Newbie from Minnesota

So I have a bit of an ambitious project that I'm going to be starting in the near future and hopefully my username is a clear indication of what that project is.

New to the forum, decided to join after watching quite a few of Doc Sprocket's and Fearless Front's videos on YouTube off and on for a couple years. As far as modifying lawn/garden tractors, I have not done that, but that would end up being a future project. Hoping I can get some advice with my ambitious project that I'll hopefully be starting within the next few months, sadly not a tractor; but hopefully that isn't too much of a problem.

A little bit of my background, I have maybe a good year experience with welding professionally and maybe 2 years total of doing it as a side hobby, just throwing stuff together. I have had to weld mower decks back on to their brackets on a couple mowers. I have a bit of a creative side that most of the time, takes over and becomes a bit too ambitious. I do like to tinker with stuff and if I put my mind to it, I could build just about anything I want, within reason (yeah right).

Hope to learn as much as I can, and maybe of some help on here, but you all seem to have the latter under control.

Welcome to the madness!! Your project idea sounds very interesting, I hope to see a build thread with some pictures real soon! Hahaha

Welcome! Can't wait to see this project when you get started!

To give an idea what I'm wanting to do is a from the ground up scratch build mini 6x6, kind of calling it a mini or micro Deuce and a half. Roughly the size of a John Deere Gator 6x4, but it'll be a 6x6. The snag I'm in right now is deciding on the gearbox. The rear suspension will be a walking axle, with a live axle acting as the pivot point as well as a jackshaft to power the rear 4 wheels, each a live axle cut down. Two of which will have a hydraulic disc brake. The front axle will be on a swing arm, with 2 u-joints or small cv joint, center of the king pin, to allow gore steering. The dump bed on it, I'm hoping will have a hydraulic cylinder, instead of either a hand crank, or electronic actuators, or whatever John Deere uses.

It'll be riding on Ag tires 22" or 25" tall by 10" wide all the way around. The bed size I'm shooting for 50" long, 36" wide, 16" tall. Overall length from front to rear I'm hoping for 10' max, with an overall width to the outside of the tires, 50". Sizes are subject to change as I get designing it more, but that's a huge pain as I'm not great at drawing stuff out. The engine will either be a Predator 420 or something from Carroll Stream. Going to use a 12si or 10si 40 amp alternator to help power lights and a winch. Like I said, this is an ambitious build. It's going to essentially be a UTV to be used for deer hunting, ice fishing and move stuff around like logs, mulch and dirt. It will not be light weight, probably 1000-1500lbs empty, on top of hauling upwards of several hundred pounds, to 1000lbs if I do everything correctly. The the drive to the wheels will be chain and sprockets. The front axle can be either engaged for 6x6 when I need the extra traction, or it'll he off when not needed, using something similar to the 2 speed gear box that someone made a while back.

I was planning on using a Peerless 700 gearbox in a race prepped configuration, however after reading from lawn mower racers, it may not be stout enough for this application. Which is why I came here. You guys seem to have the best info for extreme application on gear boxes.

Welcome!

The beauty of your gearbox application is that the weight of your UTV will be on your live axle, and not necessarily on the axle or output shafts of the gearbox you choose to use. Considerinng your engine choice is horizontal I would pick a gearbox that already has some kind of horizontal input shaft.

I was going to do a mule drive to the gear box. Ideally yes the horizontal gearbox input would be nice, but I haven't had luck finding one, especially with dial output for sprockets.

Welcome to the forum. All that fab work going into your project, might be easier to just make a gearbox to your needs using parts from a riding mower gearbox. Maybe from a couple gearboxes you would be able to come up with a gearbox with a transfer case all in one.

What part of Minnesota are you located