Murraymountain's Mountain Murray

Okay, thanks! It's done now. Gonna try and assemble everything Tuesday.

Okay, the new case was pretty nasty. Sprayed it down in WD40 and wiped it real hard. Cleaned up okay. Here's a pic of it before I cleaned it...



I changed the shifter, needle bearings, and added the vent tube and grease fitting. Almost forgot to put the input shaft in. I would have cried if I did.




Last night.



I completely assembled it today. Gonna buy paint tonight and get that done. Need to get the pulley a c-clip too. I put gasket maker on all the threads this time, did the JBW on the axle's key way, and had to drill a new hole in the rear due to a snapped off bolt I NEVER SAW. Don't know how I missed it, but fact is, I did. Whatever. As long as it don't leak, I'm happy.



And it currently sits here. Tomorrow I'll put the oil in, and install it.




Gonna look in to some better tires too. I'm going to Rockcrusher Farm at the end of March and I'm not leaving without it. My friend says the hills are pretty steep, and my 'drag slicks' are gonna get me nowhere up there. I'm at least gonna get another set of Turfs.

i'd honestly recommend a pair of atv knobbies at the very least for a mud/trail mower, you can get a set of 22x11-8 knobbies pretty cheap, i think i picked up the set i have for around $70 off walmart.com but that was several years ago, anything is better than turfs even if they're cut turfs they can't beat the performance of even a cheap atv tire

Heh, I know anythings better than turfs... Except bald turfs. I couldn't get anywhere in the snow with these whereas my brother had one with fresh turfs on it and he could go anywhere even with his unlocked diff. I don't have the money right now so I'm most likely gonna get another set of turfs and cut them up.

I am planning on getting knobbies, but I need front and rear and that's not cheap. Especially with the sizes I need.

But for now, a new set of turfs will be much better.

Weell. I just don't know anymore. She's all put back together, and it's exactly the same. It still leaks too. I am sick and tired of this crap.

But, if I want to make Rockcrusher then I've got to get it fixed. So I need some advice. Before I tear into it, I need to know what's failing. So, I put it in gear and it jerks a little bit... Kinda like this.............. ........................  ...... ........ . ................. ................ ...   And once you get 3rd gear, it'll go, and as soon as it needs to start pushing itself to go slightly uphill it (as you saw in the snow video) starts grinding. For some reason I have 2nd gear back, and I can shift into 3rd, but it's still not any good. Does this sound familiar? Shift keys maybe?

Sounds like the shift keys and/or the shift keys slots in the gears and getting worn. Provided all the gear teeth checked out and the bushings/bearings were all tight.

may i ask how you locked your diff?

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Sounds like the shift keys and/or the shift keys slots in the gears and getting worn. Provided all the gear teeth checked out and the bushings/bearings were all tight.

Yeah the teeth are in great shape, and with all the bolts in the case loose, I figured that was the problem. But nope. All the bushings are good, but the gears did seem to have more play than when I first opened the transmission. Not sure what I want to do here. I guess I might as well take it apart again... If worse comes to worst, good cases are always nice to have. I guess I'll see what I've got this coming week.

loggers gogert wrote:

may i ask how you locked your diff?

Sure. Now I do believe yours is an FNR tranny, but I also remember you ordering a 4spd or something... So this would work on your 4spd. This is what I did...



If you want to lock your FNR, RedneckComputerGeek on YouTube did a video on that.

thanks for the vid, and btw, i love the way you do things, your videos are very professional and easy to follow



and 1 LAST thing....... do you by any chance have a vid on your steering setup?

LOL, that's not me. @Doc Sprocket did that video.

My steering setup is a completely stock Murray setup, but I'll be glad to make a video on it!

oh...........oops

but anyways
its stock? what mph do u top out at?

Not EXACTLY sure, but about 20 to 25 I think. It could take more.

what do you mean by take more>

but besides that, how does your steering handle that fast? lol

my steering wants to kill met at 12-15..... LOL

the steering in a murray is a lot better than in any mtd, the only issue is you have to be sure the wheels are aligned for higher speeds, this is true for any make tractor, but it's easy to do an alignment with the adjustable twin drag link setup in a murray, if you're having an issue with yours being twitchy it could be a misalignment in the front wheels or play in the tie rod, drag link or sector gear

Yep. Honestly with MTD steering, I'd say it's all 3 lol.

now, how can i fix that?

keep the mtd as a low speed trail mower and find a decent murray lt widebody, at least that's what i would do, i don't know about where you live but here i can get them for next to nothing running and driving, the last 2 i bought cost me less than $150 total, there is a number of things you can do, i had massive play in my ford yt16, the steering setup is very similar to an mtd set up, i replaced the steering box with a craftsman steering box out of an 2001 lt1000, works great, i have virtually no play now and i run about 20mph comfortably, this same swap can easily be done on pretty much any mower, and is probably the easiest thing to do other than rebuild the entire mtd steering, but there will be frame and possibly drag link mods needed, and you may have to get the entire steering setup to do it, steering box, drag link, front axle and spindles, this is because mtd uses an over axle drag link connection at the front axle where the craftsman uses an under axle connection

Okay, went ahead and pulled it for the 382nd time. Getting ready to pull it apart for the 382nd time. Fun fun fun! Here be what I did to pull it. Went very smoothly! Still not very trusting of that roof though...



Trans out for the 382nd time...



And of course as it now sits...



Full inspection coming soon.

Okay, I have found the cause of all this commotion...





SHIFT KEYS! I figured. Now, the question is, where do find new ones at a decent price?

And also, I have one last shot at being successful with this axle. Think I might need more JBWeld. Hopefully the 383rd time's a charm. Anyone got any suggestions to, as Barney Fife would say, "nip it in the bud!"?

Okay, got the cases cleaned and ready to go. I'll paint the whole thing after it's all assembled. But now I found a crack in the bottom case. I've already got it JB Weld-ed and it's now drying... I'm sick of this trans. If it would only work like it should...




Anyway, right now I'm just waiting on shift keys, black RTV, and orange paint to put it back together. After that I just need tires.

Anyone know where to get shift keys for a decent price?

murray mountains post:        "i think i need some more JB weld to put on the tranny."


also murray mountains post:    " i just put some more JB weld on the case, its drying now."


what I'm saying to myself while im reading his post about jb welding:     "he heh heh heh....................... murica."

jb weld is great, i once watched my stepdad fix a old briggs flathead block that had a rod thrown through it with jb weld and a piece of aluminum from a cola can

Got my RTV, my paint, and my shift keys... I got a whole trans for free. Only thing wrong with it is the needle bearings are gone. So I already threw the input shaft away and today I'm gonna try and remove the needle bearings without ruining the case. I plan on using this trans as a spare parts trans... Especially for Haspin. I swapped the new shifter shaft along with all it's gears over to the MM's trans and already put it back together. Gonna put it in today and test drive it tomorrow. Also got a replacement wheel for that rear one. Good riddance. That thing was gonna drive me insane.

New parts trans...



Watch all this water... No good.

The MM's trans about to go together...



All I can say, is that this thing better last.

darkside0914 wrote:

jb weld is great, i once watched my stepdad fix a old briggs flathead block that had a rod thrown through it with jb weld and a piece of aluminum from a cola can

Yup, I repaired a 6 hp horizontal block that had a hole in the side where the rod blew threw it. I had all the pieces of metal that broke off and pieced it back together with the JB weld and is now a spare block.

Alrighty. The trans is done. The parts trans is also, "done". Tried to remove the needle bearings and blew a hole right threw the case. That's alright. If I couldn't have gotten the bearings out I still wouldn't have been able to use the case, so I've lost nothing.



This might be the last time you see this trans so clean.



Then after letting it sit a little bit, I went out and tested it. I tried to take it easy, but when I got to the main road, I smelled and saw gear oil leaking out the axle ends and brakes, so I gave up and started my thrashing. It doesn't shift as nicely as it used to, but at least it shifts. I think it leaks out the bottom of the case, so my skid plate will probably be an oil pan again. BUT, it's back in the game.

Got the MM out in the mud yesterday. Did great with it's bald turfs. Oh it could be better of course, but still, the fact that they're bald turfs.





Shift keys are broke in. Shifts smoothly now.

Here's some videos...

Trying to do donuts... I need better fronts.
Mud bogging with bald turfs.
Jumping the MM.
Not sure what this is.

Anyway, it's not too bad. The front end is getting pretty bad though. That's alright, that just means I can thrash it hard and not care what breaks. It's all getting rebuilt anyhow!