01 murray hydrostatic drive trail/rockcrawler

01 murray hydrostatic drive with 17.5 briggs been sitting for 4 or 5 years guys dog got ahold of it and ate some of the wiring and the steering wheel
got the idea from from fearless fronts youtube page to make a rock crawler which lead me to this form so here are some of what ive done so far





not sure how the hydrostatic trans will work can you weld them solid and can you change the pulley to make it go faster

Welcome to the site. I have a 97 widebody auto that I mow with and my trail toy is a 01 widebody lt std. I haven't modded my mowing mower but have read that the auto tranny doesn't like higher speeds. If all else fails you could swap in a manual transaxle. However with all that front travel, you may want to keep it slow anyway. I don't think Fearlessfront swapped pulleys on his craftsman crawler.

Hydros wont take abuse/mods - youll blow it up- hydros already run a 3" trans pulley , if you over heat them, theyll lock right up . Youd be better off getting a manual trans or going to a straight axle.

We sped one of the hydro units up in a sears suburban to race, not too much but it did make it faster and the pump didn't have any problems.. But if it gets spun too fast it will have cavitation issues.. ruin the pump ect...

WHAT EVER YOU DO DO NOT OPEN THAT CASE!!!!!!!!!!! SPRINGS AND INTERNALS WILL POP OUT AND YOUL BE FCKED not knowing where they go and you cant change the pulleys so you pretty much your stuck with the slow arse speed it has, but the hydros do take alot of beating you can tug a war, mud, and jump it, those things will take alot of abuse as long as you dont speed them up, another bad thing is they give you less ground clearance than a manual tranny, but if you get bigger tires you shouldnt have a problem

thanks for the info guys i think im just going to use the trans till i can get one to put in it may turn the front pulley up side so the deck pulley is on top

here some more pics of my shock set up still got some more to do to it

had to turn the motor around so everything would line up

Almost have to laugh at the name on those shocks - 'delco pleasurizer' sounds like something from an adult bookstore- and thats a name GM came up with.....makes y wonder....


Cool setup - they should work for the purpose. If you could find a peerless 700 or right angle gear box - you could add a swing arm suspension to the rear as well- like an atv.

yea i laughed when i found them thought about naming the mower after them lol what mowers came with a peerless 700

here some pics of the shocks done

Some rear engine riders come with the peerless 700's - those are the lower input pulley and side output sprocket type transmissions. Right angle gear boxes are a 1:1 box so you can run a straight rear axle, youd need a go kart clutch with that setup tho.

Hopefully soon ill be attempting to build my own right angle gear box out of an old lawntractor transmission have sitting outside my shed , i could use that instead of a 6 speed manual swapped into my MTD , and run a straight axle.


Tractor looks cool- i set up my old stock agway mud machine with large front tires and found a set of tall/big rear tires- sets pretty level now .

hey way to go on copying fearlessfront.

Awesome build well done.
I think you should do a swing axle though in the back.
Keep up the great work.

got some more stuff done heres some pics

that thing is sweet i really like the front view of it.

nice mower man

thanks guys i like the front view to thinking about getting some light to put on the front bumper
and i need to get some better tires on the back

Got a exhaust on it last night
heres what part of my exhaust is made of






heres video of it sorry it so dark

I do like that bumper. It's a good mower to work with

I did the same thing I put a car battery in my green beast I starts that twin a lot beter and fits right in that 616.