Stanely Garden Tractor Build

Here is my 2003 Stanley GT (Like a Murray Widebody) it was made by Murray and in fact now has a Murray hood because I don't know where the Stanley hood ever went. It started life as a 21HP B&S V-Twin, 46" cut with a Peerless 820. My dad bought it new and gave it to me a couple of years ago, I was hard on it when I was a kid. The only things I've done thus far is changed the rear pulley from a 9" to a 3" the factory pulley on the stack is 4.5" outside diameter, made a foot throttle out of bicycle brake handle, posted an add on Facebook looking for a free bike just for it and someone gave me two. I put a new carb on it 2 months ago. I want to make it into a trail capable tractor. It has some speed, factory was 5mph, now its 15-20mph which is fast on a mower with stock steering setup. I'm not sure if I'm going to speed it up anymore since I want to use it in the woods and want it to be able to crawl if need be and 1st gear is the only crawler gear is still pretty slow. Need to swap out tires, need to lock the rear, eventually stiffen up the steering. The frame and body is pretty stiff, so I'm not worried about bracing the frame, the weakest part of this tractor is the cheesy hood. I want to make it sound not so much like a mower, something needs done with the exhaust without making it any louder.


And I apologize, the pictures are straight when I upload them but then some turn sideways when I attach the URL to the forum.

Picture of what it used to look like:

Now:


New Carb:

Foot Throttle:

Old Pulley:

New Pulley:

Oh and what I thought was the perfect belt, I'm not sure is. It was a 101.5" I tried an 88 and 92 and they weren't right, got a 90.5" it works great, it does not slip off the rear pulley without me putting pins or guards to keep it from falling off when the clutch is pressed in but if I try starting out in say 4th or 5th gear the belt slips until getting up to speed instead of grabbing popping the front end any. I'm not looking to bust up my front end, but wish it would grab better, I'm wondering if the surface of the pulley is too slippy. If I work my way up to 5th gear it does fine and doesn't slip.

Pulley that size is going to slip.

That pulley will slip. I don't recommend going any smaller than 4", especially with a stock clutch.

Well as expected, the front wheel bushings are shot. I’m hoping to find a wheel bearing equivalent to press into the wheels instead of bushings, it just makes more sense. I just ordered some for my daughters tractor, I need to measure my spindle and the diameter of the wheel and see what I can find. I seen on eBay when ordering hers that there are some for Murray’s and surely I can find the right size somewhere even if I go to a bearing specialty supplier.