2003 heavily modified Murray Off-road tractor

Looks good so far man! You definitely have good articulation.
So it's not gonna be fully suspended?

I see he's basically doing a really nice front lift and utilizing a stronger cast iron axle. Pretty cool idea. Even if you put shocks on that, the problem with this style suspension is when one front wheel hits a bump, that motion is transferred to the other front wheel via that front fulcrum point.

nope sadly not. i figured it would need to be lifted quite a bit more to have full suspension , and that would make the front way to high for this machine so another build will have front and rear suspension to raise it equal height. Its not really for bumps but more flexability for off road conditions , for bumps i am going to run low psi in the tires .

Cool stuff man! it must crawl pretty good now.

I dont know yet, sadly i dont have a drag linkage connected yet and am having some issues with the limited murray steering travel length or lack of

Well , i got it driving for 20 min but then broke my temporary drag link. has very nice articulation but i might delete what ive done to it and go with my original idea with suspension and a free moving axle
( could a moderator move this thread into the correct section? i realized its in the pics and videos section and would like it to be moved to the off road /rally section )

Did some stuff... And it worked out some how !!!!!!!







The springs are too stiff but the setup works pretty good .

Nice! Got a track bar worked out?

biggasmowers wrote:

Well , i got it driving for 20 min but then broke my temporary drag link. has very nice articulation but i might delete what ive done to it and go with my original idea with suspension and a free moving axle
( could a moderator move this thread into the correct section? i realized its in the pics and videos section and would like it to be moved to the off road /rally section )

[mod]Moved to the Off-Road section.[/mod]

Thanks mighty!!!!! yeah Ak , the 2 by 4 is the track bar right now lol, i need to find some softer springs that are shorter then i will make my track bars and sway bars . Any sugestions for some cheep and durable soft coil overs?

Since it's a solid axle setup you only need one track bar. Keep it as close to parallel with the axle as possible so it wont lock up the suspension, just mount one side to the frame and one side to the axle.

It looks a little high to me, but the tractor doesn't look tilted back very much. Are you using the coil overs to locate the axle, kinda like struts? Or are you going to do a trailing arm, 3 link, or 4 link set up?

Looks nice and solid. looks similar to what i"m doing kinda...

Crazy_Carl wrote:

It looks a little high to me, but the tractor doesn't look tilted back very much.  Are you using the coil overs to locate the axle, kinda like struts?  Or are you going to do a trailing arm, 3 link, or 4 link set up?

i plan on getting smaller coil overs then i will put rear pivoting braces and a track bar, not sure how high i will leave the front .

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Since it's a solid axle setup you only need one track bar. Keep it as close to parallel with the axle as possible so it wont lock up the suspension, just mount one side to the frame and one side to the axle.

So one track bar will support the axle that well ? i will try to put a track bar and still have rear support if i can make it work but there will need to be some flexable joints still.

I see a track bar is like a panhard bar that locates the axle left and right.  I'd put in a 3 link like Allis has.  His front end geometry is kinda like this.  Picture your solid front axle in this picture instead of the truck front axle.  

Yeah a track bar just locates the axle so it's not walking side to side when you're driving around. If you don't have one your axle will probably be all over the place, haha.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

I see a track bar is like a panhard bar that locates the axle left and right.  I'd put in a 3 link like Allis has.  His front end geometry is kinda like this.  Picture your solid front axle in this picture instead of the truck front axle.  

Yes that is what i am planning on doing , i just don't know the technical terms for all the linkages

I'm not sure what all the technical terms are either, that's why I posted the picture lol.

I was looking at grease-able heim joints on mcmaster carr yesterday, they'd be great for something like that. They weren't crazy expensive either.

Thats also what i was thinking! Greasable hiems ?? awesome i will look into those

Looks like reasonable prices for large joints .

I might get the 3/8" ones , they should be strong enough i would think because thats the size of my suspension bolts

I think that size would work. It's not like you're building a monster truck...yet

Well its possibility .......

3/8" would probably do, but I would go up to 1/2" just for comfort. I'd wanna know for damn sure I'm not gonna break the thing.