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

Did a bit of a steering re-vamp recently. I did away with the drag link crossing over underneath the tractor thing, also I re-did the pitman arm with some nicer looking braces.



The old cruddy looking setup.







Then I re-did my pitman arm with a lap weld so it was a bit stronger that a butt weld.



Then I finally painted my steering box!





Basically I forgot to take pictures along the way, but I was planning on running a short drag link off the pitman arm to a bell crank type thing mounted on the axle to steer the wheels. Sorta like how my GT6000 is setup but with another short drag link running to the right hand wheel instead of two tie rods.










Works great! I pretty much kept the same ratio but my wheels turn a bit sharper then before. The bump steer is at a minimum as well, even at speed, which is good. But mostly I'm glad to not have the drag link cross under the tractor like it used to, this setup should be much better with my flexy front end.

Also, dont worry...



I braced the bell-crank mount hahaha. Anyway I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, let me know what ya think!

Looks good! Honestly I might have to redo Mutt's steering like this. I have now like you did before and it sucks for turning right, even more so with the caster and heavy oppy. Although I'd probably do mine so I have two separate tie rods from the bellcrank. What'd you use for a bearing on the bellcrank? I'm not really a fan of steel-on-steel lol.

Thanks Rich! Its actually got a steel bushing that I oiled up before assembly. Works pretty good and it should hold up. I can take it apart and lubricate it once in a while as well.

Looks good.

Thanks mighty.

Sorry I wasn't more descriptive earlier.  Was headed off to a shower.  It does look good.  Not a fan of the craftsman setup, the suburban's was much stronger, but similar.  LOL.  Nice collage of metals there in that setup.  Your welds are looking a lot better too!

I noticed the better welds as well. We need to graduate you to pro welder/suspension and steering guru lmao

Thanks fellas! Hahaha, I'm just hoping it'll hold up to the usual abuse.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Thanks fellas! Hahaha, I'm just hoping it'll hold up to the usual abuse.

Richie can be the official ATLTF durability tester. Rich, you're up

Hey hey wait a minute!! I still wanna be able to drive it! Hahaha.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i can promise you that i cannot promise you that it will be drivable when i'm through with it

Yeah that's what I figured, hahaha. I couldn't weld enough angle steel to this thing to make it Rich proof.

Yeah bud, youll have to upgrade to the angle titanium(if thats even a thing lol)

Even with angle titanium it'll take some heavy bracing and Rich is gonna yell those iconic words "I'M GONNA WRECK IT!" as he rides off into the woods

**gona rekt it

Yeah, there's no way I'm letting Rich get his hands on this tractor, hahaha.

Doc Sprocket himself couldn't build a strong enough tractor for rich. I pity that poor first car/truck he's gonna have

I pity everybody else on the road lel

Hahaha, poor Rich.

Anyway I took the MTD through some really thick sticky mud yesterday and got 'er stuck pretty much for the first time since the major upgrades. Basically all the mud stuck to my front tires and really screwed me over haha. I'm fairly happy with how it performed up to that point though even without a locked differential. I am having some pretty bad belt slip in high gear though so I'm gonna try and tighen up my clutch pivot and add a second spring, I'm thinking that should help quite a bit.

coughcoughdifflockcoughcoughyouwontregretitcough

Haha. Priceless.

Rich you really gotta take care of that cold.




Hahaha. But yeah, maybe someday...

'maybe someday wah wah wah' you said the same thing about that pulley swap, we both know its gonna happen sooner than later lol

Man, I'm more see through than I thought hahaha. We'll see Rich, but dont hold your breath haha.

I finally found a nice mud trail to bomb, if the pictures say anything haha.





Lots of fun for sure! Love how this thing throw ya around when you blast down a trail like that hahaha. These are actually screenshots from the video I uploaded tonight, only a short video but it was getting dark. I hope to keep going back there and making more mess though!

Awesome! I was doing some research and the ATV/UTV trail over here about 15 miles from the house was converted to Equestrian only 5 years ago. UGH!