JD Sabre Budget Mower

So this is my John Deere Sabre I got for free a few months ago. This mower is at my dad's and I currently don't have a welder there. So the plan for this one is to keep it CHEAP, FAST and ride the crap out of it. So far I have spent maybe 20 bucks on this build and it gives me something to do at my dad's so that all good. Currently the mods I have done are. 2.5 inch rear pulley, 4in front pulley and cut away alot of bad crap off the frame. The mods I need to fo are
Lock trans
Direct steer
New front axle
New front tires 16-18 inch
Handle bars
Hand throttle
Straight Pipe
Brake pedal

It is right side clutch and I'm not totally sure if I'm going to convert it to left side or just have hand throttle and left side brake. At some point I need to get my welder over here and reinforce the frame because it is the sh*t frame I have ever seen. The goal is 30mph, trailable, and maybe some drifting. Official budget $150!

I cast this aluminum shifter in shop and I really like how it looks on this thing and between that and the side shifting it shifts really smooth. I wish my rally mower was side shift.

I have the trans out right now to be locked and oil filled. I going to be using RedneckComputerGeek's locker block technique to lock it because I don't want to spend any money but I still want to add strength.

Nice build project! I love the idea of turning in into a direct steer drive it like you stole it rally machine.

My buddy mows with a JD Sabre and I came across one for $10 whiich I promptly parked in the weeds at the farm lol. Main reason for that was I thought the front section of the pan frame wasn’t up to par for me. Is the terrain flat at your dad’s? Maybe you could bolt on some crossmembers if the frane twists too much.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

Nice build project! I love the idea of turning in into a direct steer drive it like you stole it rally machine.

My buddy mows with a JD Sabre and I came across one for $10 whiich I promptly parked in the weeds at the farm lol. Main reason for that was I thought the front section of the pan frame wasn’t up to par for me. Is the terrain flat at your dad’s? Maybe you could bolt on some crossmembers if the frane twists too much.

The terrain is mostly flat. I plan on riding it on the road alot and in woods behind the house. There is some awesome dirt roads about a mile away so I plan to ride there alot. I'm considering making a brace I can bolt on but the other problem with the frame is that it only allows a 4in pulley in the front. So maybe this summer I will bring my welder to my dads and redo the hole front section of the frame.

have you or anyone else done a direct steer on a mower ? iv'e wondered how well it would work.

diddie wrote:

have you or anyone else done a direct steer on a mower ? iv'e wondered how well it would work.

I've never attempted it but many people have. Pretty much all racing mowers are direct steer so you can find videos on that. Redzz02 did it on his rally mower. He used the better but more complicated method but there is a very easy single drag link method. I'm not a steering expert so I will step aside and let the experts inform you alittle better.

I have seen some with handle bars but wasn't sure if they had some sort of gear box or just set up like a four wheeler i was afraid there would be to much weight on the front and would be hard to steer. let me know how it turns out.

The weight isn’t the issue, it’s the bump steer. It takes a lot of force to rip the steering wheel out of your hands through a gearbox, it’s much easier to lose your grip with direct steering

The other thing is that if you want to have bars you have to have very little play. That isn't easily achieved on a home made system but I'm gonna try my best.

mowerjunkie03 wrote:

The other thing is that if you want to have bars you have to have very little play. That isn't easily achieved on a home made system but I'm gonna try my best.

I am a firm believer in trial and error ! the best way to learn is to try and fail. then improve what failed.

@diddie So true.

Jeremiah R. Cooper wrote:

diddie So true.

Are the guy fron Instagram with the Montgomery Ward with 27in Vamps??

@mowerjunkie03 yeah

Jeremiah R. Cooper wrote:

mowerjunkie03 yeah

I'm atlt_nation on Instagram by the way.

@mowerjunkie03 Well nice to meet you on the form. Awesome Instagram profile. I really do appreciate you sharing the photos.

Jeremiah R. Cooper wrote:

mowerjunkie03 Well nice to meet you on the form. Awesome Instagram profile. I really do appreciate you sharing the photos.

Thanks! I set out to create a page so all the builds on Instagram could be seen and discussed. I also know there is alot of amateur mower modders and Instagram that aren't on the forums and I wanted to be able to give them advice on how to improve their builds.

@mowerjunkie03 well spoken.

Well I'm at my dad's for the next couple days so I'm gonna try to get some work done on this mower. I need to finish cleaning the trans out tonight so I can take it to school tomorrow. If I can hustle I will have it locked by tomorrow and can bring it back home and toss it back in the Sabre.

Last night I finished cleaning this thing out. I took it to school today to start the locking process. I left the gears at home and just took the axles, spider gears, bull gear, and case. I have never tried this locker technique before. Hopefully it works out..




I thought it was interesting that someone had written a W in the case in marker. I wonder if that is from the factory or if someone has been in here before.

I thought it was interesting that it had torx bolts. I had never seen that before.

Rant: everybody rips on Spicers and says there trash and have steel bushings and only 2 shifting keys. This is the second one I have opened up and both this one and the one on the rally mower have bronze bushings and 4 shifting keys. The only obvious difference in quality is the case strength. The only reason I run Spicers is because there the only thing in my area but if you take care of the them and use some kind of technique to add strength (preferably live axle swap) they can serve you just as well as a Peerless.

mowerjunkie03 wrote:

I thought it was interesting that someone had written a W in the case in marker. I wonder if that is from the factory or if someone has been in here before.

That was me, I forgot to write "was here".

I dont have any particular beef with spicer, I just know peerless is generally better. I’d run a spicer if it’s what I have, but I’ve still got spare MSTs that are factory oil filled.

I just got my first spicer fairly recently. The factory trans in the mk2. I really wanna run it in something and see how it holds up

Double W Cross Ranch wrote:

mowerjunkie03 wrote:

I thought it was interesting that someone had written a W in the case in marker. I wonder if that is from the factory or if someone has been in here before.

That was me, I forgot to write "was here". [smiley]https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/lol.gif[/smiley] [smiley]https://2img.net/i/fa/i/smiles/lol.gif[/smiley]

Haha!!

mowerjunkie03 wrote:

Waldo was there.

I have been neglecting this thread but not the project. Lets get caught up then! I ended up just locking up the trans Fearless style and tossing it back in about three weeks ago. I went on a couple of rides and the locker and trans has held up great but some issues are the frams has alot of twist in it and my belt system was set up poorly and so my belt was slipping alot and rubbing on everything and very noisy. So yesterday I managed to get my welder over to my dad's house so I got the work.



As you can see there is not much space in there the biggest front pulley I can fit is a 4 I still had to cut a section out of the frame and weld in some plate instead. (You see how the belt runs down the side about a 1/16 from the frame. Everything barley fits. Looks like I got lucky on thus one. Haha)


Heres were I altered the frame.



I had to add this idler to the system to prevent the belt from rubbing on the clutch and like I mentioned before not much space here. Because the belt doesn't rub anymore I was able to increase the belt tension (with the stock adjustable idler pulley that you may have noticed in the first pic. Good job JD! Only mower I have encountered with a stock adjustable idler. Because of the loop in the belt it has tons of adjustment. I am still running the original belt!)
So now even with a 2 1/2 in rear pulley it does wheelies slips a timy bit but not that bad at all.

Side note: I had this thing vertical because I was working on the belt system and I removed th tire and I got a lovely surprise. I had never seen the bottom side of my spindles before.



Never seen this happen before. We can thank are friends and JDs budgeting department for that!!