Craftsman GT3000 "MUTT" Part II

Long time no see on this one.


I sorted through my carbs and found one with bigger jets. Why not, says I. It wouldn't pump fuel at first. I'd never had this carb running before(i think it came with a 20hp that I just swapped carbs off of). I took my beater precision stone to the fuel pump mating surface, changed the diaphragm, and put a bit of spray oil in to help it catch prime. One of those did it and i had a small geyser from spinning the engine with a drill. I'll test fire in a bit, digesting dinner now.


Mechanically she's sound. Electrical and the carb are the current problem, and why i abandoned it for a while. I may just clear out the electrical and start anew. It's a mess from the 4 years of my additions.

Good to see your projects coming back around rich

Me too. Everything is being reasonable at the moment, for once.

She runs! Throttle response is excellent, and runs smooth. Maybe a tad fat but i won't complain on that one. Pull started easy too. I really need a new battery for this thing.

I leave you with the hellscape that is 13-16 year old me's wiring.

Ah that ain't too bad. My tractors aren't too far off from that.


but ol' blue will be

Awesome.... good to see MUTT getting some post time again!

Thanks Mighty.

The reason the wiring was an issue was because my ignition relay for the bigger tractor key switch died. That switch was junky so i decided to go to a normal mower key switch.


All back together for the first time in a few months!

You should see under the dash of my truck....its bad. I think you did good. Luckily enough I only have one toggle switch on my buggy so I cant mess mine up too bad.

The underside of your dash doesn't get regularly doused with water though, lol.

I wish i had one single good battery to put in this. All of my batteries are so old at this point, this last winter was all it took to kill them.

Had Mutt on winch duty today when i stalled Budgie in a bad spot. Should've gotten a video doing it.


Did an oof and ran her out of gas across the road. Had to run and get a can.

Here's a rarity- got a new battery! I think dad was hinting at me putting this in the lt16 and mowing the lawn, but I couldn't help but put it in Mutt. The battery in the lt16 is still kicking enough anyway.


I found my other side cover for the dash, glad i don't have to hammer out another.

I'm tellin' ya, new batteries are great investments. If you got a core they're only about $20. Only problem for me is, with 16 tractors, they can't all have batteries. You only have 4.

Yeah a good battery always helps. I tried using an old four wheeler battery in my JD it worked ok but I killed that battery after alittle bit. I'm pretty sure John Deere used car batteries in them based on the size of the tray but I've been using a lawnmower battery for awhile now with no issues.

Mutt actually fits a car battery if i sacrifice my coffee can. Id run one if I had a good car battery. One time i had a dual battery setup, that really kicked her over well.

Brainstorming on an air box styled after mr.moo's simplicity adventure edition. I think i have all the material.

So errrr...yeah, that looks about good.


Bandsaw is still out of service, rigged up a guide for the hacksaw out of a piece of scrap. Got it close enough to file in.


Got all the big holes drilled and cut some tubing to my liking.


Did the old jazz hands routine with the welder and got it mostly together. There's a screen over the inlet and a deflector bar so I dont catch any pedestrians on it. To say I don't feel a little guilty about drilling through this hood would be a lie.


Need a few hose clamps or zip ties in here, the connections are snug but not perfect.


So the front end is capped, the back has a cover that bolts on. I need to find some proper air filter foam that i can oil and stuff in there.

In the morning I'll finish the deflector for the front side and clean and paint it.

Added a front deflector


Gave it the usual shoddy coat of cheap paint

I got my filter elements picked out. Heat gun is on the back to dry it out after i washed it.


The black mat is worm mat i guess, it was here when we moved here. Apparently someone came through a number of years ago and convinced the amish that raising worms was the next gold rush. Anyways, it wasn't, and now i have worm mat in the ceiling in my shop.

Got it mounted up.


Ran it a bit, it's neat to be able to feel it pulling in air. Now i should be able to tune the carb to the intake. I'm actually thinking about turning out some different main jets on the lathe. It definitely needs to go down a size or two.

Looks good!

Thanks. I need to waterproof a lot of stuff(mostly ignition and fuel tank vent) before i can really test it but anything is better than the stock air box that really isn't more than a guard for the filter lol.

Took her out today. Lots of fun even with the carb acting stupid.


I switched to another carb with a smaller jet and it helped with the problem where it would cut out at full throttle. Still not perfect. I need to get working on some jets.

Lookin real good Rich!

So in the past day or two I've been experimenting with turning a smaller main jet for the oppy. I have a bunch of small drill bits that are really only for cleaning small precision holes (torch tips, glue sprayers, etc), but seem to work alright for drilling in aluminum. The jet in this pic is my first attempt, the threads came out iffy because i had a dum dum moment, but you get the idea.


This is the issue I've been having with the past few jets, but as I've gone smaller on jets, I think it's gotten better. It misses and backfires at full throttle. On the first carb and jet it was the top 30%, second carb and jet was more like the top 10%, this jet is more like the top 5%.


I've talked to two people, one said he had the exact problem and he worked on the valves and fixed it, the other said to keep going down on jets as it's gotten better. I think I'll take both of those suggestions into account.

Thats pretty impressive lathing out new jets. Ida just tried to buy some new ones. lol

I mean i probably could've, but you know there's a +$20 premium for anything that's brass. Besides, the hard part is just not breaking off the drill. Besides that it's just a thread, some turning, and cutting a screwdriver slot with a hacksaw.