MTD off-road build (Mobile Terrain Dominator) "1"

Cool Build! Those back tires are blast from the past for me... Back in the 1980's is when the originals of those came out - they were called "Wooley Boogers" - They were Thee mud tires to have on your trike/quad then! Delivered newspapers & mowed quite a few lawns to get me a set!

Thanks! Yeah I thought they where Wooley's when I saw them for sale online. I've see them on a lot of old three wheelers, hopefully they'll work pretty good in the muck! Hahaha.

Well I did a couple small things on the ol' MTD today. I made some bumper supports and attached a couple of tow hooks I've been meaning to put on. Also I finished my new shifter and put the shifter knob on.






On another note, I had to make an adapter/extension for my input pulley and I was if someone could tell me whether or not I should make a support bearing to put over top of it.

I'm just a bit worried about the extra leverage putting a lot of stress on the input shaft, so I'd appreciate some advice. Thanks in advance!

Might be kinda hard to see in the picture but it's just over 3" tall

Maybe have the pulley towards the trans with the extension on the outside. Would get rid of the leverage you are talking about.

Sorry but I'm not quite sure what you mean, haha.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

On another note, I had to make an adapter/extension for my input pulley and I was if someone could tell me whether or not I should make a support bearing to put over top of it.

I'm just a bit worried about the extra leverage putting a lot of stress on the input shaft, so I'd appreciate some advice. Thanks in advance!

In the pic, the pulley is the top and the spacer is pointing into the wood or down.

can you flip it over so the spacer is pointing up or would that mess up the alignment of the belts? That would change the leverage.

Oh I gotcha! Yeah that would mess up the alignment. I had to make it longer cuz the new trans doesn't sit in the frame the same way as the MTD trans did. Oh well, I'll probably just make a bearing support thing to be safe.

Well I'm sorta getting stuff together for the pulley bearing support for the trans. But until that's done I thought I would re-do one of my transaxle mounts because I didn't really trust it all that much.

This is the old mount I made when I initially swapped this trans in:
A bolt goes through each hole and threads into the trans. The other side uses a big U- bolt though, so I wanted that same setup on this side.



Then I figured I'd add a couple braces for good measure:




The U-bolt is a little too big, but whatever haha.
Anyway I think this will hold better than the previous mount. Let me know what you think!

Maybe bend a piece of all thread to replace the U-bolt.

Or cut a piece of angle iron to fit under the housing with the edge of the angle iron pointing down, then cut 2 pieces of all thread and weld them to the flat sides of the angle iron and put 45 degree bends in the all thread to line up with the holes.

Yeah I'm definitely gonna replace that U-bolt with something. Maybe I'll just get a smaller one or something.

I'm back working on the ol' Mobile Terrain Dominator today. I've had to re-make my battery tray mounts because the shifter for the new transaxle conflicts with the old setup. Basically I welded in a couple pieces of angle iron so I could lay down a piece of plywood for the battery to sit on.

Fairly simple but I'm glad to have if done.
Also I figured out how I'm gonna do my support bearing for the input pulley. As you can see in the first picture, it's mounted in the frame, I just need to put a bolt through into the treads of the input shaft. How it works is its just two pieces of angle iron welded together, one bolts to the back of the frame, and the other holds the bearing. Now... I actually just welded the bearing to the one piece of steel to hold it in place. It is quite unorthodox, but it works hahaha. Also I made sure when I  welded it not to melt either of the seals or warp the bearing. It's pretty secure and it still spins fine.



I'm hopefully gonna try and finish this tomorrow, and maybe I'll get this thing driving again soon!! Hahaha. Let me know what you think!

Looks good, i thought you were gonna have a helluva time replacing belts when you said you were gonna do a support but I guess I was wrong!

Hahaha, thanks Rich! Yeah I'm definitely glad I made this thing removable!

Forgive me... you are running the bolt through the bearing to bolt down the pulley?

Yep, that's the idea anyway. And I will probably put a spacer between the bearing and the pulley to take up the gap.

Hope all the extra angle iron will help keep that part of the frame from twisting. I'd hate to see you snap the top off the transaxle.

Yeah, especially since I've reinforced other parts of the frame, the stress might be all on that rear section. I might add more steel tomorrow just to be safe. The more steel the better! Hahaha!

The more metal the better.. Who would not agree.

Well its snowing like a bugger here, but I'm still out working on this ol' girl! I'm getting things all put back together for a test drive soon. It might not be today like I hoped, but if not it should be pretty soon. I also finally got a new woodruff key for the input shaft on the trans, so that's no longer an issue. I'm just having trouble getting the belts figured out, but I'll keep trying hahaha! Hopefully soon she'll be Dominating Terrain once again! Stay tuned!

Hey im liking those tow hooks I wish I woulda put shocks on my lifted mower oh well that just means one day I have something else to do to it hahaha looking good!!!!

Haha thanks man! I never thought I'd really mess around with suspension, but now that I've done it three or four different times on this one I realized it's super fun! Hahaha!

Lol yea I'm thinking that a rigid frame on my lifted craftsman is not gonna be as or safe if I had put shocks out front..lol

Yeah it might be a wee bit tippy haha.

Yep it sure is lol guess it wouldn't be that hard to add some sort of pivot in there lol

If you can cut and weld, anything is possible! Hahahaha!