MUT: Murray Utility Tractor

Hello all. First post. I'm pretty far along on building this little bugger, so there will be lots of "catch up" posts to get to present day. I'll try to do a couple a day and keep them in chronological order until I get to it's current state.

We recently built our retirement home and we elected to do most of the landscaping ourselves. I'm retiring from helicopter Search and Rescue:



(that's just a pic I grabbed of the internet)

I'm pretty broken up after 28 years of it. No regrets, I'm getting a pretty good early medical retirement package and it was a life well lived in service of others (even with the scars).

So in order to do our landscaping, I was going to need equipment to do the "heavy lifting" for me. My days of moving 40-50 yards of dirt with a shovel and wheel barrow are long since over.

I looked at renting. Nope, too expensive to have one as much as I needed it and would have to rent one again every time I needed something done.

Looked at buying a utility tractor, too big and waaaay too expensive. Then a CUT, still a bit too big and still too expensive. Even without any attachments. Then a SCUT. Still too much money for my pocketbook, but you could get an attachment or two for the price.

How about used? Nope, everyone wanted 5-10G for anything I could actually get any use out of without having to spend even more money on it.

Started looking at garden tractors. Still in the 3-5G range and mostly only mower decks as an attachment, so I'd still have to spend more money on it for my purposes.

Then I ran across this in the want ads:



200 bucks. Listed as a garden tractor (and called that by Murray), but it's really just a "beefier" lawn tractor. It's kind of a "half step" between lawn and garden tractors. No deck and didn't run. But the price was right.

I went to look at it. 23" rear tires, Peerless 820, butchered wiring harness and had obviously been left out and neglected for far longer than it should have been. Bent and banged up, nearly every panel had a ding or bend. It had been repainted, but at let it wasn't a total hack job. All the same, paint was long since weathered and rusted to just a general mess. PO was thinking of parting it, or chopping it up into something like a mud mower or mower racer. He had lost interest in it as he had several other running GT's.

I turned the engine over by hand. Turned freely, no noises and had compression, at least as much as I would expect by hand turning the cooling screen. Transmission shifted (sloppily) and the gears all seemed to work with the tires jacked off the ground. 200 bucks later, it was in the back of my truck and on the way home.

First order of business was getting it running. I drained the tank and carb and refilled with fresh gas.  Looked like a new air filter, oil was clean and clear and various other parts had been tossed at it, so that was OK. No battery and no solenoid. So I tossed them in. Cranked fine except when it came up against compression stroke, so that was a good sign.

Wiring harness was butchered in what looked like someone's attempt to get it running, but they had just made a royal mess of it. So I went through the whole thing and temporarily fixed what needed to be fixed and chopped out what needed to be chopped out. The safety switches were all butchered,so I cut them out and spliced where needed. I'd do a proper rewire later. I wanted to confirm it would at least run and move under it's own power before spending any more time and money on it.

Hit the key and......VARROOM. Running. Drove it around the yard and all the gears worked.

So I had a decent base to start from.

I planned to build a loader for it, so the next thing to do was build/reinforce the "frame".

To be continued....

Welcome and nice Murray.

Welcome to the forum! Neat old GT you got there, I'm assuming there's an 18hp Briggs opposed under the hood?
Looking forward to seeing more progress for sure!

Welcome to the forum!

In my experience if someone has touched the wiring harness in some way, they usually did it in a hack way unfortunately that makes you think wtf?

Sounds like you have a plan to make a real work horse here. I highly recommend a rear rack for carrying landscaping tools and buckets.

On to building a solid frame to build off of. The original frame is not much more than a piece of sheet with the sides bent over. Fine for a lawn mower, not so much for any real work.

First, I chopped the big long (useless) skirt off the back, chopped up an extra 2” receiver I had hanging around and welded the whole contraption together:



Then, plated the sides and ends with 3"x 1/4" plate. Boxed it front and rear to hold the winch mount in front and tractor weights front or rear. Also added a front receiver to help move trailers around the property:









Then I put it back together and got a little use out of it. I used it to drag a pallet over the yard to level out the soil and spread it. Kind of like a poor man's box blade:



Alrightly, getting some work out of it. Payback!

Next up, figure out a front loader....

So I wanted a front end loader to move material around. Priced out things like pumps, hydraulics and metal.

Ouch, gets expensive real fast!

Time to cruise the want ads again to see what pops up. I run across a 48" ATV plow blade for cheap cheap cheap:



I couldn't even buy the steel to build it for what I paid. I decided to go from a full front end loader to more of a "front scoop" arrangement.

Then some more 1/4" x 3" flat stock to frame out a bucket and 16 gauge to fill in the voids:





I still needed it to lift a few feet, so I build it to have 30" of clearance at full raise:



That allows me to get it over the sides of my yard trailer so I can move bigger loads than just the bucket alone.

Then got it all finished up a ready for work:



I moved 7 yards of class A gravel with it and it worked well for what it was.

It did, however, expose the worn out front axle as a problem. Flopping around, incredibly hard to turn when loaded, etc.

Well, we can fix that......

My word you work fast, making the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers!

Seriously though, outstanding fab work! That loader setup is pretty neat. What are you gonna do front axle wise, build a custom one from scratch?

Well now, what to do about that front axle?

The original was worn through in the kingpins as the OE ones were just plastic inserts. It was worn so bad, the spindles were worn in to the metal sleeves.  To make matters worse, the axle flopped back and forth when riding, when steering, or just putting any kind of force on it at all. At the very least, the pivot pin was worn.

A cast axle would be nice and something "mainstream" would be even better as I could probably order parts for it (IE: bushings, pins, etc) if needed.

I was unlikely to find anything like that locally, so I checked the big auction site. I ran across a John Deere 345 front axle. Cast iron, relatively big, and bushings at all joints/pivots. It also had it's pivot pin, spindles and tie rod still attached:




110 Cdn to my door.

Yoink! Mine!

It arrives in good order and then it's out with the old:



Hmmm, I wonder why the axle was flopping around so much:



and in with the new:





i picked up a couple JD front rims for 55 bucks cdn so I didn't have to fool around with bearings, bushings and rims. It will likley get a 4 bolt hub conversion in the future, but these allowed me to get it back to work in the yard for now.

While I was at it, I stretched the wheelbase 8 3/4":



Took it for a spin and it's like a totally different tractor! Now it rides nice and smooth over rough terrain and turns easily. The JD axle turns sharper than the old Murray one did, so even with a longer wheel base the turning circle is the same, if not smaller. The steering was easily dealt with; I just cut the original rod and welded in an extension. The pin end on the Murray push rod was the same size as the JD 345 steering arm hole so it just dropped in and bolted up. Got lucky on that one.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

My word you work fast, making the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers!

Seriously though, outstanding fab work! That loader setup is pretty neat. What are you gonna do front axle wise, build a custom one from scratch?

This is all covering about 3 months of work.

Few more things to come to catch up to current day.....

Awesome build. With the added plates on the side should be strong enough to handle a loader. Any plans on how it will work? Electric or Hydraulic?

TourMax wrote:

AllisKidD21 wrote:

My word you work fast, making the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers!

Seriously though, outstanding fab work! That loader setup is pretty neat. What are you gonna do front axle wise, build a custom one from scratch?

This is all covering about 3 months of work.

Few more things to come to catch up to current day.....

Oooh okay, haha. That makes sense. Nice work regardless!

My yard is pretty uneven in the back as we border a river. I decided I could use some roll over protection, so I built a ROPS. It would give me a place to mount lights if I wanted and a rear rack if needed.

I couldn't have it fixed height (hang up on trees, door openings, etc), so I built it to fold like commercially available ones:







Then it was time to build a rear rack to carry my yard equipment. Biggest problem was the weed whacker, but easily solved:





I also picked up a set of used tires for the rear since the ones I spooned on there were pretty much bald:

The tractor will get a belly mower eventually and I've got a 44" craftsman deck waiting to go on. A rear bagger attachment showed up int he want ads for not much money, so I grabbed it:



Some quick fabrication and the MUT becomes a bagger:





I still need to adapt the deck opening to match the chute, but that's easy metal fab for me.

Then, I needed some payback out of the old rig for all the work so far:



Did it's job well. Climbed up and down muddy banks, over stumps and felled logs and carried all my stuff back and forth. Made a great base camp for clearing out some deadfalls, alders and scruff trees.

The carb has troubled me a couple times though. Ive had it apart and rebuilt it (needle, seat, gakets, brass float, fuel pump, etc, etc) but it still insists on being finicky from time to time and all that will make it happy is a total strip down and 60 min soak in the ultrasonic.

The butchered wiring was also getting on my nerves. Not that it was causing problems, just that I knew it was there.

So next up; rewire.....  

I see, never mind. Electric. You must be still posting. LOL.

Well, rewire. If I was going to do it, I was going to do it right.

Body work all came off and wired it nose to tail. All fresh, split loomed for protection. Crimped, soldered and dual layer heat shrink. All the wire disconnects received weatherpack connectors. Dielectric grease all around.

I tossed a cheap set of LED bulbs in the original headlights. The buckets were corroded and rusted, so I cleaned them up and lined them with metalized foil tape:



Not bad, works pretty good for area worklighting.

Took the time to clean up the battery area. I added a 6 place ATO fuse block in order to cover the two circuits I had (Start and lights). Then mounted a pos gang block to feed all the ATO pos side (for future expansion) and mounted the winch circuit breaker gang in an old monster cable junction box.

The alternator passed all it's meter tests, so no need to do anything more there.

The starter was pulled off and gone through. In good shape inside, so it was just clean the commutator, clean the internals, and back together. Cables were tossed out and new 4 gauge cables were added for the battery to the starter for both pos and neg. All the other battery cables were also tossed for 4 gauge cables. All crimped and soldered.

Switches.

I needed switches.

I also needed to mount the Tach/hourmeter. That's a nice little unit. Battery and vehicle powered. Clock, tach, volts, hours, and user programmable hour maintenance reminders.

Just spraying switches around the center pedestal where ever they fit wasn't going to cut it.

So I made a "binnacle" for the Tach/hourmeter:



Then a pod for the switches:



And started fitting it all together:



I moved the ignition switch to the binnacle. It's easier for me to use it there and with it always in my sight, I can see if something stupid happens like the key falls out somewhere along the way. Nothing would suck more than to get where I'm going, reach down to turn the tractor off and.....argh! My tethered engine kill switch will go where the ignition switch was originally. The garage door opener will also be mounted in that spot as well.

Not looking too bad so far, I then cut the steering shaft and added 2 inches to it. Fits me better and gets the wheel up enough so it doesn't cover the gauges or switches. While I was at it, I glued up some large split loom to cover the steering shaft and photochopped up a new wheel center logo. The old center was just a piece of corroded aluminum, the original logo had long since been worn away. I wanted something fun and this fit the bill. I just printed it, glued it on and then covered it with clear packing tape:



The Tach/hourmeter is backlt when power is on (IE:acc) and off when not running. The first switch is for the headlights, the red one you see is a "master kill" for the winch. When the switch is off, you can't activate the winch:





I needed a "kill" for the winch because I added a couple 4 way joystick switches to control it:



This makes it much easier to run the front bucket. I can steer with one hand and lift/lower the bucket with the other like a hydraulic loader. But it also makes it very easy to bump the joystick by mistake and that 3000 lb winch has enough power to bend/break things if it runs when it's not supposed to (IE; no bucket installed and cable stowed). The bucket will also eventually get an actuator that will let me curl it, so the currently unused 2 axis's on the front stick will run that. The rear stick is for a rear lift actuator for the eventual rear 3 point hitch.

I've got a third stick to install and that will run the snowblower attachment I'm going to look at tomorrow:





And that brings us up to today. the only thing I don't have a picture of is, arguably, the most important addition: the coffee cup holder in the RH control stick pod!

LOL!

WOW!! Very nice.

This is blowing my mind! Itt nice to see someone who knows what they’re doing when it comes to wiring a tractor.

@TourMax so where did you get that hour meter/ tachometer? how hard was it to hook up and how well does it work?

Excellent work on the Murray GT!

Very nice work! You have great fabrication and electrical skills

Wow, mind blown, very nice work on all parts, with a particular attention to wiring, Im as guilty as the next guy with my tractor wiring, but its very refreshing to see it done so well. also I think im stealing your front bucket design, I really like it.

Well, nice day today but the chill is in the air; winter is coming.

The wedding has begun between the 42” MTD snowblower and the MUT:




Blower was in better shape than the pictures revealed, so I grabbed it for 350.  Not a screaming deal, but fair for what it is and comparable units for sale.

Data label is long gone, but some googling and comparing pictures reveals it’s an MTD 190-032-101. Luckily, the manual for it is available in pdf download. So I downloaded it, printed it and toosed in the big binder of yard equipment I keep.

Right now I’m fitting the undercarriage pulley pack to the MUT. Its the pita part where you get everything level and square before welding. Pulley and belt geometry also has to be worked out. Couple more brackets to weld and the pulley pack will be mounted.

The frame brackets are a bit of a problem. The width is right for my frame, but the loader bucket brackets are welded on the outside of the frame, which makes it 1/2” too wide to fit the blower. I’ll either have to cut them off and butt weld them to the bottom ofthe frsme or weld them to the inside.

Butt weld would be cleaner, lap weld inside soukd be stronger. Have to think on it for a while...

The blower is for a tractor with power PTO and mine is manual. Right now I’m sussing out a rockshaft design in my head to get around the electric PTO setup.

Whew! Lot of work to locate and weld what is essentially 4 tabs. But its in and drops off with the pull of 4 hairpin clips:




Next up; mount the blower on the front of the tractor.

I am going to need a blower drive belt though. Since my wheelbase is stretched 8 3/4”, the belt that came with the thrower is just that amount too short...

Crazy_Carl wrote:

This is blowing my mind!  Itt nice to see someone who knows what they’re doing when it comes to wiring a tractor.

@TourMax  so where did you get that hour meter/ tachometer?  how hard was it to hook up and how well does it work?

Cant rightly remember. It might have been Amazon.

Its made by Searon, although I cant remember the model number. Google “tachometer hourmeter Searon” in images and it shoukd show up.

Edit: this is the one I have - crap, forum won’t let me post a link. Go to searon-tec dot com and look up “SRT-28 Multi-function tach/hour meter waterproof”.

Its a 5 wire hookup: bat +, acc +, two grounds and one wire that wraps around a spark lead. Pretty easy. Theres also a 2450 button battery.

Instructions are pretty cryptic (chinese translation).

I had to hook up bat + and acc + in reverse order to get the backlight to work properly. If hooked up like the instructions say, the backlight is always on. At least it was on mine. I bought this a while ago (bought a couple, put one in my argo and shelved the others) so they might have fixed that by now.

Programming it was also cryptic. I ran across a  buyer comment on amazon about it that made it easier to program.

Works fine. Its mainly for rpm for me, although the clock and hourmeter are a nice bonus.

REALLY REALLY NICE BUILD!!!