Craftsman GT becoming something.. My first ever build

Disclaimer: This will be probably a long process. This is simple and standard to most of you. I've never welded before. I had to borrow a Lincoln Pro-Core 125 from work this week so I can play with it. I've never modified a tractor in any way. I'm a total noob. I also tend to be a bit wordy... bear with me.
I DO however work at a place where I come across scrap metal frequently. This is where the tractor itself came from.

I came in to work one morning and found a Toro snowblower sitting there without an engine (Model 38560). I wanted the tires... Finding that the rims were not being nice about coming off the axle, I decided to bring it home. Found a neat little tranny as well as a few idler pulleys, cables, shafts and whatnot that might be useful.

Used the shaft and handle that turns the discharge chute to create the throttle pedal. The shaft runs through to the other side of the GT and is held with a couple washers and a roll pin. The stops and cable arm all came from pieces of plate cut from the toro's handle braces. Cost in the throttle setup: About 15" welding wire.

It's rigged up to the governor linkage and the cable sheath left loose to allow the normal (factory) dash throttle to fully function as well. The return spring is just tossed on there 'till I figure out a better placement.

Has about 5 inches of travel. That'll do.

Also, I cut about ten inches out of the rod that runs the rear brakes, bent it a bit and hooked it to the old deck lift lever for now, so at least clutch and brake are separate. Pull the lever back towards you to brake and will lock in place for parking. It's adjusted so it will not lock in Off position.

Here's another shot of the throttle. It works quite well. I had to add a spring to the governor arm to help let the added cable release when I let off the pedal. I still need to play around with spring size as it's pulling a little too hard, thus keeping full throttle a couple hundred RPMs lower than it was before when using original dash throttle.


So I had a little bit of time and finally convinced the snowblower axle to let go of the rims. Heat, BFH and mashed knuckles. Would have been happy to just yank the tires off the rims and use them on the existing rims, but blower tires are 7" rim, mine are 8". I doubt they're particularly useful anyway, but they look neat to me.


Had to cut a couple inches off the center tube of the rim to match the mounting width of the originals. I've seen folks weld bolts to their spindles instead, but I don't trust my welds yet, and I'll never use these rims for anything else. Was hoping to find reasonably priced local sleeve bushings, but only found flanged in the size I needed. This still works to reduce the 7/8" shaft hole on the rim to the 3/4" spindle, and gives me a little space to pack grease.


All mounted and happy with an original machine bushing on either side to keep everything tight and happy.


It's a start.


Now in to the process of yanking the rear-end out so I can lock it and pulley swap it.

Looks like toro snowblower or roto tiller tires. I had some, only about 11" tall though. Looks good.

Yeah they're from a Toro Model 38560 snowblower. Lots of handy parts in that machine. I kinda want to figure out if I can turn the tranny I got from it on its' side and use it so I can shift this GT on the fly. I gotta research what exactly it is though to see if it's orientation dependent and/or speed-capable. It looks like a peerless 700 (shape and size), but both the input and output are horizontal and 90 degrees from eachother. Like, swap down the pulley on the GT tranny, and leave it in a high gear. Flip the snowblower tranny on it's end or side, fab up mounts and idlers with a straight tight belt to the GT's tranny, and clutch the input of the snowblower tranny. Appears that 4th gear in the blower tranny is about 1:1 and it seems to shift on the fly. Works in theory since my GT tranny is horiz input and my engine is vert. I dunno. Might have to play around with that concept.

Sorry, random thought. I do that a lot lol  

/beer

Well, I had some time off today and tore the transaxle out of the GT. I just didn't have the testicular fortitude at this time to open it up to try and lock it. I did, however, manage to get a 4" pulley stuffed on to her. Of course, the input shaft just had to be tapered. Luckily, it was a welded hub/pulley assembly. I ground off the welds and tapped it out. Did the same to the new one and slapped the old hub in to it.


(after boring the new pulley out about an eight inch.)


Not perfect but that'll hold well enough, I think.




Quick nasty video of the test ride. (Don't worry, I know it sounds like it, but I didn't really hone on it that bad.)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I figure a video must be worth a thousand pictures, or a million words.

Front bumper....

in that pic of the pulley you welded you said NOT PERFACT are you crazy those are like perfact

the more aggressive tires will help you steer in slippery stuff better because they grip better and wont slide around as much

Kawasaki: I only showed the good side. lol

thewisconsinredneck5160 wrote:

the more aggressive tires will help you steer in slippery stuff better because they grip better and wont slide around as much

It's funny, I showed a coworker a pic of it with those front tires on and he said mockingly, " Does it get better traction?" I said "Yes."
" Oh really?! Is it four-wheel drive?"  " No."  "(Laughs)Then what do you mean you get better traction?!"  
I asked if he ever pulled a lot of weight on a trailer and tried to turn, drove sideways across a hill, or even tried to turn around on a hill...
It's amazing the difference front tires can make.

Also, Imma just drop this here..
I'm slowly getting nowhere.

After putting in 96 hours at work last week, I found a little time each night to tinker. The cargo rack is beginning to take shape. My plans changed a little from what I described in the previous video, but this is just taking too long. It'll still be alright in the end.




Just sitting on there. It's sticks out a fair bit but I have hitch plans so all will eventually be well. There will be rear supports.

Wow, great work. Tube work always is mesmerizing to look at.

Progress has been made...



Needed to overcome the Craftsman fuel filler cap location, so I decided to build a little frame and trap-door type thing...







I think that'll do well enough






Ready for paint.. I got two coats of primer on it yesterday and one coat of finish today. Then I dropped it on the garage floor trying to hang it up while it was still tacky...

Also this:

Is it still considered necrothreading if it's my own thread? hehe

Anywho, certainly been a while since I've posted on this. I've still been building little things here and there but have been busy working on other projects lately and haven't had the time to post or upload. I've managed to pick up two more Craftsman lawn tractors (and grabbed a spare engine from a third) so we might see some sort of speed build at some point. But for now, I thought I'd update what's been happening with this.

Since my last post, I've mounted a 3500# winch to the front. That fit right inside the front bumper nicely. The hood won't open enough to pivot forward and rest open, but it allows access to just about everything one would routinely need while holding it up, and after just a little trimming of the hood tabs/catches/whatever they're called, it can now be lifted off at this point.

I added a side-pipe exhaust made from a piece of trampoline support pipe. All the bends were a result of cutting slices, bending and welding up the slices. It cleaned up well with the grinder. It has a slight downward pitch so water/condensation runs out. The original muffler was left in place and the pipe merely added to the output so the machine is still reasonably quiet ( I didn't want straight-pipe volume) while oddly gaining a fairly decent sound from resonation.

Being the first time I've done any of this, naturally I took lots of pics of the process but I'll spare you that unless you want some. I figure better quality vid than my last few would suffice. I dug back through and found this video from a few months ago.

Also, I've added a tachometer/hour meter (waterproof, backlit).  

Overall, this thing has been working quite well except I wish I had locked the transaxle. The last couple months I've actually been using this at a friends' property. She's got about two acres of forest she wants cleared. It's all on a hill side and is very rough ground. Most all of it is 20+ year-old hardwood (Yellow birch and maple) with a few spruces here and there. She wants nothing to do with any of the wood. I've made it about 150' in and about 100' wide and already have probably 6 or 7 cords of firewood at the house with probably $1k of timber logs ready to go. I've only been able to work on this a couple hours a day after work and am only using this tractor and a John Deere Model 15 dump-cart on site. It's about a third of a mile back out to the landing where I park my car and 5x9 utility trailer that I built to bring wood home. I block all the wood where I fell the tree and bring it by the cartload out. I've had to use the winch a few times because she does like to spin when you get 500+lbs in the cart trying to get up out. But overall, it's doing the job.. Much more of one than it was originally made for.
I'm not a logger, but I play one in the afternoons.

(Turn your bass up)

RevDogg wrote:

Is it still considered necrothreading if it's my own thread? hehe

No its called an update. BUT this may be

Looks like a nice build. Do you know what year it was made?

Nice build. Did a great job. Front tires turned out good. I like the motor too. I got one of those Kohler Vtwins. Suppose to be better then the Vanguard motors.

Personally i do not care for kohlers engines. One of my friends had a bad experience with one, and one of my uncles has also had a bad experience with one. I just learned to stick with briggs, the old kohlers and the old teccys. Those never let me down

I'm a wee bit late here but do you think you could show how your dual throttle control works on the engine? Cool build!

AllisKidD21 wrote:

I'm a wee bit late here but do you think you could show how your dual throttle control works on the engine? Cool build!

Give me a couple days, maybe. I'll try to get out to where the machine is and either take a video or a bunch of pics of the setup. I've been dealing with a knee injury so the machine is just sitting where I've been "logging" with it. It's really a simple setup though. Stand by..

Hillbilly Homer wrote:

RevDogg wrote:

Is it still considered necrothreading if it's my own thread? hehe

No its called an update. BUT this may be

Looks like a nice build.  Do you know what year it was made?  

Not sure really.. From online info, I'm seeing it as maybe a 2002. Really not a solid answer as the model number barely returns any hits in Sears' own catalog..

RevDogg wrote:

AllisKidD21 wrote:

I'm a wee bit late here but do you think you could show how your dual throttle control works on the engine? Cool build!

Give me a couple days, maybe. I'll try to get out to where the machine is and either take a video or a bunch of pics of the setup. I've been dealing with a knee injury so the machine is just sitting where I've been "logging" with it. It's really a simple setup though. Stand by..

Ok thanks man, much appreciated! No hurry though.

prancstaman wrote:

Nice build. Did a great job. Front tires turned out good. I like the motor too. I got one of those Kohler Vtwins. Suppose to be better then the Vanguard motors.

Never played much with the Vanguards. I've got a couple of the Kohler twins that have been okay. Personally, I'd rather have an Onan any day, if we're talking about the more versatile horizontal shafts, anyway. Crap ton of power and even more torque on the low end. Plus dat sound doe! Though, parts are getting pricey. Eventually they'll be just gone.

TheGreenHornet wrote:

Personally i do not care for kohlers engines. One of my friends had a bad experience with one, and one of my uncles has also had a bad experience with one. I just learned to stick with briggs, the old kohlers and the old teccys. Those never let me down

Yeah, the only real experience I have with Briggs is the old 3.5 push-mower engines and the old flathead horizontal 5hp. Those were good. I also agree the old Kohlers were better than the newer ones, but it depends on the series... Pretty much anything under the Command or Command Pro were kinda junk, built for homeowner light use. Had issues with them. Tecumseh, well, I've got almost nothing but love for them, esp the older ones. Built to last. Built to be rebuilt. Carbs are easy, etc.

Really though, I don't think anything fairly recently made is worth a crap. Just designed to be tossed out.

The K series were the best Kohlers by far, I've got two of 'em. Great little engines! Not like today's plastic stuff.

RevDogg wrote:

Tecumseh, well, I've got almost nothing but love for them, esp the older ones. Built to last. Built to be rebuilt. Carbs are easy, etc.

What? Tecumseh's are my most hated engine lol. I've never had any luck with them. I like the older ones that have Delorto carbs but the newer(ish) ones are just so fiddly.[/quote]

Finally got a chance to get out to the machine. Sorry I'm still not great at making/narrating/editing/everything with videos yet. Might give you some ideas still though.