Craftsman 25hp Rat Rod T bucket style

I picked up this 2000 vintage Craftsman for free yesterday. It had a broken belt so I got one at the hardware store for $30. My gf’s boys drove it around for a few hits. It’s quite a smoker but runs pretty smooth so I ordered some rings and head gaskets. Meanwhile, I moved the axle forward and made the steering wheel go straight up. I’m putting the seat on the floorboard. I made the exhaust into a mini stack. This is mainly for the boys so I hope they like it. I’d really like to ditch the belt drive but then how can I have a clutch?

well you could go the route redneckcomputergeek went with a power wheels build he did for his son, it was based off a murray chassis but still the same principles apply, turn the transaxle on end, run a shaft from the front to the transaxle input, mount a horizontal shaft engine and run a go cart centrifugal clutch with a chain going to a sprocket on the shaft, there's a little more to it than that but that's the basics of what he did, another method would be to convert to a chain drive straight axle and horizontal shaft engine with a go cart style torque converter, both use engine rpms to engage rather than a clutch