and fixed it. (The reason I am doing this in the first place, is because it is almost impossible for me to climb that hill, on my own.)

But then the engine was very difficult to start, and it kept dieing, once it did start. So I had to put the tractor in it's lowest possible gear, push the clutch partway in, and very carefully nurse it, to get it to climb very very slowly back up that hill.

I was afraid I was going to have to walk back up, and then figure out some way to go down there and get the tractor back up, by towing it or something.

It may be that I will have to replace the plug with a longer one, once again. But I am hoping that the real problem is in how the carb is adjusted.



Stretch has a good carb adjustment video. But his has 3 adjustment screws.

As you can see in the pic, mine has two. One for idle speed, and one for idle mixture. (The brass one is not adjustable.)

Can anyone tell me a good protocol for adjusting this thing from scratch?

If you're running a single-cylinder flathead (L-head) engine, the length of the spark plug will never interfere with the valves or piston. The only time you may incur damage, is if the threads are exposed to combustion, carbon may build up on them, and you may strip out the threads on the head when you try to remove the plug.

The brass adjustment screw with the spring is idle mixture. At full throttle, it does not do very much. The main jet inside the carb should be your concern, unless you are just idling around?

1.5 turns out from fully seated is a good place to start on the idle screw mixture.

more here: http://www.briggsandstratton.com/eu/en/support/faqs/adjusting-the-carburetor

The only brass screw there, is for the emulsion tube. That gets screwed in snug, and left. No adjustment there. On the newer carbs they even deleted the screw. Now they just press in a plug.

The top screw with a spring is the idle speed. The bottom screw with the spring is the idle mixture.

My plan tomorrow will be to get it running, then turn the idle mixture in until it stumbles. Turn it back out until it stumbles again. Then half the distance and add maybe 1/8 turn out, for when it's cold.

If that doesn't produce a lot of difference, I'll adjust the valves. It is hard to start because of compression, so the valves probably need adjusted anyway. I'll probably just go ahead and do both jobs...


I might even do some more work on the front bumper.

And I HAVE to figure out why the back belt jumped.


I checked out the spark plugs.

Here is a pic of the correct plug:

It is identical to the plug I took out.

The plug I took out is an autolite 3924.

The crossover for the plug is:
Autolite 3924
Champion RC12YC
NGK BKR5E-11
Briggs and Stratton 491055
Bosch FR8DCX
DENSO Q16PR-U

So it looks like I will be looking for the right plug, the next time I go into town.

I knew what the champion number was. RC12YC. But I didn't have the plug with me, to look at. So, while I was at Lowes, I picked up a cheapo, "Fast-Fire" plug, that was supposed to be a direct replacement for the RC12YC. (Says so on the package.) THAT is the short fat plug on the left in the pic I posted earlier today. And it is way too short. The engine barely runs with that one.

i must have had a brain fart.. for some reason i thought you were working with an opposed.. DURT

the RC12YC is the correct plug. it is pretty much a standard plug for all briggs and kohler OHV engines. those first fire plugs are complete crapola. thats what Sears reccomended to me when they stopped stocking champion, and i told them to shove it. my grandpa put one in his mower and couldnt figure out why it wasnt running.

Autolite plugs are good, i ran one in place of an NGK BR8-ES in my 2 stroke ATV and it never fouled out, when i would foul out an NGK in 5 minutes.

willis923 wrote:

i must have had a brain fart.. for some reason i thought you were working with an opposed.. DURT

the RC12YC is the correct plug. it is pretty much a standard plug for all briggs and kohler OHV engines. those first fire plugs are complete crapola. thats what Sears reccomended to me when they stopped stocking champion, and i told them to shove it. my grandpa put one in his mower and couldnt figure out why it wasnt running.

Autolite plugs are good, i ran one in place of an NGK BR8-ES in my 2 stroke ATV and it never fouled out, when i would foul out an NGK in 5 minutes.

Hi Willis. Thank you for that.

And by the way, thank you to everyone who pipes in with comments and suggestions. If I don't get back to you right away with thanks, that doesn't mean I am not thankful.

Back to the plugs.

In NGK plugs, the number that is in the name, is the heat indicator. The higher the number, the colder the plug.

The NGK crossover for these engines is NGK BKR5E. An NGK BR8ES is three steps colder. If your engine called for the RC12YC, it's natural that it would foul out.

I have always liked the NGK plugs. I will be getting the NGK BKR5E But after reading your experience, I will be sure to get the Autolite 3924 as well, just in case...

In retrospect, it looks like the PO, had the very best plug in there! No wonder it runs well with that one! Until I can get to town again, I will just clean this one up, and continue running it.

I know Willis gave some info on your motor but can you get a photo of it? I know you might have got one posted but I didn't see it with the fact I've got slow internet. FYI this is on the spark plugs.

Ariens YT11 wrote:

I know Willis gave some info on your motor but can you get a photo of it? I know you might have got one posted but I didn't see it with the fact I've got slow internet. FYI this is on the spark plugs.

It was posted in the very first post of this thread.   

It's a briggs and stratton 28Q777. 15.5 OHV Vanguard. Single.

Angchor wrote:

It is hard to start because of compression, so the valves probably need adjusted anyway.

Too much compression, or too little?

ohvs have a hard time starting (turning over) because of higher compression, so they have a release that opens the exhaust valve a little bit to release pressure. however, if the valves loosen up a bit this mechanisem won't work. this is why he is talking about adjusting them.

Correct. It's hard to start because there is too much compression. (And that has apparently been a problem for a while. Since I was told that it was common to have to turn the motor by hand on top, to get it past the compression stroke, to get it to start.) Adjusting the valves will probably take care of that.


I had to take the old tractor apart today, to get to the exhaust. The pipe was broken off of the flange, and I had to get both off of there to weld it back together, then put it all back on.

But I DID get the adjustments done on this carb today.

Discovered a couple of things...

Not going to be able to put a foot throttle on it, because forcing the throttle, causes problems. Namely LOTS of smoke. Although, once I adjust the valves this may not be a problem...

And this thing is a gas hog compared to the beast.

I can make three trips down the hill and back up on a tank that holds about 3 quarts, on the beast.

This thing will make one trip, that's it, on about the same amount of gas.

Hopefully the adjustments I made today, plus adjusting the valves will make a difference on that account.

Otherwise, it is beginning to look like I will need to swap the motor over from the beast to this one. (Given that the other motor uses less gas, plus the fact that this one bogs out, on the hill, and the other one has absolutely no problem. Again, maybe adjusted valves and carb will make a difference for that, as well.)

Ok, I went back out and tried to adjust the valves. Got it opened up. Set to TDC plus a tad. ......And found out that I don't have a .004 feeler gauge!

I did find some others, though, and checked the gaps. They were gapped at .008 and .011 I'd say it has either been a while since they were gapped, or they somehow opened up pretty quickly.

Tomorrow I'll finish putting the BEAST back together, and staging it and the trailer, so that I can use that, to go down the hill and catch a ride into town on wednesday.

Today I worked on the BEAST, mostly. Just getting it back together, and getting it and the trailer ready for tomorrow's "town day".

I did do some work on the float in the carb. I took the bowl off the carb. Then turned the gas on, at the gas cutoff switch, and pushed up the float with my finger, then let off, etc. To see if the needle valve was sticking.

(If you do this, push it up very gently. You do not want to damage the rubber tip on the needle. Or damage the mating surface in the jet it seals against.)

The needle did not stick in either direction. But I had to push the float up a lot farther than it seemed you should need to, to get the gas to stop flowing out. So, I removed the float and needle.

I heated up the tang on the float, and bent it a tiny bit. (This pic is not my float but it is very close to exactly the same.)


The red arrow points at the tang. With the float laying on the bench like this... If your float rides too high, and lets too much gas in, as mine did, you want to heat that tang up, and push it down, toward the table.

That seems backward, because it is. The float in the pic is laying upside down compared to what it would be inside the carb.

Do NOT do this at all, unless you really understand the physics. It takes extremely little adjustment to make a huge difference here. It is way too easy to permanently damage the float.

Now, reinstall, and check to see if the float hangs slightly below horizontal when loose, and only goes to horizontal, or very slightly above, (We are talking maybe .10 above horizontal, here.), when pushed up.

~~~~~~~

I also figured out what is probably the cause of the back belt jumping the pulley in the vari-drive.

You'll remember that I said previously that the vari-drive pulley bracket is bent and warped.

In the pic, the top part is the way that the pulleys should be oriented.

The bottom is the way they are.



If I have exaggerated the angle at all, it isn't by much!


So tomorrow I will be picking up the gauges so I can adjust the valves.

And some new spark plugs.

I may have enough time left in the day, to start taking that vari-drive pulley and bracket back off of there. If not, I'll be getting started on the pulley on thursday.

From the BEAST thread...

LAWN MOWER MUDDER wrote:

Pfffft, a whole whopping five minutes! I think the ammo can idea is pretty cool. Doesn't that Vanguard have a fuel pump? If so you can put it like that and hide the shut off and battery shut off under the seat hidden somewhere.

No fuel pump on the WHAMS. Although now that I am killing the BEAST, (Before it succeeds in killing ME)... I might consider swapping the fuel pump over from there. But I like the idea of as few things needing electricity as possible on my tractor...



My legs are really starting to swell, and get painful. But if I am able to move around tomorrow, I intend to get started on this again.

As I discussed in the BEAST thread, I intend now to move this rear axle back, and make it wider, if I can.

One bright spot to killing the beast is that if this engine turns out to never have the power to get me up the hill, I can swap the engine over from the beast. They seem to be essentially the same engine, but the one on the beast has proven it has the guts to do the job and the one on the whams has been struggling...

Took the vari drive pulley and bracket off today. Straightened the bracket the best I could, but it looks like it will just bend again if I don't make some changes.


Took a good long look at the transaxle setup.

I wanted to widen the wheelbase, and lengthen it as well.

Found out I can get 6 to 8 inches wider stance, very simply. Flip the wheels in for out. There is a large offset on the inside. If I flip the wheels, that will move the centers of the tires out by about 3 to 4 inches each. (I'll just have to reach inside, to put air in the tires.)

The wheelbase is already wider than the old BEAST. Add the wheel flip, and it will be almost a foot wider than that one.


As for moving the transaxle backward...

After looking for a while, I got to looking at the angle iron I have already added to the front. Then I had the thought that it might actually be easier to move the dashboard and the engine and seat, forward! LOL

But I just had another thought, a few minutes ago...

Back to the wheelie bar ideas!

I think I will start another thread for the wheelie bar ideas.

In fact, here it is... LOL
https://www.atltf.com/t4030-trailer-wheelie-bar-combination#54636

I REALLY need to either get this WHAMS on the road, or set it aside.

If I have any choice in the matter, the BEAST will never go back on the road. Try to kill me once, shame on you. Try to kill me twice, shame on me. You don't give it a third chance.

That said, the WHAMS may turn out not to be suitable for the purpose. The biggest obstacle at this point is that from my own observance, as well as the feedback I am getting from several sources now... It looks like the vari drives are never very good for speed, or for pulling. The pulling part of that, being the most important. If it can't pull much, it also can't climb a hill very well. Or the ramps into the back of a truck.


Therefore, even though I have said the BEAST is dead... If the WHAMS is never useful, then I might have to put the BEAST back to use, and make a wheelie bar for IT, instead. (And/or make some other changes to it.)


So, I will now try to get the WHAMS finished. I will work on the problems I have had with it, and IF I ever get a satisfactory test drive out of it, then I'll go ahead and make the wheelie bar for it.

If not, I'll repair the beast and make the wheelie bar for it, instead. (It would be a LOT simpler to move the entire transaxle rearward on that one, as well. Then move the seat down a bit, to lower the center of gravity, etc.)

I have already discussed the problems with the whams, but let me review them again...

I drove it once already and had two major problems. The belts would jump, on the vari-drive pulley. And the engine just may not have the guts to make it up this hill/trail.

A minor problem was leakage through the carb, filling the engine with gasoline. (Even while running, too much gasoline was getting through. Resulting in using 3 times as much gas as the BEAST.)

I have adjusted the valves on the engine. And bent the tang on the float of the carberator. We will see if that solved the problems with too much gas, and not enough guts.

I found the carrier plate for the varidrive pulleys to be bent and warped, so I bent it back. No guarantee that it won't just bend again, though. That was part of the problem with the belts. Then, I added an extra belt retainer. Long enough to retain both belts. (The previous retainer would only retain the bottom belt. The top one was jumping, and joining the bottom belt in the lower half of the pulley.)

I finished all that work yesterday. Today I will put the fender and seat back on, and probably take another test drive.

This will be the determining drive. If it looks like it will be useful, after all, then I'll work on what to do about the battery. Get the hood reattached and battened down. And then turn my attention to the wheelie bar ideas.

If it still just doesn't seem up to the task because of the intricacies of the vari-drive and the rest... I HAVE to set one aside and work on the other. And the whams will just have to be put away for future work/fun/projects.

~~~~~~~

Later in the day...


Well, I almost gave up on it.

Get to the bottom of the driveway, and it will not come back up, no matter what. Pulleys are spinning, everything SEEMS to be ok. It just doesn't have any guts at all.

So I put it in reverse and try to climb the hill. Now it won't do it because the tires are just spinning out. So I get off, and push it up backwards with it running and in reverse. I don't know which is "helping", me or the tractor...


Get it up here and everything I check seems screwy.

But I keep trying this and that... and finally I figure out that when I put it in forward... It doesn't stay that way.

It's also difficult now, to find neutral.


I rigged up a bungee cord, and went for another ride.

It still acts like a gutless wonder, but at least it climbs the hills, now. (It will do that, better, once I make some chains for it.)


Now I'll need to take the seat and fender back off, and get down to the FNR shifter and figure out the problem.

I am assuming that there is something that I left loose, on the trans, when I put everything back together. A simple adjustment and tightening down, may do the job. We'll see.


~~~~~~~

Another problem with this engine now...

The valve adjust did WONDERS! It cranks immediately every time now. And starts very quickly. Instantly, once it is warmed up.

I have no idea whether the float trick did the job or not. But it ran really smoothly this time. And I have a shutoff in there. As long as I remember to turn off the gas when I turn off the engine, I'll be ok.

The new problem... Well, it's not a new problem, but it wasn't apparent before. Now that it is running right, this kind of sticks out like a sore thumb...

When I turn the engine off, and the engine actually stops....

Something inside just keeps spinning and spinning.

Seems like the flywheel, but it's obviously not that.

Any ideas what that is? I suspect that it's the 'alternator', that lives inside the flywheel.

It doesn't do it every time. But when it does, it spins for at least a few seconds. Seems to have a lot of momentum, or weight, or whatever...

I'm chewing on the engine spinning thing.

Meanwhile- you've talked about the problems with Beast, and the problems with WHAMS, and bouncing back and forth between the two, and ne'er the twin shall meet.

Why not?

If you've got a good transaxle in Beast, and a problematic VariDrive in WHAMS. Am I the only one that thinks you should maybe examine ripping the transaxle out of Beast and retrofitting it into WHAMS?

The alternator doesn't spin. It's held in place by four bolts and physically connected to two wires. It would be a massive mess if it broke loose.

My guess is: The only other things that could spin on their own are bad bearings, cam, or governor. All of which would be very bad. You should check belts and pulleys too. I'm thinking an idler pulley or something spins after shutdown.

Found some video of Angchor trying to drive up the hills by his house...

Let me preface todays novella with some relevant facts.

At this point in time, this is not a hobby for me. I NEED this tractor to work, and I need it now!

In a few weeks they will be finished with the bridge they are building, that will allow us to once again, drive to town and back. Until then, I need this tractor, so I'll have transportation up and down the ATV trail. After that, this will become just a hobby for me. (Except for the occassional utility use I have for it.)

Next: I do not have much of a budget. Neither time, nor money, nor other resources. I am trying to do this with stuff that I already have around. (I don't have a large selection of parts to choose from.) And I obviously do not have the time to just pick and pratt about this, and get it done maybe some time next summer.

Last: I do not have a nice big shop with concrete floor, every tool I could possibly need, easy driving access to a source of parts, etc. I am working in a gravel driveway that is steep in two directions. With mostly hand tools. Trying to "machine" parts with vice grips and a grinder. Etc...

~~~~~~~

Doc, that thought crossed my mind a long time ago. Very briefly.

This is what keeps me from swapping the beast trans over...

The thought of 300 pounds on top of that tiny little 3/4" axle. I've been waiting for it to break, already.

Plus it is more narrow. The beast is 35 inches wide. The whams is 39 inches. If I flip the wheels, the whams is 44 - 1/2" wide!!!

Pretty sure I'd gain nothing on the beast, if I flipped the wheels. And I'd worry even more about the axles if I did gain something in width. I'm confident that the beefy structure of the whams will handle the flipped wheels with no problem.

~~~~~

B440,

Shut up! LOL I have already thought of all that. I do hope to find that it is just something external.

Oho! Idler pulley! Now THAT is one I hadn't thought of! I'll check that out. There is only one in the entire system. And i think the belt stays in contact with it, even when the clutch pedal is all the way engaged.

~~~~~

MrModified...

I WISH!!!

Those guys have full cages and 5 point restraints, etc...

Although at 13 there is a fairly accurate representation of what happened! LOL

And B440 wins the prize!!


It was the idler pulley!

Man! When you are sitting on the tractor, and you hear that noise, it sounds for all the world like some huge part of the top of the engine, spinning away!

Ok, now back outside to get some real work done!

Ahh- interesting. I did not fully comprehend your situation. That said- faced with what you're faced with, you've done a heck of a job so far. I assumed the transaxle swaps would be a bit more straightforward. Surprise!

Idler pulley, huh? If that don't beat all...

Jacked it up on the left and took the wheel off to check out the shifter.

Adjusted it twice. Letting it back down, and trying it, between adjustments. If adjusting it doesn't work, I'll just look for a way to put a spring on it somewhere. And in the meantime, I'll use the bungee cord if I need to.

Now, from yesterday's experience it seemed at first like the tractor was just gutless. Once I figured out that the shifter was not staying in forward, (and then I bungeed it in forward.), it DID climb the hill. Not very fast, but it did at least climb my driveway. (While my driveway is pretty steep, it is not as steep as the ATV trail, so it HAS to do better than it is, if I am going to climb that trail.)

The other factor to not being able to climb well, was the tires. They are the opposite of aggressive. Almost bad enough to be called slicks. LOL They spin out even on nearly level surfaces.

So while I had that wheel off, I made a chain for it. Then put the wheel back on there, flipped inside for out.  You can see how much wider the stance is going to be, once finished.

I think I am on the right track with all of the above.

Once I have put a chain on the other tire, and swapped it inside out, I'll give the hill another go. If I need more oomph, I'll probably see what I can get out of adjusting the shift linkage that pushes the vari-drive forward and backward.


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I have begun to formulate a plan for the 'wheelie bar'.

Here is the rear end of the tractor:


Here are some shocks I can take off of a moped:


Ideas are swirling in my head. And my deeelux big wheeled hand truck is doing it's best imitation of a tree or invisible, or whatever will save it from being cut up...

It's fairly safe, though. The tires won't hold air for more than maybe 5 minutes.

I'll probably end up taking the front wheels off of the beast and trying to make something with those. if I had a straight axle that fit those, it would be fairly easy to make what I have designed in my head.

Ok, this one is frustrating.

I have adjusted the shifter many times. Each time, closer and closer to the center. Until I now have it pretty much dead center.

If you look at the pic... The red arrow points at a bolt. If you loosen the bolt, then you can move that arm either direction, as the green arrow indicates.


With it bolted tight, when you move the shifter arm, up above, this moves back and forth in the same direction, but it also moves the rod in the background in and out of the trans, in the direction of THAT green arrow.

The problem is that I have adjusted this shifter as close as I can. It is in the center. But not. Because where it is, you have to really pull on the shifter and hold it forward, to get the trans to actually GO into forward, and to stay in forward.

Undo that bolt, and move it just a HAIR, and I mean just a hair, the other way, then tighten it down, and now it will do forward just fine, but now it won't stay in reverse.

There is just absolutely no way to adjust this thing any finer than I have done. But there HAS to be a way!

Is there a trick to this that I am not catching on to?