My Rat Rod Mower

Well, I finally got to take the rat rod for a test drive Tuesday. I finished the wiring, foot throttle, and gas tank. I can now start and run it completely from the seat. I just tried first gear to see how it went. It drove quite nice but when I clutched, the belt would fall off. I put it back on and made it pretty far in second gear. But the belt was still an issue. So I made up some belt retainers and fixed the problem. But now the belt just slips in every gear. So I brought the clutch home because I think my pivot point is the problem. I was able to get rid of the old pivot pin, and center and weld a 3/8" grade 5 bolt on as the pivot. I think it will be much stronger and perhaps more adjustable. I'll let you all know how it goes!

MatthewD wrote:

Nice man! Yeah 600 series are pretty tough old boxes

That's good to know, cuz I'm not interested in having to replace it anytime soon! Hahaha!

Yeah I've read some quite good things about them. Did you get the clutch issue sorted yet?

MatthewD wrote:

Yeah I've read some quite good things about them. Did you get the clutch issue sorted yet?

Yeah me too. I finished welding it but I have yet to try it out, I'll let you know how it goes! Fingers crossed!!

Thanks, that would be nice. The other thing that could be wrong is you got the wrong size belt. I'm having the same problem with my Westwood T1200.

Woohoo!! Success boys!
A couple update pictures




Brake lever

Got everything all figured out, and she runs and drives good!

Love it! Those little touches really make it a Rat Rod mower.

Thank man! I really wanted to make it rather unique. I'm not done adding stuff either hahaha!

Yeah, I like the chain around the gas tank

Thanks!

I'm planning on incorporating this somewhere on the ol' rat rod, but I'm not sure where. Suggestions?

That piston would make a great foot pedal. Even got the hole already in it from the wrist pin, LOL.

Never thought about that, I bet the pedal would fit right through the holes. Hmmm......

A couple things new with the rat rod, I had to move and sorta re-design the the clutch assembly. It would not de-clutch like it should making it nearly impossible to get it into gear. But I moved it all over to what I think is called the slack side of the belt. And after some adjustments it is working much better. But now that that is all figured out, I need to address exhaust. I currently have the muffler on that came with the engine when I got it

It's functional but it doesn't look very cool. I was hoping one of you guys could give me some advice as of what would look the best because I can't quite decide. Thanks in advance!

If you got a welder, get some 3/4 piping conduit bends and a bicycle fork. The conduit, you can cut up and snake it to under the foot board and cut off one of the forks for the tail pipe with the bend being the end.

Yeah I'm equipped to weld, I also thought going under the foot board would be the best way to go. I was gonna run it under the frame but if I have a clutch issue or something it would suck to get burned on a hot exhaust pipe while trying to fix it, haha. You don't think 3/4" would be too restrictive?

Oh sorry, I mean 1 inch. 1 inch is good for 10 hp engines and bigger. 3/4 inch is good for engines up to 10 hp.

Lol you need a big rusty tail pipe on that exhaust man!

Oh ok, I thought 1 inch would work pretty good. I'm probably gonna make a muffler to go on as well just so it's not too obnoxious. It'll just bolt on the underside of the foot board.

MatthewD wrote:

Lol you need a big rusty tail pipe on that exhaust man!

Hahaha, yeah! That would probably look pretty cool.

Ok, so I've decided on an exhaust plan for the rat rod mower. I got some cool exhaust scraps from work so it's not gonna cost me a thing! Hahaha!

So here's what I got-

So it's just gonna have a header running under the footboard into a resonator (the big pipe)


Here's the header

Ok now on to the resonator pipe. I've mocked this all up once and I love the sound so I'm definitely keeping this setup.
So I welded a washer on tom use as a mounting tab

When all assembled it's gonna look like this.

I also made a little cap to enclose the input end of the resonator


Let me know what you think!

looking good man!

Thanks! Hopefully I'll get some pictures of it mounted to the mower soon.

Nice!!

Thanks man!