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

Did a bit of frame bracing on the ol' girl today. I basically just used angle iron to go along the frame, hopefully it should stiffen the frame up a bit.









I had to do quite a bit of cutting to make room for the drag link and the oil drain, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Hopefully I'll get a belt soon and I can put 'er through 'er paces! Hahaha, let me know what ya think!

Looks good! I bet the frame has less flex than the front end now! I should really brace the frame on MUTT, I may or may not have twisted the frame up on the left side 

Thanks Rich, I sure hope she stops flexing. Hahaha, sounds like one too many rollovers finally caught up to ol' MUTT! Oh well, all the reason to beef 'er up!

Now that the weather is warming up, I plan on stripping the old paint off and throwing some new stuff at this old girl. I think once I repaint the entire chassis black the angle iron won't stand out as much, I hope so anyway hahaha. I might start stripping the old paint this weekend, we'll see! Stay tuned!

Sweet, you keeping the red part red? Ideas on shade?

Yeah I wanna do a cherry red body on black chassis with M.T.D. painted on the side of the hood in white. I also would like to have "Geared to the ground by Peerless" somewhere on the back of the fenders hahaha. We' ll see about that part though, I'm not 100% sold on it yet.

oooooo......
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Cherry red and black.  

I'll put a Decepticon magnet on mine though, that way people will be able to tell them apart hahaha!

HAHAHA... I love it!

I've always liked the 90s MTD sheetmetal. They all looked good IMO, thats why I put an MTD hood on the CQ lol

Yeah I agree with ya CQ! I've always loved the styling of this one. The hood, grille, and fenders all have a real cool look to them. Should look even better with some new paint!

Well I finally got a belt today! It wasn't nice enough to do paint stuff, so I got an 86" belt, threw it on and away I went! I need to add a couple of things to finish it up, but I can drive it now so I'm pretty happy. Hopefully pictures to come soon!

Wahoo! Excellent. I plan on getting the new belt for the squatch tomorrow!

Nice! It's always the last thing isn't it? Hahaha

You might've said it already, but what pulley ratio you running? And thats funny, the CQ is an 86 inch belt too

I'm not sure of the pulley sizes CQ, but they're both completely stock. She's not swapped, slow and mean hahaha.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Did a bit of frame bracing on the ol' girl today. I basically just used angle iron to go along the frame, hopefully it should stiffen the frame up a bit.




I had to do quite a bit of cutting to make room for the drag link and the oil drain, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Hopefully I'll get a belt soon and I can put 'er through 'er paces! Hahaha, let me know what ya think!

HAHA, Just noticed the spider.  Always something hidden in there it seems.

Yeah haha. Had that guy there for a few years, that's why it's so faded hahaha.

Nice looking build you have going! I am excited to see what you do with it and how it looks with new paint!

Thanks man! I hope to start paint as soon as we get a warm weekend haha.

Just a quick little story here; my cousin has driven the MTD a few time over the years and he always seemed to enjoy romping around with it. But since I only have one tractor for off-roading, we had to take turns on the MTD. Well, he found a nice one for sale in our area for a good price, a Jacobsen Homelite 14hp Hydro. It can't be pulley swapped obviously but I don't think he minds. The transaxle also has 1" axle shafts, so what's not to like? Haha. He bought it Sunday, brought it to the farm, and I got the twin to run for him no problem! Good ol' Briggs runs like a champ hahaha. He romped around most of the day and he is HOOKED! He absolutely loved off-roading his new tractor. And after I got the MTD driving again we romped around together for pretty much the rest of the day. Just thought I'd share that story cuz it was cool romping with someone else for once as opposed to going by myself. I wanna see if he'll join the forum here so he can show his tractor and the stuff he adds to it. We'll see if he becomes a member! Hahaha!

Sweet story.  We'll keep an eye out. Sweet looking tractor too!  :-)

Oh yeah she's a pretty mean lookin' unit. Haha but it's no MTD! Yet...

Looks kind of similar to a Ford GT by the looks of the google images. Are they the same under the skin? I assume by briggs twin you meant an oppy? I doubt they put V-twins in them....

Yeah Jacobsen has always made Ford's lawn and garden tractor for them I'm pretty sure. Also I forgot to mention it is in fact an oppy CQ, she runs amazing and sounds just as good as any opposed twin even with the stock exhaust setup! I'm gonna teach him to weld so he can fab up a custom exhaust and stuff like that. That's why I want him to join the forum! Hahaha

So the MTD is driving again, but I just gotta finesse a couple of things to call it perfect. The belt slips a bit so I have to add another idler just ahead of the transaxle pulley, but that should be fairly simple. I also have to remove a bracket that used to hold the spring loaded idler for the Vari-Drive because it's blocking the shifter from going into reverse, which isn't very convenient hahaha. My cousin and I should be going on for a romp tomorrow if we don't get rained out, might make a video as well. I'll finally get to see what the latest upgrades will do!