[Finalist][2020 Build-Off Entry] darkside's hot rod pick up

this is my old murray/noma hybrid, i mounted the noma pan chassis on a murray wide body c channel frame, then things grew from there, the plan now is to fully disassemble what's already there including the current mounted frame extension and weld in a new frame extension that goes the full length of the bed, relocate the transaxle to fit the wheel arches already cut into the bed, i will be using anything i can that came off the murray chassis as extra bracing plus i will be adding more, the engine will be a 12hp briggs flathead powering a mst206 transaxle, 20x10-8 tires on the rear, fronts undecided as of yet
things i hope to do
twin stacks in bed
inner fender wells
paint job
tail lights
opening tailgate
repair visible holes where i cut to much out to clearance for added items like the shifter

Approved MightyRaze Feb 24, 2020
Finalist MightyRaze Dec 21, 2020

Welcome to the 2020 build-off!

cool i hoping that was good enough to get the entry done, i have the wheels/tires, transaxle, and engine they're just on another tractor atm and need to be taken off,

the original chassis extension, off a murray gt, it worked well but didn't go all the way to the back of the bed,

i originally cut this piece of 1/2in flooring grade plywood to fit under the bed for additional strength,

after a quick mockup of a similar transaxle to what i'm using i have determined i won't be able to use the wood , but this will allow me to weld the bed to the frame extension,
mock up of the bed with the murray lt frame that's going under it

i got the chassis all stripped down and mocked up the frame with extension,

holy crap what a beast,

i decided to simple mount the two at full length with an overlap of 4 or so inches then when i get ready to mount the bed i'll cut the excess off and remount the rear panel trailer hitch, i did this for 2 reasons, one i may be moving the both the noma body and the bed back, i'll move the body back because it will make it easier to run the clutch and brakes i'll just have to change the steering a little, and i may move the bed back to make room for the stacks out side the bed, because i may be making it into a dump bed with two spring loaded car hood hinges i found on our scrap pile today, my other alternative is to make a rear dumping exhaust, i haven't fully decided on the dump bed thing though

as i said before i even entered the build off, i would have plenty of free time time to work on this when i got the things done around the house, so here's yet another installment on the build, i know for some of the guys on here these are ugly as sin, but for me who's welded maybe a dozen times in his life these, or some of them at least, are a thing of beauty, needless to say the frame has been welded, and by the end of doing the left rail i was laying down some pretty decent beads for a novice with a $100 HF flux core welder
right side


left side


i actually laid down the best beads i'd ever done to date and with some cleaning,grinding, and paint they should look pretty good

I need one of these for utility work around my place.

@Hillbilly Offroading that's what it was planned to be when i came up with it a couple years ago, then i decided to go with a rat rod type build with the bed dropped over the tires since i had 2 pull behind trailers, and i wanted the 820 in it for my mud mower

a couple of minor changes to the plans, i'm not moving the body back on the frame like i planned, i can't use the original murray clutch pedal because it will interfere with the steering, and at the moment i've decided to not go with the dump bed but may in the future, i'm changing out the gear shift setup,, instead of the murray gt shifter that was on it i'm going to mod the murray clutch shaft move it back and make that the shifter, and finally i'm going to be putting in my peerless 801 rather than the 206 because it's got working brakes, the 206 has both the bolts for the brake caliper broke off inside the housing and every attempt i've made to remove them has failed, i know there's several things i can do to bypass this issue but i'm on a tight budget and those things will cost money i can use for other things on the project

Heat them bolts up and they'll come right out if you can get something on them.

@Murraymountain they're broke off flush, i tried to weld a nut on them, but it just broke off before the bolt came out, so ether my weld was weak or they are just really stuck and will have to be drilled out, to be honest the 801 will most likely be pulled and swapped out after the build off, i'm only using it because the rules say it has to have working brakes and that's my only transaxle that has them

Welds will get better as you weld more. Could be a setting on the welder too.

i probably have my wire speed up a little to high, or didn't clean the metal good enough,i also noticed i have a tendency to move a little erratically instead of a consistent pace, but with some practice i'll get better, the important thing is they are good and strong, the ugly can be removed, bracing can only do so much especially on a build like this with the extended chassis and nothing really supporting it

ok can anyone tell me how the heck you get the gear or steering wheel of the shaft this noma/dynamark

i haven't had the time to get what i need to finish the frame work yet, but here's a couple things i've decided on for this build, i plan to try to use the murray steering, but not with the body moved back, instead i'm going to cut the murray steering shaft and use a chain and set of sprockets to transfer the steering from the stock noma steering shaft to the murray shaft, asw long as i keep that chain tight i should have very little if any play caused by it, i can also use it to give it a quicker steering ratio, and i've been racking my brain trying to figure out how i can do inner fenders in the bed with what i've got and capable of doing, and still make it look decent, then it hit me, back in the early days of hot rods they cut sections of steel 55 gal drums to make wheel tubs, 55 gal drums are cheap and i can use the same method to create the wheel tubs for the hot rod, what ever scrap is left from the barrel i can use to patch the body where i cut access holes for things like the shifter

i got a little more done to the project today, i temporarily mounted the noma pan to the extended murray chassis so i could mark and cut to fit the bed, i also ground down the welds and threw a quick coat of black paint on them to prevent rust, i'm sure you all have seen it before so i didn't bother with pics, but the welds cleaned up pretty good, but here's pics of the rest of it

the cut off ends, the fit up nicely to the lip under the bed i will be welding the hitch plate back on later

the beds not straight i bumped it and didn't realise until after uploaded the pic, but it was when i marked and cut the frame

boredom sucks, or maybe not because it motivates me to get out and work on the project, i didn't plan to do any more on it for a few days but it got the better of me and i now have the bed centered and temporarily mounted, the hitch plate is welded on, still needs cleaned up and painted, and i put the 801 back together after cleaning the old grease out and replacing it with fresh grease, however i am seriously considering going back to my original plan of putting in the murray hydro and fixing it's brakes, simply for ease of install, with the hydro i won't need to do anything but mount the pedal and make a brake lever, i'm not expecting to win this or even place in the top 3, it's more of an excuse to get my butt out there and finish the project

well i got the trans mounts welded to the frame then ran out of welding wire, a 2LB roll just doesn't go very far, but i have heard this will accept a 10LB roll, i still need to clean them up, i can't get to the bracing until i get more wire but i can do the rest of the mock up, and i may need to cut the bed floor some more to fit the tires, but i'm not sure just yet if i will or not

issue after issue, time to rethink some things, the 801 has a bent axle, i didn't notice it till today when i mounted it up, then my plans for the clutch won't work, and the murray steering will get in the way of belts, so i have to rethink using that, the easiest option will be to lift the hydro a half inch or so and run it after all, as the mounts are welded on now, the hydro sits to low and the pulley hits the bed and the brake lever hits the frame, but atm it's my best option, i just need to determine exactly how much to lift it and get the needed materials to do it, it won't need to be much, so a couple spacers cut from bed rail might be enough, if i need to i can stack them for the pulley clearance and then cut the frame a little for the brake

Lol, I understand. I'm very used to dealing with crap like that. It sucks.

@Murraymountain your red murray project started out as a hydro too didn't it, if i'd been smart i would have welded the mounts while on the hydro instead of just marking them, or i would have drilled holes and bolted them on, that way they could be easily moved if needed, but hind sight is 20 20 they say and mine says i was getting a bit to hasty in my efforts to at least get it as a roller, and i wonder if the hydro mounts are taller than the gear drive mounts, because the mounts i used came off my murray mudder, i used them since they were already off the frame and sitting close at hand, but neither of them go past the top of the frame in the stock location and i mounted them flush with the top of the frame when i welded them on, the real issue with the hydro is the brake itself, broken bolts inside the case again, i guess i can leave it off and do something like @MightyRaze did on little red with the go cart style band brake, the hydro will be fine for this build and if i decide i want more speed later on i'll do something then

this things gonna be a pain to turn ill tell ya that !!!

Yeah mine was a hydro. The hydro mounts and MST mounts are exactly the same. As for brakes, yeah I'd do something besides stock. After my creek experience I decided not to ever use stock brakes again. Red's gonna get something like that too... Looks like a simple setup and something I could do myself.

What type hydro are you running? Peerless? That's what the Murrays came with. I like them... They'll take some abuse. Much much more than a Craftsman with a Hydro Gear. Getting it in with that fan on there is kind of a pain though.

@Murraymountain yeah it's a stock murray peerless, i plan to use the murray clutch shaft as a brake lever, it was going to be the shifter, and i have a shifter plate off an old murray gt that held the shifter in gear, so i'm going to mod it to hold the brake lever as a parking brake, i hope to just use a spring to pull the brake band like the stock brake was setup, i found a kit on ebay, comes with the drum, band and 3/4in bore keyed hub for a little over $35,
@loggers gogert yeah it's long, nearly twice the length of a standard tractor, but it's not for off road, i did have it driving before when i had the old frame extension on it, same wheelbase as now, or close to it, and it wasn't to bad

i used some 3/8in tall nuts as temporary spacers and mounted the hydro, to be honest they will probably end up permanent, so maybe calling this a hot rod will be far fetched, since it will be slow, but many hot rods are about more show than go these days, i am having an issue with the input transfer bar bracket, for those who don't know on a murray the hydro control input is on the left side, the pedal is on the right, so there is a u shaped bar that transfers the pedal motion from one side to the other, the issue is the bracket this bar rides in is mounted above the frame, a non issue on the murray but on the hot rod the bed sits directly on the frame and this bracket is unable to be mounted, so i was thinking of 1 of 2 things to mount it, either cut a slit in the bed and sandwich the bed floor between the bracket and the frame, or mount it to the underside of the top of the frame rail and use 3/8 spacers to lower it enough to clear the bed floor, but this presents the issue of it interfering with the bypass valve lever, which i would have to modify or eliminate to clear, not that this will be a big deal since i won't be using it very often once it's running,

Oh yes. Do you have the stock double pulley clutch? That bar would normally go underneath the backside of the clutch where the raised part is and then a piece of curved steel bolts to the other side keeping it in place.... That's why I didn't do the hydro swap on The Green Machine. Needed too many parts to make the hydro work.