[FINALIST] - CraftsmanQuad's CraftsmanQuad Mark II [2019 buildoff entry]

Hmmmmm just keep breaking my lockers scootercooter lol

redzz02 wrote:

Hmmmmm just keep breaking my lockers scootercooter lol

Haha I hoped you would chime in!

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

redzz02 wrote:

Hmmmmm just keep breaking my lockers scootercooter lol

Haha I hoped you would chime in!

It's all good haha I hit the throttle instead of the clutch, that was my fault

redzz02 wrote:

It's all good haha I hit the throttle instead of the clutch, that was my fault

Uh oh, that sounds like a recipe for disaster!

Quick update. As said in the video, staring work on the front suspension and a cross brace for the seat to sit on

I would suggest not doing a triangular brace mid chassis, your shifter goes right there unless you’re doing a suicide shifter like mowrons

Suspension brackets are ready to be welded on. Can y’all see kinda how they’re gonna work?

redzz02 wrote:

I would suggest not doing a triangular brace mid chassis, your shifter goes right there unless you’re doing a suicide shifter like mowrons

Yes I will be making the deck raise/lower lever into the shifter

Looks great man.
For the suspension I think it is going tl work out very well but make sure it doesn't sent your front end up to high. Most A-arm swaps I have seen leave the front at least 3 or 4in higher. Lovely gussets kn the trans mounts! As for the frknt trans mounts you have to be careful how you reinforce those because there made to bend alittle when you tighten the bolts down. What I did is just weld them in and leave the bolts like you with the bach plate. As far as I know Stretch also just welded them it. If I remember correctly you said you have ridden one of the mowron rallys. Did it have the deck height slap shifter? Did it feel pretty easy to use or was it awkward? I personally want to cknvert mine to side shift I feel like that is the easiest to use. Just my 2 cents looks awesome man!!

Very neat idea with the T-post brackets there! As MJ mentioned it's probably a good idea to do some experimenting with chassis weight and spring rate before you get the coilovers and mounts in place. It would suck to have the sprung mass too light to provide enough compression and screw up the ride height, especially for an independent setup like this cause the camber might be outta whack as well.

Either way I'm sure you'll make it work! Do the control arms have some caster angle made into them or are you gonna have to tilt the assembly back a bit to add it yourself? It looks like they have none but it's a bit hard to tell.

MJ- yes I rode the ghost rider and it had the slap shifter. I liked it a lot. I was gonna just use angle iron but I came across this T stock from a garage door opener and I know I can lay some nice beads when I don’t have to jam my gun into a corner

AK- you bring up some good points. These shocks have a sleeve with notches cut into it to add preload to the springs. I have them set to the lowest setting now as a baseline. I know that the whole tractor with the big vanny and all my angle iron will be much heavier than the 110cc atv they came off of. I’m worried about the nose sitting too low so that’s why I’m starting with them at their lowest preload. As for caster, I’ll have to add a few degrees and kinda eyeball it. You have any suggestions as to how much I should add?

5 to 10 degrees is what I try to set my caster at, prefer more towards 10.
 Another thing to look at in a front a-arm swap is camber in the spindle. Some atv' s have it  built into to the spindles and others use different lenghts of a-arms (between the upper and lower). Then some even use different lenghts of a-arm mounting tabs (between upper and lower a-arms ).

Yeah, I agree with muddstir that 10° is probably good.

Since you are using those straight brackets I would say a real simple way to do the caster angles is once you figure out where the assemblies are gonna go on either side, use a square and draw a vertical line on the side of the frame that lines up with where the rear brackets will be. Then simple use a protactor to make a line 10° off the first line. Then align the rear T-post brackets with the new line, clamp 'em, and weld 'em in!


If that makes any sense....LOL.

Yeah I’m sure I can figure it out

I hope U get that Thing ready & strong built, so it wo'nt break down!

Looking good.

Slap shifter he was using is probably our best one, we used deck button To lock it in neutral.

Stretch44875 wrote:

Looking good.

Slap shifter he was using is probably our best one, we used deck button To lock it in neutral.

Thanks stretch, from you that means a lot. I really liked the way the ghost felt and plan to incorporate the locking mechanism on the shifter so it stays in neutral

I haven't been around here quite as much recently, but ohhhhhhh yeah man, joining the front suspension club! Looking good!

mr.modified wrote:

I haven't been around here quite as much recently, but ohhhhhhh yeah man, joining the front suspension club! Looking good!

Haha yeah man, I’ve never had any issues riding, but man did haspin beat the tar outta me. Anything I can do to make this pig ride better imma do it.

Next steps are weld front end together, weld the dash on, order the new final drive, clean out all the old grease, and lock the differential. Then the transaxle is ready to go back in and I can start on the belts and pulleys system. After that will be steering, and then wiring (one of my machines will finally have electric start lol I’ll be spoiled), and maybe throw a few coats of black on the frame for rust prevention. This will also be my first tractor with lights so...there’s that

Currently welding the front suspension up. I’ll be honest, I just eyeballed where I think it should go haha

lookin really good!

Looking good ! cant wait to see that suspension in action.

Nice job on those welds! Nice to see it all hanging on the frame, pretty cool.

The geometery however looks a tiny bit off to me, in relation to the pivots on the king pin vs the A-arms mounts:



It might only be the picture making it look worse than it is, but it looks as though the pivot points are closer together on the mounts. I would think that would cause the wheels to camber in a bit throughout up travel because the arms are, in theory, not traveling the same radius. Might not be so good at high speeds..

Like I said though it might just be the angle of the picture screwin' with me, haha. Sorry for any confusion.

Actually they are like that. I reused all the geometry from the original mini four wheeler. That’s how it was so I just kinda left it. IIRC the spacing between the pivot points on the frame is 5.5 inches

Ah okay. Well I guess as long as it's the same as it was on the original machine, it'll probably be fine.

Looking forward to seeing more progress!

CraftsmanQuad19 wrote:

Currently welding the front suspension up. I’ll be honest, I just eyeballed where I think it should go haha

Eyeballing is A-OK.
This thing's going to Haspin, not to outer space... Although I'm not sure which environment would be harder on the equipment.