Murraymountain's Mountain Murray

No this is a Command. The good one. Lol.

i can't say i like any kohler, at least any of the newer ones, me and my brother do mower repairs on the side and i've never had anything but trouble out of them, and have had to do dozens of engine swaps with customers who bring me mowers with blown motors, every one of them was a kohler, not to mention parts for them are usually far more expensive than they are with a briggs

Ah, finally! A new page. Lol.


The only problems I've had with commands are the fueling systems and smart spark systems. This is only my 3rd Kohler command but I've never had any serious issues with them. I like the fact that there are no synchro balancers and no crappy valve trains. Not that I don't like the Briggs, but I really wanna see how it does under the abuse. They've all ran pretty smooth and they've been pretty reliable so far. I love the Command series. Never really had any bad issues thus far. We'll see how it does.


So I got the carb and air housing/filter assembly, breather hose, and fuel pump on tonight...




Wasn't too bad. Had to find some gaskets, lift the air filter mount and turn a gas line into the breather hose. That was pretty much all I had to do there. Waiting on the engine shroud to be fully mounted before I hook up the fuel pump. I also put the oil in it tonight. That was a mistake. I forgot I didn't have any crank seals..... Didn't realize it until after I had put the full quart and a quarter in. Then I saw this and realized that I needed to put it on a bucket...



So this is more my fault than an issue. But still, I could have just put it on it back until I could get my hands on the seals but I didn't think about that in the moment. So I'm gonna let it sit tonight until it's all drained. Anyway, the final checklist is ready to come into the mix.

-Put oil back in
-Install crank seals
-Install starter
-Install flywheel and fan
-Install pulse tube pick up and dipstick
-Install gas lines
-Find bolts to mount shroud

Pretty close I'd say!

-Put oil back in
-Install crank seals
-Install starter
-Install flywheel and fan
-Install pulse tube pick up and dipstick
-Install gas lines
-Find bolts to mount shroud
-Install flywheel magnets


Getting close. The first startup should be this week! I think the only thing that could pose a major issue on the motor is the piston slap being bad enough to break off the side walls of the piston. Hopefully it's not that bad but I guess we'll have to see.

Even got an exhaust manifold! Gonna cut the muffler off once I'm done running the motor and keep the manifold on it.






The MM has been doing pretty good. Got some snow to play in on Christmas day so that was cool. Videos to come.





The hood latch had busted off again. Took me five minutes to put it back on but I wanted to romp some more so I just left it off.




It's latest adventure....



I tried to go where nothing has gone yet. Eventually covered some new ground. Not as much as I wanted but it's still new ground. Got seriously stuck in the first few feet. Didn't think I'd make it that far to be honest. It's like quicksand in that area. I easily could have lost traction in the front and slide off an underwater embankment and drowned it again (which is pretty much what I was expecting) but somehow that didn't happen. I probably covered 40 feet of new terrain. That was fun. I honestly thought it'd be stuck there all night but nope.




Yeah so that was interesting. A video on that will be coming too. My cousins are supposedly on their way up to NC from FL right now, and they have 100 acres and several SXS's so.... Hopefully we can get the MM and a few others out there.

-Put oil back in
-Install crank seals
-Install flywheel and fan
-Install flywheel magnets

Welp, the Kohler build is FINALLY, over a year later, FINISHED. (I think)





Put JB Weld on the magnets. I'm pretty sure it'll hold. Let it sit overnight and put the flywheel on in the morning. Everything is assembled and ready to go now. I'm down in the sensible state of Florida right now so I can't run it yet. It's ready for it's first start as soon as I get back. Most likely gonna need to jet the carb but I don't know yet. Hopefully it doesn't need much tuning.

Did you make sure the polarities of the magnets flipped with each one?

I...I...Um...Oh boy.

That would've been good to know before I put them on... They're never gonna come back off.

Well, it's not likely but maybe, just maybe by the grace of God I put them In the right order. Probably not.

I assume if I they are in the wrong order it will short/burn up something maybe?

Here's the creek video:





Alright, the Kohler build is done! The carb leaks like CRAZY. But I'll get that fixed once I put the motor on since it'll probably still need tuning. I wasn't able to check to see if the alternator was working either. She's got the nice little diesel knock going there... Took me 15 minutes to figure out that the choke was half on and that's why it wasn't running. Anyway, got some more snow so it's time to go rip some more donuts!

Welp, did a little maintenance on the MM tonight. Might be taking it to a friends house tomorrow and if I do we're gonna do a photo shoot. Had to clean 'er up a bit and get 'er lookin good (AKA thoroughly clean the light and lens). Also got the ambers working again.





And the hood latch broke for the third time so I just did away with the old setup and went for a bolt latch.





Filled 'er up with gas, checked the oil, tightened some bolts, and we're ready to go for again for a little while! Hopefully some cool photos coming soon!

Looking good! I think that brush guard would look cool with a light bar on it

Maybe. I'm not up for more wiring at the moment, but maybe in the future!






Anyway, here's the photo's from the photo shoot! (Just FYI, the photos all look better in full screen.  )



We got a little rowdy afterwards... I believe this is about 150lbs of steel.








After this it escalated to 4th gear full throttle donuts on the cement. A little more and I would've been doing cyclones. I was actually pretty dizzy at the end. The next day I let three other people drive it. They were all either bangin the gears  (no clutch or rev matching. Just BANG), or they were just leavin it in 2nd or 3rd and just stayed wide open. I'm sure the motor and trans didn't appreciate that day. Anyway, when I get my hands on the footage from the burnout and donuts I'll post those. I really wish I would've thought to air down the tires. Should've created a bunch more smoke than what it did if I had aired them down.

Anyway, now that that's done, I'll just go ahead and say that the MM is ready for Rockcrusher! Hopefully it'll be more than just me and Studebaker going but we'll see.

Welp, I did some welding on the MM's front end today hoping that it helps with the ride tomorrow. No pics of the welds cause I didn't feel like doing any cleaning on the steel. I just went for it. They look like the stock market, but hey, they should be strong! Anyway, here some pics from getting it ready!





Time for Rockcrusher Farm Round 2!

Any plans to upgrade the tires?

Not at the moment. I can't really afford tires. I could get some with the money I have but then I have nothing to finish the JD rebuild with. The MM really surprised me with how well it did yesterday on those bald tires so I'm gonna leave them for now.

Most likely I won't put tires on it, but hey, maybe I'll get an itch to do something out of the ordinary this summer or fall and pick up a set of tires.

Well. The Mountain Murray made it back from Rockcrusher in one piece! We started out on trail 1, then trail 4 which led to 3 which put us back on 1. Then we did trail 1 again. Then trail 2... The most difficult trail they have to offer for ATVs. This thing has me super impressed on how well it did. Got stuck a total of 1 time in a spot I could've gone around on trail 3 or 4. There was one pretty hard hill climb on trail 3 but I managed it with enough speed. Mr. Studabaker has that on video. We had a blast out there! I probably put about 20 miles on the MM last week. Caught a bunch of air time, almost hit two different dirt bikes, blew an idler pulley about 100 feet away from loading it on the trailer, got sideways on accident in the trails a few times... It was awesome!






This is all that's left of the idler pulley:






So the front end took quite a bit of abuse. There is some toe out now, but nothing I can easily fix. It's not the front plate this time. Just plain wear. I put a pulley off of the L110 on it and tightened up the pulley that keeps the belt off the shifter. Had to oil everything too. My clutch started sticking because so much mud got packed in there. Was getting hard to steer too because of it. Anyway, the MM is back, in one piece with very minor damage, and back in business!

Burnout video is out! I've been looking forward to this one...

Murraymountain wrote:

Burnout video is out! I've been looking forward to this one...

HAHA that was hilarious

LOL, thanks! I had quite the time making that video!

@Murraymountain

 
Question since I am unfamiliar with your model of Murray.  Is the front grille plastic or metal?

MightyRaze wrote:

@Murraymountain

 
Question since I am unfamiliar with your model of Murray.  Is the front grille plastic or metal?

The black inserts are plastic, but the rest is metal.

So the orange part is metal and the black is plastic.  Nice

(Little late here) I thought I got my stuff muddy, but that makes mine look clean! Glad you’ve been able to get out and romp.

MightyRaze wrote:

So the orange part is metal and the black is plastic.  Nice

Yep!

Rustbucket Garage wrote:

(Little late here) I thought I got my stuff muddy, but that makes mine look clean! Glad you’ve been able to get out and romp.

I thought the same thing about mine before that trip, LOL!

I've been wanting to do one more build.  I would like to do a sear suburban.  Closest one to me under 800 I have found was @redzz02 's but he's a little out of my range and a bit far.  I have seen several Murray's like yours and like Doc's 100 or less.  I'm considering one of those as well due to their ease in modifying.

MightyRaze wrote:

I've been wanting to do one more build.  I would like to do a sear suburban.  Closest one to me under 800 I have found was @redzz02 's but he's a little out of my range and a bit far.  I have seen several Murray's like yours and like Doc's 100 or less.  I'm considering one of those as well due to their ease in modifying.

Would recommend (of course). A Widebody should definitely be an easy build for you since you have experience in that field. The MM is identical to Docs just with a different hood. There's literally no other difference between the two. Just depends on which style you like better I guess. The 2nd gen Widebody is basically a scaled down version of Red.