Mr.Modified's Simplicity Adventure Edition [2016 Build-Off Finalist]

Paint colors: Orange for the tin work, white grill. I think the tubing and bumpers are going to be black on this one. Not sure yet on the wheels. And I've never bought any new engines so far. I pick stuff up at some swap meets pretty often.

Sears suburban for parts. Simplicity frame for size comparison.


The stock muffler might be neat to use. I'm taking the steering and front axle out of this one.


Removed the 633. Cast iron input pulley is a slight issue as I can't weld to it. The other 633 I have also has a cast pulley. Gotta work on freeing up the hubs. The other 633 had 3 lug hubs but I can't even use them for spares because I broke them taking them off. Shouldn't need spare hubs anyway. If you break one of these before the trans I think you've probably also broke your leg or something.

Dude that's mint sears.

Getting on well Muffler looks neat. Could flip it up horizontally and put a rain cap on it.

thats a whole lot of tire, im gonna love this one good luck!

The suburban is kind of a nice one to just hack up for parts, but a lot of it will get used, so it's not wasting too much I guess. I would have built that into something, but since I already did the baja sears, figured I'd do something different.

As for the exhaust, I've never really been a stack guy for some reason. I have a megaphone that would be neat to use too, so I might make the muffler and megaphone with a flange so I can switch between them.

Current status is the hubs on the 633 are soaking. I heated them up once a little to break them loose. Removing the original sears tires off the rims so I can paint them up and mount the kendas. Need the new tires mounted so I can get things lined up where they need to be. Stock tires are somewhat lower I think.

Things are so far moving along pretty good. Both 5 lug hubs are off the 633 without breaking them. So now I've got two 633's without hubs on them. One is stripped of pulleys ect. and ready to be taken apart for locking.

Compared front axles. Top one is from an older 10hp suburban, maybe 67-68? Bottom one is from the 70-71 12hp pictured earlier. The newer one is thicker so decided to stick with that. Steering is slightly different also. Note the steering arm on the left spindle of the smaller axle. I didn't want to use this setup as I don't have any spare cast arms if I broke that one. And being cast, I wouldn't be able to weld it up too good.


Here we've got the ugly brackets all torched off. Started smoothing them up. You can see the pivot/bell crank in the top of the pic that the newer suburbans used.


Front hubs fit pretty close on the spindles. the tin dust cover which is welded in place needs to be trimmed off for the hub to slide back all the way into place.


Here you can see where I cut around the edge of it with a grinder. There's a heavy washer welded in place against the inside of it.


Got my wheels set in place and decided to mock up the front a little to see how things are going to go.


This doesn't mean anything is nessesarily going anywhere close to where it is in the picture, but I think the frame is probably going to be just slightly higher than this. Frame can either be moved forward or back, whatever best fits front and rear axles. I've gotta get the rear tires mounted and on a 633 so I can line everything up at the same time before I do anything. Hood will be later once I have a rolling frame. Just set it there to get an idea of the look. I think it's going to turn out pretty good.

Where did you get those front hubs? I need some 5x4.5 wheel hubs for a 3/4" axle and I wonder if they have 5 lug versions.

Good progress, looks like a mud dragster with the front end all kicked out. Again, i vote the rear fenders, would work good with a straight bar rear bumper like mine, and the rear tires could look all kicked out from the narrow fenders. just going to make a single panel metal dash like the baja?

Looking good! Them large skinny tyres look neat against that narrow grill.

Edit:
Could you use the sears mudgaurds?

MasonMcK wrote:

Where did you get those front hubs? I need some 5x4.5 wheel hubs for a 3/4" axle and I wonder if they have 5 lug versions.

bmikarts.com I bought the front hubs, bearings, and front wheels from them. They had a pretty good selection of different hubs. Might have something.

redlinemotorsportts wrote:

Good progress, looks like a mud dragster with the front end all kicked out. Again, i vote the rear fenders, would work good with a straight bar rear bumper like mine, and the rear tires could look all kicked out from the narrow fenders. just going to make a single panel metal dash like the baja?

With the whole go anywhere theme going on, I'll probably have to use fenders at least in the rear, maybe front also. Dash will probably end up sort of like the baja sears, except I think most of my switches will be up high possibly in front of the steering wheel. I had an idea to make a sort of roll bar in front of the steering wheel with a couple of lights on it. Not sure yet how that will go.

MatthewD wrote:

Looking good! Them large skinny tyres look neat against that narrow grill.
Edit:
Could you use the sears mudgaurds?

I could use them, but I might make my own from plastic. Or I might try to use the simplicity rear fender modified slightly.

Plastic fenders would be neat. The engine looks nice in the mid frame.

Decided to use a couple of hydraulic reservoirs I had from a couple of self propelled paint sprayers. Heavy enough steel where they will be easy to weld. Both have an area where the cap was and two threaded holes for the hydraulic hoses. Once I know where it will go on the tractor, I can cut them in half and make one bigger one. For a gas cap I'll weld on a filler neck from a toyota tundra. I happen to have one that's pretty rust free. Far right is a briggs stock 7-8hp gas tank, center is a stock briggs 10-11hp tank.


Here's a link to the grill decal just so I can find it again. I'll probably get a couple and maybe put them on the sides of the hood.
Simplicity 'S' decal

Took the one 633 trans apart today to lock it up. I planned on welding it, after creepycrawler told me his crew fragged one that had the diff gears flipped to lock it. But, after looking at it and thinking it over a bit, I decided to flip the diff gears without welding again as I did in the baja sears transaxle. I figured with my relatively mild tread tires and only 8hp to work with, I'd do some testing and see what happens. I didn't feel confident that I could get things stright either. I'd rather take a chance on flipping the gears than ruining it by welding the axles sideways. The baja sears hasn't seen that many hours off road, so just because that hasn't broken yet doesn't mean it will. Also this eliminates the risk of welding slag getting into a bearing ect. If one prys itself apart I can weld up the ones that didn't later.


One case half with some sludge at the bottom.


Bought a winch from tractor supply. 2500lb, smallest one they had. Looks ok. Supposed to be 49 foot of cable. I may get an extention cable to bring on board with me.


I plan on keeping this behind the front bumper somehow so I can still ram over trees and stuff without hurting it. My original plan was to outline the grill with pipe and have headlights on the side of the hood near the top like they do from the factory. Now I'm thinking use a smaller front bumper that has two headlights mounted close together behind it. Maybe come only half way up the grill.


Goal is to have a rolling frame by the end of next weekend. Still a lot to do before haspin and not that much time to get it done. One rear rim is cleaned and ready to be painted. With the trans done, all I need is to paint the rims and mount the rear tires. Then I can line it up and start welding the frame.

How are you locking the diff by flipping gears? Definitely interested in this.

Cool winch! @MasonMck I think the way it works is the gears are flipped in the differential so that they lock together. You can look at the Baja Sears build from the 2014 build off for more details.

There's two sets of spider gears on each side of the differential. Some 633's I think have three sets, unless they aren't 633's. maybe a different model or something. Anyway, here you can see the gears from both axles on top and bottom center. The spider gears on the left and right. Two more gears behind them are hidden in this pic. Notice how on one gear it only engages the bottom and the other the top.


In this pic you can see I flipped one gear from each set so each set is holding on one axle. This way the gears are locked together. These are from the baja sears build, but it's the exact same trans of course.

Yeah thought that's how it worked. The hat size or those Bearclaws on the rear?

Rear tires are 25 x 8 x 12. Here's one of the rims before cleaning and paint.


One rim painted and tire mounted.


Tread on these not super wild where it would be rough on hard packed surfaces. Maybe a little better than the rear tires on the baja sears. I'm tired of working on the frame already and I didn't start on it yet. I'm ready for making aluminum skid plates...

Yeah I know the feeling. I'm waiting on undercoat drying on my build.

Honestly wont notice the tires that much until you are on the road. like my tires, super spread out and choppy is fine on the grass. Street running however, is roooough lol. Almost feels like the rear skates around.

Bearclaws run fine on the road.

Yeah the tread is relatively mild. Things are still more or less on track for having a rolling frame by the end of this weekend. Need to make sure I've got the best equipment to handle Haspin's rugged landscape, so I ordered a pair of these super high tech looking shocks for my front end. They're just cheap chinese stuff, but they look pretty neat. The ones i bought are about 12.5". Some people on motorcycle forums report them holding up ok. Should be fine for this project.

Good progress! I saw the fragged 633, wasnt pretty. Had some big tires, and I think the they had some hours on that trans.

Thanks. What's the deal with some 633's having 3 sets of differential gears and some only two? The 3 gear set ones for tractors with a bigger engine? I can't use the moose knuckle method on the ones I have. The axle gears on mine are welded in place with no splines. I guess I'll weld the spider gears in the spare 633.

mr.modified wrote:

Yeah the tread is relatively mild. Things are still more or less on track for having a rolling frame by the end of this weekend. Need to make sure I've got the best equipment to handle Haspin's rugged landscape, so I ordered a pair of these super high tech looking shocks for my front end. They're just cheap chinese stuff, but they look pretty neat. The ones i bought are about 12.5". Some people on motorcycle forums report them holding up ok. Should be fine for this project.

Are they a pair from a dual shocker like a monkey bike or did you have to buy separately?

Shocks look good. Should stand iut on the machine. Looking forward to seeing the rolling chassis.