My Rat Rod Mower

Killer front end!! Love the doodle drawing too!!

Thanks a bunch prancstaman!

More work on the rat rod axle today! I finished welding the pieces together, and I also welded little tabs to bolt it in on the front.





Don't worry, those tabs aren't gonna be the only thing holding it in hahaha. I'm gonna have bracing underneath to really keep 'er solid, I'll start working on that Monday hopefully. Let me know what ya think!

Looks a lot narrower than it did before, I like it! I thought it was going to be ridiculously wide and you would need to widen your rear axle to match and it was just never gonna look right but you pulled it off

Agreed! It does look nice. What size tubing you using?

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Looks a lot narrower than it did before, I like it! I thought it was going to be ridiculously wide and you would need to widen your rear axle to match and it was just never gonna look right but you pulled it off

Thanks CQ! Yeah I was worried it was gonna be way too wide as well but is looks better now! Also I have to shorten it a bit more when I make the spindle mounts, so it should be almost perfect.

mightyraze wrote:

Agreed!  It does look nice.  What size tubing you using?

Thanks mighty! It's 1.5" box steel, I'm not sure of the thickness.

That's sweet looking unit! Liking the little add-ons with old parts, tools, and other randoms. Did you ever get a speed test on it? I would be curious to learn more on the air intake, looks cool. Great job so far!! Wanna see more!! Lol

LOL, did you add scissors to it?

mightyraze wrote:

LOL, did you add scissors to it?

Hahahaha...I totally missed those. Good eye mighty

mightyraze wrote:

LOL, did you add scissors to it?

Haha, added those on a month or so ago. I love the little ratty touches, no matter how dangerous hahaha!

Mikethepigman wrote:

That's sweet looking unit! Liking the little add-ons with old parts, tools, and other randoms.  Did you ever get a speed test on it? I would be curious to learn more on the air intake, looks cool. Great job so far!! Wanna see more!! Lol

Thanks a lot for the compliments! I'm not positive on the top speed but it probably runs only 15km or so, just enough to have lots of fun! Let me know what exactly you'd like to learn about the air cleaner.

Hopefully Monday I'll start making the spindle holders. They're just going to be 3/4" I.D. tube steel welded to the axle beams with a few degrees of caster added. I would also like to drill and tap holes for grease fittings in the tubing. Stay tuned!

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Hopefully Monday I'll start making the spindle holders. They're just going to be 3/4" I.D. tube steel welded to the axle beams with a few degrees of caster added. I would also like to drill and tap holes for grease fittings in the tubing. Stay tuned!

What if you did bigger tubing with 3/4" ID bearings? That would be more precise and durable I would think. I would trust that setup to a much higher speed that I'm sure you'll want to reach in the future

Not a bad idea there CQ. A good set of beveled roller bearings will last a long time in that application. We'll see what I end up doing I guess.

Make steering easier too!

Yeah it probably would.

I did some high speed bearings I had laying around in my daughters' play tractor and the steering on it is "SUPER" easy after the upgrade.  Almost TOO easy. I'm also doing it in my build.

Nice! I may just have to try something like that!

On her tractor, I found that 1 1/4" black pipe accepts a 1 3/8" OD bearing nicely.

When I built my front axle I found that 1/2" black iron pipe had a 5/8" ID, so I used that with 5/8" bolts. Now that I've run It like that, I wish I could do it over, the pipe is way too weak for offroading and has slopped out a bit, giving the wheels some caster. It'd probably be fine for your use though

Yeah I won't be crawling over stuff or dropping into the muck with this one. That's what the MTD is for! Hahaha!

Well im back to working on the ol' rat rod! I used the old rebar braces from the Sears axle and welded them on to this one.


I think they look kinda cool so I re-used them, plus I couldn't be bothered to make new ones hahaha. They should help strengthen the axle mounting a bit.

Also I got my angles cut to start mounting the spindle knuckles!




We're getting closer to being able to roll Again!!!


I'm super exciting to see 'er on the ground! I'm probably not gonna do the bearings for the spindles, as great an idea as that is, but I'm definitely gonna have greases fittings to keep wear to a minimum. Should still work pretty good
Stay tuned!

We have a roller!!




Just all tacked together, but I need too get some more electrodes before I can finish it. This is the first front axle I've built from scratch, so if someone sees something wrong with the geometry or anything, let me know! Hahaha
Hopefully I'll start reconfiguring the steering linkages soon to work with the new axle, so stay tuned!

Lookin good, do the spindles turn good! Good job!

Thanks mighty! Won't truly know how it steers until the linkages are are all hooked up. Fingers crossed that the steering works good!