Mightyraze's "Sasquatch II" [2017 Build-Off Entry] [Finalist]

Unfortunately, it does not appear to be this year for that Murray.  I got an inkling of doing role reclassification surgery on Sasquatch.  The orange Craftsman II I have.  It's already been modded to use a vertical engine over the horizontal that it use to have.  Since building my mudding mower last year, I have found that I am using it in place of the Craftsman II putting it out of work rotting in the back of the shed.  I have drawn up my thoughts this weekend and see how it could come out.  I like it, looks like I will be entering the 2017 build-off!  I am pretty excited to build it.  Even though it is a working tractor today, the mods required I think put it under the 50% done, but that is the judges decision.  :-)

Well here it goes!

I am going to call it Sasquatch II

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Short story behind the Tractor!  It's a 1990 Craftsman II GT18.  My Dad bought it new back in 1990 when his old Sears Suburban finally kicked the bucket.  I was the primary user of the machine until it threw a rod back about 1999ish.  From there it sat behind my Sister and Brother-in-laws house, much of the time in flooded waters.  They were going to haul it off for scrap when I grabbed it and did my first build of the machine. [thread here]  During that build, I tried for months to round up another Horizontal opposed Briggs.  I could not find.  My uncle had an opposed briggs, but it was vertical.  I did some research on the GT6000's that had vertical engines and modded it then to accept a vertical engine.  I also gave it a paint job.

Now to what I plan for this thing!

My plan is to modify it to resemble a "Oldie HOTROD!", not a Ratrod.

MUST HAVES!!!

• Plan to Move the front axle forward, I will be lowing the front a little bit. This will be custom. I see myself watching Doc's video on Ackermann Angles at least a dozen times.
  

• Will need to rework steering.
  

• New/different shoes all around.  Current fronts will go to Li'l Red, the Backs to one of the Suburbans.
  

• Will pulley swap the engine and the transmission.  I know the 6speed has a tapered shaft, but I think I may be able to work around that. I want more speed, I just don't want 50mph speed!  LOL
  

• Hope to have a Rad new Paintjob
  

• I need to replace many gaskets sump, head, ect on the engine and possibly replace the cowling
  

Will try to have!

• Redo lights, Change fronts to LED behind the lenses.  Change backs to something "retro"
  

• working marker, with signal lights
  

• More than just black pipe exhaust,  Maybe something chrome tipped and hotrod feel
  

• lower and replace existing seat, current sits way too tall
  

• keep the lift arm as a brake lever?
  

• Change to a hard fuel line
  

I have a couple other surprises lined up, but I don't want to lay all my cards out for now.

Basic Idea of the build, just the "MUSTS" displayed.

Nice mighty! I'm really excited for this one! You put any consideration into white walls as well?

Moving the front axle out a few inches would look cool. Hotrod-esque for sure.

Yeah, now it could be Lil' Red and Big Stretch hahahaha!

Thanks for the comments!

Whitewalls would be cool, but my wheels will be aluminum in color.  :-)  I may break down in the end to make some white letters.  We will see.

Sweet sketch, you do that? Should have you sketch my Rampage lol.

Youre in.

Doug wrote:

Sweet sketch, you do that? Should have you sketch my Rampage lol.

Youre in.

Yeah I sketch them and scan them in. Then I redraw so to speak in Photoshop where I color them.

It made the 90's this weekend here in OK, some of the state made 99 a few hours from the house. It was SUPER nice and I got "0" done. LOL! I did realize my first hurdle that I may encounter. I realized, that if I lower the front and keep the back hiked up, the axle in the front will not obviously be up and down. This will make for some creative thinking for the front steering so I get my angles right. Nothing that can't be figured out! This is the fun part of the build-off! Learning to think and sometimes out of the box!

I may not have wrench in hand yet, but I am having to put ideas to paper.  Just the Ideas in my head are already making this a fun build!

If I can pull off the taillight Idea I have, it will be pretty cool!  Next week, I can start putting my wallet to work and get parts!  I am ready to get the wrenches out!

Tear down started last night. I didn't take any pics. I think I was worrying too much about the front.  I think there won't be that much difference in ride height even though I plan to lower the front.  Right now, I have some rather LARGE tires on the front of this beast.  On level ground it is a bit nose up.  Standard tires that were on it was 16.5 height.  Tires I plan to put on may be tall 18.5-20"  Easily bringing the front back up.  I am still toying with keeping the 16.5 and down sloping it a bit.  I'm a little torn between "Hot Rod" and "Gasser".

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Nice mighty! I'm really excited for this one! You put any consideration into white walls as well?

You got me thinking, looking at your rig, I will put in some much greater consideration into white walls.

I hope to have all the skin off and possibly the engine removed by the end of this weekend. :-)

Looking forward to seeing what ya come up with!

Ill definitely be following this. Based off of last years entry, this should be pretty good. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I think I have the electrical figured out with all the extra features I plan, rewiring the whole thing.  I don't have any tear down pics at this time, I will this weekend.  I have some parts on order and some materials such as wire, some switches purchased and on hand.  Once I get stripped down to the frame, I will be cleaning it and painting it a dark gray.  After that, I will be running the wires and new fuel line.  Everything tucked neat in the frame.  I will be keeping the lift lever as a secondary brake lever. :-)  Then the front axle build.  From there I will tackle the engine gaskets, there is a small leak on the "left" side sump gasket.  Minor, but needs to be addressed.  I will be replacing the bottom oil seal just because it's old and I will have easy access. Probably head gaskets too.  Might as well clean up them up too.  

I was also playing around, granted it isn't accurate by any means, just getting an idea of the possible front end slope.  I think it will have a nice stance, about 5° difference!

More later this weekend!



OH, and possibly making a sticker of my current avitar and place it on the back of the new seat I get!

That sticker looks pretty awesome! Should look pretty cool on the mower.

Some teardown pix...

So, sorry if I missed it... but why run a vertical shaft when it had a horizontal?

TheBeal wrote:

So, sorry if I missed it... but why run a vertical shaft when it had a horizontal?

No, it's a legit question...

The horizontal blew up long long ago. When I did the original Sasquatch build, I looked for 3 months for another horizontal at a decent price. I couldn't even find a donor tractor to rebuild. I would have just got a predator or something, but with this thing running the belt from the flywheel side, I didn't want to mod it to flip things around at the time. My dad had this vertical engine sitting in his building and he gave it to me (FREE is a good thing). Pretty easy to mod into after looking at some newer GT6000's belt routing.

Other news...
Ran into my first snag. Ordered some parts and got the wrong ones. :-/

Its actually pretty easy to convert a vertical shaft oppy to horizontal shaft or vise-versa. You already had the parts from the old engine. I think its just the carb, intake manifold, and bottom casing.

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Its actually pretty easy to convert a vertical shaft oppy to horizontal shaft or vise-versa. You already had the parts from the old engine. I think its just the carb, intake manifold, and bottom casing.

Cranks on verticals are longer, have to drill new hole for dipstick tube, some other holes need to be drilled for lubrication everywhere. Not impossible, but tedious.

Cool build ya got here, love the paint scheme. How come the front tracks wider than the rear?

I only had some random parts from the original horizontal. I think they share the same carb. :-)

More tear down for the day.



Upper dash removed, engine is disconnected,  Just need the belt off and unbolted. Take those crazy exhausts off today.

Little organizing nuts, bolts, switches, etc...



I think my sharpie has had it..

Well that's reasonable... vertical shafts a bit more common... And cheap!

TheBeal wrote:

Well that's reasonable... vertical shafts a bit more common... And cheap!

And a lot easier to find! Engine is out and all the wiring and gas tank and hose removed. Down to the lower tower and the transaxle. I'm going to unbolt the front axle, but keep it finger tightened until I have the front axle ready to go.

Cool Build. Are you going to have a round (Moon Eyes style) gas tank in front of the front axle?

Not this build.  I'll continue using the old tank.  I do have that on the back-burner for next year when I build a Rat Rod from an old Murray that I will be moving over to the house later this year.  I'll probably, slowly get those parts and have ready for the 2018 build-off.  

More pix...  will be getting my gaskets for the engine Thursday!

mightyraze wrote:

TheBeal wrote:

So, sorry if I missed it... but why run a vertical shaft when it had a horizontal?

Other news...
Ran into my first snag.  Ordered some parts and got the wrong ones.  :-/

Sorry to quote myself.... but the seller for my part emailed me back.  He found my correct part and shipped it out this morning along with a return label.  Nice email to wake up with.