Craftsman GT3000 "MUTT" Part I

I like the way that looks Rich, having a bunch of levers always looks cool haha. Its not in the way of your leg?

AllisKidD21 wrote:

I like the way that looks Rich, having a bunch of levers always looks cool haha. Its not in the way of your leg?

It's not that bad. It's in far enough and is high enough it doesn't bother too much. It only moves like 5" anyways. 4" when the brake arm is nice and tight

Just some stuff...

Put a diode in the lighting circuit, I basically have two charging circuits now. Was just gonna do the voltage regulator but I haven't bought one yet.



Tried hitting a ditch, just kinda ended up making a big hole lol. Actually had to use a lot of wheelspeed to get up out of it





With this parking brake I can take pics of it flexed up on a tree now! Lol




I did a little work with a brush and paint tonight...



Lemme know what you think! I like it, it's nice and visible! I actually have ATLTF stickers but I don't wanna use em till I paint this thing, lol

Looks good Rich! The white definitely stands out.

Just threw these on here. I thought hell, they're cheap so why not?

After a while of messing around and ramming stuff i decided that Craftsman's tube bumper design is complete JENK. I got tired of bending it back straight over and over.

So to solve that problem...I started digging through my scrap and got the welder out...

Man this channel steel i got from dad's work is great. You can see I wrote 60* on the side there, the main pat of the bumper is 60* ish



Width of bumper.



If I'm building a beefy bumper why not build a beefy prerunner thingy?



Pulled a redline and ground my nasty stick welds on the front side down.



Finally found my black spray paint and painted it for now.



Works pretty well! I can run right up some stuff I couldn't before! Haven't dragged anything with it yet but i'm sure it'll do just fine. The prerunner has a bit of flex when you're really pushing on it but that's to be expected





Lemme know what you think! I love it!

looks good and solid brother

Looks good Rich! Good for ramming stuff out of your way.

Looks GREAT! Rich!

Yupper, simple and strong.

Thanks everybody!

So I figured since I had refreshed my bumper game, why not go on a bit of a fabrication spree?

I thought for like 3 seconds on what to do and what would probably be the hardest thing and I decided on a skid plate.

So I built this. Made out of all 1/4" steel (besides the 1/2" pipe for the rear mount)



Tape is there from a piece of plywood I was using to space the transaxle from it.









As you can see, I havent painted it yet. That's because I'm not entirely sure I'm done with it yet. I might still add something on to the mount in the back to prevent twisting.

The whole process of welding this was frustrating. I was actually getting some good welds in places, but the breaker would flip every 30 seconds or so of welding. I think it's because I had the welder on like 120a (Lincoln Buzzbox) and the breakers are just a pair of 30a. I could tell they were getting warm every time I reset them. I let them cool off for a few moments and that seems to help a little.

Oh yeah, and I made a vent thing for the gas cap(got rid of the gauge one) and replaced the gasket in it with a piece of bicycle tube lol. Doesn't leak at all now!

Skidplate looks stout Rich! Great work!

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Skidplate looks stout Rich! Great work!

Thanks AllisKid! I've been running it into stuff today, holding up pretty well!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that ground clearance at the skidplate is 9". Still decent!

"I've been running it into stuff today, holding up pretty well!"

Hahahaha, the ballad of Rich and MUTT! Hahaha, looking good man!

Next week Rich builds a vertical shaft V8 to help pull all that extra weight he welded on...

That skidplate is the bomb! Awesome job!

Beefy is good!

Thanks everyone!

Lawren Wimberly wrote:

Next week Rich builds a vertical shaft V8 to help pull all that extra weight he welded on...

I'll just move the stock oil pickup and make an elbow for the carb, hardly call that a build. The oppy moves er around pretty good like it is, only mod being governor removal. I pulled a 4th gear wheelie today and actually held it about 10ft. Took my foot out of it because she was gonna come back over on me

Thing is now, how am I gonna top myself? I have an about 50:1 inline gear box I could use for (indestructible) steering with no feedback whatsoever. Thing is, I'd have to gear the steering arms really high so I wouldnt have to work my arms off steering. This Snapper steering would be really nice for something like a racer, it has very little slop but skips when you have the front wheels jammed up against something. The piece the driven gear is mounted to actually flexes and lets it jump a notch or two. I could just tighten it a lot but I don't want to really ruin it by slopping out the bushing from tightening it so much. I could go the augur box method but I think there's just much more to be desired with those. More than an 1/8" thick case and the ability to tighten up the steering more. They just dont seem to be all that they are put up to be. We'll see what I figure out lol. I'd really like a golf kart rack and pinion but I've no place to obtain such a piece

Looking good to me! Somehow I missed this stuff. I should spend a bit more time looking around on here. Skid plate is nice. Bumper looks pretty tough too.

So apparently its bad when you leave your mowers out in the rain...causes all sorts of trouble. I've recently replaced a coil but it hasn't helped much. When I replaced the coil I tried running without a key and retarding the timing a bit(from my understanding it ups torque at mid to high rpm). I think I did too much, because I pretty much lost all high end power. Ended up putting back the key with stock timing. Now somewhere in the midst of this something has gone wrong with the carb. It seems the fuel pump is giving up. Wont pull enough fuel to start, but when she runs she runs fine. Weird. I think the carb might have taken a drink while out in the rain, lol. I'm gonna drain the bowl and try her again but I've ordered a carb kit anyways. Gotta stop reusing old stuff lol



I'm happy I made this little puller lol. Hasn't failed me yet.



I think it's too much. Thoughts?



Bought this. Not too bad I think



While I was looking, I saw this baby...maybe another time...

use the stick timing... if anything, you want it advanced for more power through the 1800 and up range,,, the oppy has plenty of low end grunt, it tends to fall flat in mid to high end. Water tends to infiltrate these carbs if uncovered because the throat is vertical... clean it out, put in the new kit, it'll be fine

Yeah I would think you'd want to advance 'er a little bit if anything. You could try the coil filing thing that I did on your oppy. That would be kinda cool.

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

Just some stuff...

Put a diode in the lighting circuit, I basically have two charging circuits now. Was just gonna do the voltage regulator but I haven't bought one yet.

i might just try to do that with my oppy, my engine has a dual the dual circuit stator, so ill get atleast 7amps and up to 9. ill be getting one of these to simplify the two diodes, and get a little more power out of the thing..

its two diodes inside a single case, these are more efficient, and will work really nicely to connect both the charge wire and the ac lighting circuit..


you connect your stator wires to the outside pins and the middle pin is you dc output.. ill be getting proper current measurements once i get this togheter.

On the flywheel, you could try to file the key. Do it little by little, between engine runs. I think you moved the timing about 10 to 15 degrees, which would be too much.

Timing of an engine is a big deal. too much can hurt the motor.

I'm just gonna leave it stock lol, at least till I get this carb issue solved

Alright I'm sorry my dudes but this is prolly gon b very hard to follow, my mind is in shambles between my dreaming/daydreaming/brinestorming/lookingthrured'smtdthread/listeningtometallicalol/its3am

Ok, you folks remember when I tried out those 21x7-10s on the front? How they really wouldn't have worked well without some new bushings, and spacers to clear the knuckles? Not to mention that they won't help my lean problem. I'm not sure if I mentioned that I had to space out the new 8" rims I have on the front with some washers, but I had to because the tire would rub the knuckle because these rims don't have the offset the hubs rims did. They are so far out on the bolts I used for spindles that the bushings are actually riding on the threads on the bolts, which is wallowing out the bushing slowly, which is adding camber(there is already camber from the knuckles wearing into the axle, which i kinda anticipated, it only really adds a degree or two yet it still looks horrible to me) so I have to space the rims out even further. The spacing them out wouldn't be such a problem if I could find some ball bearings for them, but I'm not sure where I can find those. Plus I'm uncertain of the OD of the bushings themselves. I'm hoping 1-3/8", if so then supposedly there's ones from wheelbarrow rims that match...I had a set of tsc wheelbarrow wheels that i guess had those bearings on the front of one of my snappers that blew out. Plus some similar ones dad threw on an elevator just to get it home lasted only about 1/4mi. Yes, they were overloaded, but you'd think they'd last longer than that!! Although now that I think of it didn't Doc put high speed heavy duty wheelbearings in the fronts on the Diesel Weasel? Maybe those would work. I'll have to ask him about those, lol.

AAAAAAnywho some of you (probably all of you) were anticipating this, I'm thinking about suspension. Monolink similar to Red's(he's a bad influence on me lol). But I don't want to use coilovers if i don't have to. Just doesn't look right to me. Not very sleek. Plus I dont wanna shell out lotsa clams (see what i did there?) to get ones with a decent amount of travel. My dad used to be a dirt bike guy. There's a part of my grandpa's barn(in new york, unfortunately) with a bunch of old dirt bike parts. Actually i shouldn't say dirt bike because they are back from the Sport/Trail/Offroad days. Anyways there was(is) a pair of motorcycle front shocks/forks there. I never thought much of them, but now that I remember them I think it'd be cool to incorporate some into a tractor suspension setup. I talked to dad and he said some are rebuildable with kits available for heavier/lighter applications(bikes). They have plenty of travel, like maybe 10" or 12". Plus they don't automatically spring back out so fast. I've only done a quick search on some on ebay, but I think they'd suit the application.





Thoughts?

This should be cool! I dont see why those wont work, the only problems I can see are the shocks being a bit too long, and the fact that there are no mounting loops at the bottom of the shocks. But I've already thought of a couple ways to fix that and I'm you will as well Rich haha. Now hurry up and get this started already!