Newcomer from AZ. Father son project

Hi all,

So awhile back my 10 year old son came up with the idea that he would like to find an old beat up riding lawnmower to make into something custom that he could cruise around on. I wrench on cars for fun and he wanted a project of his own. I thought it was a great idea and started looking around CL for awhile for something cheap that I could use for the chassis. I came across one for $50 and we took it home. It is a 2003 MTD Yard Machines 13AP608G129 with an 18HP Briggs & Stratton 31D7770233E1 motor, and a 719-0394 varidrive transaxle. We took it home and checked it out some more. Luckily we were able to get the motor to fire up after swapping out the solenoid and some ring connectors. Then we spend the rest of the day completely tearing it down.

At this point we now need to come up with a plan for this thing. My plan is to keep the motor stock and hopefully do a pulley swap to get it going faster. I'd like a 5spd transaxle, but haven't found any local resources yet. I have a good disc brake lined up and will convert it to direct steer. The rest will be more cosmetic than anything. We either are going to make it look like a hot rod or maybe even go the opposite and make it something for offroad. Honestly though I don't want to put much money in it since it would be better spent on a quad. This is more about the build experience than anything else.

Here are some pics:

My son right after we got it off the truck.



Starting to work on it.



Good 'ol Ford solenoid to the rescue!



My son and a friend working on it.



Tear down complete. Time to start cleaning!

Welcome to the nuthouse... Wait... Did you say something about "better spent on a quad?!?". Shame on you! LOL

Thanks! My point about the quad was more of a "if I'm going to dump $1k+ into this thing it would be better spent on a quad". I started to go down the whole build a race mower idea. After adding up the cost of a live axle, brake, sprocket, bearings, mounts, brackets, chains, RAGB, idlers, centrifugal clutch, new wheels and tires, hubs, etc I was really up there in price. At that point I decided that we need to keep this project simple. Get it cleaned up, paint it, make it a little faster, safer, chop some things down to make it more low profile, and have a good experience with the build itself.

buickmike wrote:

Thanks! My point about the quad was more of a "if I'm going to dump $1k+ into this thing it would be better spent on a quad".  I started to go down the whole build a race mower idea. After adding up the cost of a live axle, brake, sprocket, bearings, mounts, brackets, chains, RAGB, idlers, centrifugal clutch, new wheels and tires, hubs, etc I was really up there in price.  At that point I decided that we need to keep this project simple.  Get it cleaned up, paint it, make it a little faster, safer, chop some things down to make it more low profile, and have a good experience with the build itself.  

most of the builds on this site are cheep and made of junkyard parts. also welcome to the forum:D