MTD Ranch King plus 18/46

Hello all,
I came across a 1989 MTD ranch king plus mower. Been sitting in some guys driveway for 6 or 7 years...Stopped and asked him about it a few days ago, and surprisingly enough, he just gave it to me. It has a 5 speed peerless 801 with a shifter along the left side of the mower in the place the deck raise/lower lever would be. it has an 18hp briggs and stratton opposed twin I/C engine(this one has the black shroud, not sure what the difference between the red shroud and black shroud is) Of course being an mtd it was ridiculously overcomplicated on the bottom. there is the drive pulley, and then the clutch (which is scarily close to the drive pulley) an idler about 4 inches behind the clutch, and another one about mid mower, and then the input pulley. thats not including the deck engage idler (which i have not gotten around to removing yet)

Current progress-
i checked the fuel lines, cleaned the plugs, replaced the fuel filter with a filter i had laying around, turned on the battery charger and fired it up. It needed a little gas down the carb, but lo and behold it was running smoothly on 6 year old gas (gotta love them old briggs). The only concerning thing was it was liking the choke. it would run without the choke, but it was rough. im hoping it was just the old gas. once i burn out the old stuff i will be putting new in and running seafoam through the carb
The guy had tried to change a tire, instead popped the eclip off of the inside and pulled the entire axle. I polished the axle, got a new eclip, and put the axle back in. i cleaned the inside of the case and being too lazy to run to the local Napa and get grease, i put 90weight gear oil in it. i will be changing it later. For now the rear end will remain unlocked.


Once that was all done, i put the rear end back under it. I barely got the rear end under it before i ran out of time. Next sunday afternoon and monday i will be working on re routing the belt to a much more simple route and building myself a double pulley clutch. Stock pulleys on the rear/ front for now.

The only issue was it would not roll in neutral. i could put it through all 5 gears and reverse and spin the pulley on top and make her roll a little, but as soon as it hit neutral it was as if the tires were locked up. ended up hooking on to her with the old sears suburban and dragging her to her parking space behind the grain bins. I have to check the brake calipers. I am hoping it is just stuck, in which case i will remove it temporarily. it needs new calipers anyway. if that doesnt fix it, i guess back out comes the tranny and i get to crack back into it and see what i put in wrong. I will get up pics as soon as i can

Cool! Looks like a great start. In regards to the shroud not being red, I think that's just because it's an older engine. What are your plans for it?

Right now engine will remain stock- down the road it will be swapped for a briggs 14.5 ohv single to save weight and gas. For now tires will remain stock. Transaxle will remain unlcocked. Until i get around to ordering pulleys, it will have stock gearing. Until pulley swap it will be used for utility around the farm. Steering will be swapped for something heavier. New front axle also, possibly larger tires and rims down the road

TheGreenHornet wrote:

Right now engine will remain stock- down the road it will be  swapped for a briggs 14.5 ohv single to save weight and gas. For now tires will remain stock. Transaxle will remain unlcocked. Until i get around to ordering pulleys, it will have stock gearing. Until pulley swap it will be used for utility around the farm. Steering will be swapped for something heavier. New front axle also, possibly larger tires and rims down the road

Yeah I pretty much used my MTD for the same thing when I first got it. Then it turned into the Moblie Terrain Dominator! Haha.

In reply to the red shroud thing, usually a red shroud means it came out of a sears/craftsman mower. USUALLY. And with your transmission, theres a 99% chance its your brakes. I have two of them lol, you can free up the pistons on the calipers and use the original caliper.

Well...i was back at it today. Got it all put back together and took it for a test drive...i am going to have to buy a new pulley. It slips on the shaft like nothing else. I need a keyed pulley, not a set screw one. Anydo the king is parked..probably until christmas break. Will update next time i do anything with it.

By the way, it wasnt the brake. I removed the entire thing and it still does not free roll. It does fine in gear though. It is actually easier to push in 5th.

By the way... Has anybody ever seen a shifter like that? Not only have i never seen one along the side like that, Google has nothing on it. I cant find anything about the 5 speed in general...not my model year anyway. Theres a 3 speed and a 4 speed, and a 5 speed h pattern shifter, but none like that one. Special to one certain store maybe? According to mtd there wasnt an inline shift 5 speed in 1989. Its not exactly super important, I was just curious.

Nice MTD. That could be a custom shifter, I've got a 5 speed Peerless 801 in my 1986 Westwood.

I would imagine it was a custom shifter as well. It looks like it belongs there and everything on it works way too well (i think) to be rednecked on by somebody. Either way, I will be heading out to work in it (i hope) this coming weekend. Since it has a 1/2 inch shaft on the transaxle, I cannot find a 1/8th inch keyway for a half inch shaft. all the half inch shaft pulleys have set screws. So the current plan of action is to take a drill and drill a little divet in the shaft, opposite the keyway. just enough for the set screw to bite into and hold itself there. I took it for a test drive and it was slipping like mad. If the drill doesnt do the trick, which it may not. ive heard those shafts are rather hard. If the drill dont work, then its time to break out the grinder and grind a notch for the set screw, or maybe instead of a notch just grind a flat side on the shaft for the set screw to hold on to. any suggestions greatly appreciated for my little issue

Quick update on the King. Got it fixed, pulley mounted and all that good stuff. Drove it for a while, added headlights and tail lights, got it to freewheel in neutral. Unfortunately, i think it has a bad coil. It will run as long as you want it to but if you shut it off when hot it will not restart. Not even with starting fluid. It has been put off to the side for now. Ill probably get around to it later this winter or spring

New plans for the king are a new engine which is a 14.5 briggs ohv single and clutch mods and a 6 inch on the front and a 4 inch on the back

Now i am going to be doing stuff like plowing snow and pulling hay racks and empty wagons around the farm, but still want it to go decently fast because i will use it for gener transportation between farms, fields and family members houses. Should i do a 1 to 1 with 4 inch pulleys or would the 6 inch and the 4 inch serve well and a good in between for speed and pulling? Should i leave the opposed twin on there?

You know my standing. Leave the oppy and 6 to 4 pulleys. Thats 1:1.5 I think

I know where you stand, and i completely agree with the 6 to 4 pulleys. the thing with the oppy is it has no room inside the engine compartment. coils are expensive, and air flow is awful. i need to figure out some kind of system to get airflow in there,because that engine is just running too hot. it does offer good low end torque....maybe the red one that was on the huskee runs better. i want to set it in there and see how it runs. i do like the idea of an oppy with straightpipes....im so torn lol

I am planning on getting larger tires on it and pulley swapped before winter. i am looking to some how steal the 5 bolt hubs off of my sabre(its kinda become parts now) and figure out some way to get them onto my 3/4 inch axles. then i can use 5 bolt pattern tires. my cub cadet has those 5 bolt rims with s pattern tread on the tires, which will be good for now. eventually i will be putting 4 wheeler tires on the rear. Any thoughts?
eventually i will be swapping the steering for something heavier, because it has the "pie slice gear" standing up vertical. i have heard those have a tendency to explode after a time.

OK so i have a bit of a problem with the king...the time has come to redo the exhaust system. I want the muffler out of the engine compartment...it raises the heat level in the engine compartment quite a bit. i am doing a separate exhaust on both sides, one for each cylinder, and the general idea now is to run it down and under the foot rest and let it out right in front of the rear tire. i have toyed with the idea of doing a muffler on both sides and having it just go down and slightly above the axle, i have considered doing stacks, i have also considered hollowing out the existing muffler and welding a larger pipe on the output. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. The goal for all this is not necessarily to be deafening, just to sound low and mean.

The secret to quieting the exhaust is the chamber in a muffler. The bigger the chamber, the slower the exhaust will go through it, in turn cancel out the noise. The stock muffler if you look at it is a big box to do this. wetheralmaplefarms on You Tube has a muffler he makes to where you probably could fit under your foot rests. And sounds pretty good.

So i was just sitting in school today and a wonderful idea hit me. Why not buy a cheap glasspack from Napa and slap it on the opposed? So i got on the youtube and looked up some oppoed twins with glasspacks on it, because i was sure some redneck has done it somewhere in the history of mudding lawnmowers, and lo and behold i found one- and it sound absolutely amazing. Deep and mean, kinda like my car. A lot like my car actually, but that is beside the point. I can buy a 15 dollar glasspack with a 4 inch outlet and run it underneath the footrest and stick an elbow on the end so that it doesnt blow on my tire. Does anybody see any possible issues with this plan? if so, please help!

I don't see a problem with that, maybe just make a hanger for the glasspack so the weight isn't all on the motor. You gotta post a video of it running if you do it!

Should would well, I think I seen some videos on youtube of a briggs single with a glasspack, sounds really nice. And I second having a bracket for it, because it would wobble quite a lot and put stress onto the casting on the engine.

Heck yea i was planning on posting a vid!
and for the bracket/hook, i was planning on bending some steel i have. its an inch wide strip, easily bended. same thing i made the belt guard out of on the king, which i just realized i never got pictures of. if it fits snugly in there and holds it up. ill prolly bolt it right on to the side of the frame, or the footrest, whichever is easier to get to

im kinda excited for this now. Larger is good, but very unnecessary. i read somewhere that the optimal size piping for 50hp and smaller (gas engines) is between 1-2.5 inches. Ill probably buy a cherry bomb glasspack that is short and fat, so it doesnt take up too much space under the mower. some of them are 30 inches long.

I'm excited to see/hear this thing when the exhaust is done!

So as of right now, the plan is for a flowmaster 12 inch long glass pack. it has a 2.5 inlet and a 3.5 outlet. made of stainless steel. Comes with 2 hanging hooks plus a clamp to connect the inlet pipe weld free. Since this will be below the drive belt, im going to make it a quick remove so that i can drop it down and remove it quickly when i need to service anything drive train related under the tractor. I am hoping to get the exhaust stuff ordered by the end of this week, so that i can have it and head up to the shop where it is at and get the exhaust all done before the weather turns nasty. If i have time, i will also be moving the clutch a few inches back to accommodate a larger front pulley. it has the stock MTD pulley stack on right now. the clutch sits less than a half inch from the drive pulley when it is engaged and taut. Thats an issue. I am ordering a 4.5 cast iron pulley for the rear and a 6 inch for the front. right now its running a 1 to 1, both pulleys are 2 inch. I would leave it as is, but any time i hook on to anything to pull it a short distance or even try to pop wheelies, the belt just slips. not enough contact area i imagine

Yeah 2" is wayyy too small. I'd go for atleast 4" rear for no slippage.