MTD - "Budgie"

Especially when a new one is $99!

I'll probably get one for like a max of $50 here at the next local auction.

No carl, I'm talking gx390 or bigger. I already have a 6.5 i could put on er.

looks good man, if you have any more belt issues build you a belt brake, wheel horses have them factory and they make shifting much nicer, sears have a variation of it too, I usually add them to my clutch systems if they dont have them factory. basically just a belt guard that pinches the belt at the very end of the clutch pedal movement, so that when you push the clutch completely down it pinches the belt a bit to slow/stop the belt so you can shift easy

Thanks. I get what you mean. Dont think I'll need it.

Gas pedal i made kinda inspired by the one on Alliskid's MTD

I like it! Looks pretty good. Neat how you incorperated the belt guide you made into the pivot and stuff for the foot throttle. Good thing you made it outta heavy steel in that case.

Thanks. That piece was just the closest to mount it to, so thats where i mounted it. It needs a little bit of support but i have a really simple idea on how to do that lol.

So the steering on this thing is absolutely terrible...not sure what I'm doing about that yet

I wouldn't wonder if the mower breaks in half, how rusty it is

Hmm, someone clearly doesn't know surface rust when he sees it.

I dunno where the two ignorant ones got the idea that it was really rusty it's not.

that's not rust that's patina

Buck Mault wrote:

that's not rust that's patina

once I said to keep the patina, Rich said it's uglier than my mom, and now he tells the opposite???

Welded a stop on the gas pedal and put a stronger spring on, feels a lot nicer. I also put a return spring on the brake lever, which I'm not sure if that's staying but it works for now.


Took this thing out, has a whopping top speed of 12mph... lol. The front end jumps like mad on pavement when i try to do a sharp turn, a problem i never had with mutt. It really needs some more weight on the front... a bumper maybe?

Rig is looking real good Rich.

[adm]I am not warning or pointing any fingers. Please be courteous with each other as to not cause unneeded frustration.

Thank you. [/adm]

So it wants to lift the front end in the air when you accelerate?  Yeah sounds like a robust front bumper would kelp that or a K series 10hp or bigger.

I like the gas pedal.  Looks like it won't collect too much crud.

Are you thinking about swapping steering from another tractor into this one?

I mean when I'm turning the front wheels hop because of the locked diff and light front end lol

So the little bit I've driven this thing, I've figured out that the steering absolutely SUCKS. Too much slop, and it skips kinda easily. I wish i hadn't wasted that worm box on Mutt, it would probably have done fine on here. I have another two worm boxes, one is like 30:1 and the other has like 3/8 input and output shafts so that won't really do. Might be able to steal the steering outta the LT18RS project, it's the same thing as in Mutt too. I'm not sure if i wanna use that on this build yet, we'll see.

I would think 30:1 would be too low of a ratio really. I love me a low steering ratio but there's a line, haha. Maybe this rig could get a rack and pinion?

Rack in pinion would go in Mutt before jt would get anywhere near this one, lol

Hahaha, I coulda bet money that you were gonna say that. But yeah I guess a rack would be pretty awesome in ol' MUTT.

So steering upgrade for MUTT then take MUTT's steering and drop it into budgie?

I agree with Carl again on this one.

Could. Just gotta get a rack first lol

Put the hood on it


Tacked on a turn down for the exhaust.

Now I knew why U always destroy everything in few seconds....

Cuz U beat everything as hard as U can.....

Sebastian, if you call that abuse, I couldn't even imagine what your reaction to actual abuse is.

I didn't even hurt anything on it doing that. Hell, i couldn't hurt anything on it doing that. If your mower breaks doing what I was doing, you need to face the fact that it's a piece of sh*t and you need to fix it so it won't break at the slightest hint of real offroading.