Murraymountain's Mountain Murray

Nevadablue wrote:

I use coarse (36 grit? And 80 grit) wheels and find they work MUCH better for me, faster, easier to control and just do a good job. Anything that is shown on the rat rod thread that has ground down welds  is done with the flap wheel. I tried the hard wheel one time and realized the flap wheel was the answer.

I guess it can’t hurt to try one. I’ll pick one of up and see how it does.

Flap wheel is the way to go.  Doesn't get as hot either on the metal as the hard wheel.

Also, I use cheap ones. Amazon…

Picked up some of them flap wheels last night. 2 36 grit and 2 80 grit. Definitely was an improvement over the regular wheel. There was a couple times I had to use the grinding wheel cause the welds were just so out of shape and really needed to be eaten in to but other than that, I used up both 36 grit disks and 1 80 grit. Thing is though, I managed to completely finish grinding and smoothing everything within a couple hours! Thanks guys for the tip on the flap disks!







Here's the pile I swept up today after all the grinding over the past couple days lol.



Anyway, now that that's done, it needs a protective coating of some sort and it needs it quickly. So next warmer day we get, I'm gonna start pressure washing the trans, motor, and frame and then dry it off real good, and then hit it with a couple coats of black paint.

As far as paint goes for the build as a whole, I'm still gonna repaint it, just not as professional as I thought I was going to. I think I'm gonna save the high quality professional repaint for stage 3 or 4. I'll hit everything again with cheap paint right now to keep it protected. Whether or not I do a real paint job where I sand everything and all that jazz with be determined later on but for now I'm gonna grab some $1 Walmart paint and give the frame a good coat of that. After that I can start the beginning stages of reassembly!

Good deal, glad the flap wheels worked for you. Of course there is still a place for the hard wheels, but I think it isn’t in my shop. LOL

Welp I managed to get out today and get the motor, trans, and frame washed down and even got the frame fully painted! Also got the motor paintwork done too! Waiting to service the trans before I paint that.














Cleaned off and organized the motor workbench so that I can get that back together and finished up. Just seeing how clean the piston was by doing nothing more than wiping it off with a rag, seeing as how it had absolutely no piston slap, and no scoring on the cylinder wall, I’ve seen all I need to see. No need to pulled the sump. I already know what’s up in there with the rod knock. So, I’m just gonna stick with a nice service, performance plug, jetted carb, and nice port and polish for a power boost.




Coming along nicely! I’m enjoying this little bit at a time way of doing things wayyy more than 2019 when I waited 4 months and then procrastinated the whole thing lol. If I can keep this pace up then this should be a very enjoyable build for once lol!

Check out the aura over the frame! The tractor gods are smiling in your general direction my man! Lol

Brianator wrote:

Check out the aura over the frame! The tractor gods are smiling in your general direction my man! Lol

Ummm... yeah...
Anyway, can't believe it's still warm enough to paint outside down there !

@Murraymountain  I wish we had your weather here in Indiana ! I need to get some preassure washing done on my frame as well but it's been dipping down into single digits and now ice and maybe 7-8 inches of snow. 

Brianator wrote:

Check out the aura over the frame! The tractor gods are smiling in your general direction my man! Lol

Lol, I had it there to dry after the wash.

diddie wrote:

@Murraymountain  I wish we had your weather here in Indiana ! I need to get some preassure washing done on my frame as well but it's been dipping down into single digits and now ice and maybe 7-8 inches of snow. 

It usually bounces back and forth between the 20's and the 60's in the winter here, lol. Kinda weird. We'll get into the single digits about one week out of the year. We almost never get into the negatives but every couple years it'll get that cold.

Funny thing about that picture  @Brianator  quoted, if you look on the hill in the background, you'll notice a bunch of snow on the ground lol. It snowed on Friday and the last of it finally melted today (and it's been in the 50s since Sunday). Weather is a peculiar thing lol.

Welp, haven’t done really anything to it since the last update. Hit a wall when I tried to finish the IFS. Got the wrong parts and it needs a little tlc to finish it and I just kinda put it off and everything ended up on the back-burner including the engine and trans. I pulled it all back out yesterday and got the trans ready to be serviced and on the workbench. So I’m getting myself ready to start working on this thing a little again. Got a whole herd of Murrays right now that I need to finish up and clear out of the shop and a trip to Florida ahead of me before I can start getting busy on this thing again but I’m getting prepared so hey that’s something!

Finally got back around to wrenching on the ol gal this week! Was able to get the trans serviced! I haven’t put oil in it or a vent line because I’m still tipping the frame all sorts of ways that are not upright so I don’t feel like having it leak out everywhere and I’m gonna put the tube on when I get the body mounted and I can route it correctly. Anyway, my ‘service’ consisted of a repaint, a new vent tube setup, greasing the input pulley, changing the oil, taking the slop out of some things and cleaning it up.



You can see the paint came out with a hammered look. It wasn’t supposed to do that but it did. The look is growing on me a little. Next time I paint it it will probably get sandblasted.




I remember back in 2019 Mighty making a comment about how it will be interesting to see how the plastic fitting I used for the vent tube held up. Well here’s the results…



It held up okay, but the RTV I used to seal it and hold it in place did not. So it got pulled out a lot and was leaking badly. It was a bit worn and beat but the fitting itself held okayish. Would have been better if I had used JB weld and then put the RTV on after that.




So yes, I now have the trans in and on wheels and rolling. It’s the fronts that I have on it right now until I have rears.

I also spent this morning and afternoon finishing the IFS! I took the axle halves and took the grinder to some parts of them because they were too tight in the housing. Got them moving smoothly and then made some spacers for the top mounts for the shocks so they don’t move back and forth. There is a little slop in the bottom but not enough to hurt anything. I do believe I’m going to have to replace the bottom mount bolts though. They’re a bit too long. After that I had it all moving smoothly so I took it back apart and installed grease zerks in the front and rear of the axle halves. That took a bit of time as I had to weld the rear ones in. After that I reinstalled everything and tightened down all the mounting bolts for the axle front mount plate or whatever the heck ya call it. Then I tightened the actual pivot bolts and then the top mount bolts on the shocks.






As I was writing this, I realized that the factory hole that goes all the way through the front end, even though it is nice to have to access things, the grease zerks will do nothing with a place that big where mud can pack itself in. So I may have to weld that up.

Anyway, that’s about where I quit for the day. I did take the clutch mount plate and the shifter mount plate and sand them down and paint one side. Need to probably do another coat and the other side. Then I’m gonna mount those and maybe start working on the shifter and clutch and improve those as well as work on getting the front spindles in so I can have a roller again. But anywho, glad to say I’ve finally come back around to making progress on this thing!

I like the IFS setup man, nice work!

Thanks! I will say I am very proud of it! I feel like it was a fairly original idea for an IFS setup. Only thing I might be foreseeing here is that the placement of the bottom mounts on the shocks could limit the travel I’m gonna get out of the shocks. I might have to make bump stops on the axle halves or kick the pivot points out on the axle halves to put a better angle on the shocks. That would be difficult but possible. Hopefully it all works great and I don’t have any problems with it at all once it breaks in. Once the build is complete and the final post is out, I have a major stress test planned for the IFS and the drivetrain, trans, and engine. I am going to be merciless to it for the first month and give ‘er Hell.

Welp, I think at this point we all knew this post was coming. I have not made any progress on it since the last post. Life has just been too busy and finances aren’t allowing it anyway. None of the plans have really changed for the ol MM here but unfortunately, as confident as I was that I could have it done within the build off timeframe, there is no way I can now. I could probably still have it completed per build off requirements but I just don’t work that way. I should have entered Alfredo and went with that but it’s a little late for that now. Anyway, quite unfortunate for me but wishing the best of luck to the rest of yall! May the best build win!

Sad to see you drop out man, your rig was coming together beautifully!

Man, I hate to heat that.  I'll move it to the build-off archive for now.  We can move it to rally when you are ready to work it again.

[adm]Merged the B/O Topic to the old topic[/adm]

Build withdrawn from the B/O.  Reopening the topic.