Craftsman GT3000 "MUTT" Part I

Short clip of steering not working lol

Yeah, might not work so well....

i need to make an assembly like that for my lt 4000, i weled a murray pan frame steering box in it and something beefier would be nice.

That'd be an interesting idea. Kinda hard to do, but not impossible. The steering I woulda considered doing that with is already in Orion though haha

Return them and try some Ebay ones.

Waaayyyyyy too late for a return. I bought em over a year ago. Think I'll just put the incandescents back in.

Ah that's to bad. I never buy anything from Walmart. I just go to my trusty Can tire.

Got the steering box out and apart tonight. Exactly what I thought happened at first.


Machined cast bronze gear, cast onto a cast iron hub. Too much torque from the output side, split it right off.


Wear on the gear where it was used to operate the steering. None on the actual worm gear though, it's steel.


Seems like the cast iron actually split first, then busted the gear. (judging by how distorted the worm gear is).


Plans for new steering are in the works, we'll see what I come up with.

Edit: This is a single throated worm and wheel setup, meaning the wheel is machined to allow the worm to contact more teeth at once(you can see it in the divots in the top of the teeth). The wear is the broken surface you see on the sides of the teeth. Just thought I had to clear that up.

Yep, that's not so good. I bet that setup isn't very good for steering shock loads, probably just best for running at a constant RPM. So you're not gonna try and re-use this box Rich?

Most likely not. Too much backlash in high reduction setups like this.

Ouch.

Whats that assembly off of?

General use 10:1 Dodge gearbox. Face mount for 56 frame(ish) motor. Not sure about the duty cycle. Ran a conveyor at my dad's work til somehow they broke the output shaft off it. Dad welded it for a temp fix, brought it home for me when they got a replacement.

Dodge? There is your problem LOL, But all kidding aside. I saw the post on FB and that sux.

Dodge gearboxes and industrial supplies like bearings and such seem to be pretty good to me. This thing was really not doing what it was designed for hahaha. It sucks, but how was i gonna know that it wouldn't break if i never put it to the test? Lol

Forgot I never linked this vid here.


Thinking about going back to the Snapper steering I had before, with some improvements. Haven't found a decently priced steering rack or box yet. Best I've found so far is this go kart steering rack, but I'm still not so sure I wanna spend that kinda money for it(yeah I'm cheap haha).

Also wanna see about making Mutt more suitable for long runs, expeditions and such. Maybe finally getting a decent battery, a winch, adding some storage, and possibly a reserve fuel tank. We'll see about that last one haha, but I'm for sure eventually getting a decent battery and winch.

Those are some good upgrade ideas Rich.  I found this steering box on ebay https://www.ebay.com/i/121925968066?chn=ps At least it's under $100.  If you went with the golf kart steering rack you would have to re-engineer almost all of your current steering setup.  I like your idea of going back to snapper steering because it would be cheap and easy to do.

That steering box looks pretty good. Still out of the budget since we have the buildoff going on soon. I do find it fun to reengineer stuff sometimes, but with the joints I'd have to do i might not actually like that haha. Would still be super skookum when i got it done though

I think my lt4000 is going to get the ford or a golf cart steering box. Then i can put on front suspension and get some flex.

Still think you need direct steering...

Double W Cross Ranch wrote:

Still think you need direct steering...

Oh god no. I think Doug taught us our lesson on why direct steering doesnt go in an offroader already haha. I wanna actually be able to steer this thing when I'm crawlin.

Direct steer would be horrible for crawling. The bumpsteer would be outta control, hahaha. Good for a speed machine though.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Direct steer would be horrible for crawling. The bumpsteer would be outta control, hahaha. Good for a speed machine though.

Not hinting anything here

What? AK..... never.

Nellybelle's getting rebooted...not gonna lie...that's gonna happen....

Also, wheelers have direct steering.  I don't think it's too bad.

The steering in the rat rod is geared like direct steer, pretty nice but not so good for rough terrain.

Wheelers are quite a bit different than mowers though. You sit differently, they're balanced very differently, etc. Direct steering is just bad for big tires in general, I think.