RED STAG 69 Raider 12 The Best Rusty Copy

I like the paint job, but I think it would make the tractor really cool if you painted the engine black to match the wheels

I am going to dump some pictures here from this weekends ride in NC.  The tractors new nickname is “Red Stag.” I flipped my experimental tree kickers on to the bottom of the floorboards and I really like them there.  I kind a lost my brakes and the lining has come off of the band so I’m taking it to a local place I know to get it relined.  Overall I love this tractor and I like the bear claw ex tires for crawling but they are pretty useless in deep mud.

Nice romping pics man thanks for sharing! I think one of those would make an excellent profile picture! Question about your tires, do you find they're useless in the mud because all they do is dig a hole(s)? That's what I've found is happening with my Dunlop KT415's in the snow but I never once got stuck with the Kenda Turf Boss' which are much less aggressive. Tractor is looking awesome and glad to see you having fun with it!

What fun! Sidehills scare me, I would need blinders. LOL

That’s a nice rig!

@Brianator yes all they do is dig holes in snow and mud if you spin them.

well after doing some more local testing and tweaks with the belt guards to get it to shift on the fly better I realized that I need to separate the brake so the clutch isn’t connected to that and having a separate brake pedal will really help with stopping and going well going uphill.  luckily I had a local wheel horse buddy sell me all the parts I needed for 30 bucks.  I had to move my gas pedal and do some fab work but I now have a separate brake pedal.

Similar thing to what I'm planning on doing with the craftsman rig I'm building, I find these tractors often don't have enough room for 2 pedals side by side

I have been tinkering in my happy place on some other little details.  I am waiting on new control cables but I’m going to install a throttle and choke on the dash.  The belt jumped off the engine pulley a couple times during the test drive after the brake pedal install, so I had to install a little extra keeper on the engine belt guide.  I modified my gas pedal geometry so I have one inch of travel instead of a quarter inch.

I got my choke and throttle cable in and hooked them up:

well I went on a test and tune ride with a friend and quickly realized that the push/pull throttle sucks.  so I switched it out with a dash from a C series just like old red had.  the added leverage  makes it so much easier to use.  I tried adding 10 pounds to the front bumper as well and I thought it helped just enough to help keep the front end down.

That stretch on the Charlie Horse looks nice! I'm pretty sure your new Raider 12 could out do Red. I still remember when you were building red and was going up the icy hill.

well because  I was happy with the 10 pounds I decided to come up with a better solution and put 12 pounds of steel plates right behind the grill over the axle. I also added a C series parking brake so this tractor is basically C series now.

getting third place in the last chance qualifier for top tractor challenge 2022 was pretty rough on red stag.  I was just going through the tractor and discovered a cracked motor mount which I never welded from underneath.  while I was repairing that I discovered cracked welds for the front axle pivot that had to be repaired as well.  so I basically had to rip the entire tractor apart to do the welding repairs and also painted the frame because it was in pretty rough shape paint wise after that.



I am also doing the bearing upgrade for the steering wheel shaft support and putting on a new steering wheel that is easier to grip.  you’ll also notice brand new OEM spindles in the picture.  the steering arms on the new ones are an 1/8” thicker and I am also going to modify them to accept trailer hubs which have nicer bearings and seals

But it held up and held together which is proof of the build quality!

It's a great thing you cought that now and not on the trail, looking buddy keep it up

Just stopping by to say I love this tractor so much, it’s so well built and everything is very cleanly done.

The LCQ also bent up my steering arms pretty bad throwing off my alignment so I took CreepyCrawler's idea and combined a new wheelhorse spindle with a trailer spindle to create a bulletproof spindle with heavy duty tapered roller bearings.  I also had to lengthen my tie rods which I talk about in the video.

Great upgrade!  Something I may need to look forward to in the future.

Not sure I caught where you sourced your NOS wheelhorse spindle?  Ebay?

Awesome job Carl! I’m planning on doing the same to my rig, so it’s really nice to see what other folks are up to! Tractor looks awesome!

@MightyRaze hard to say because I purchased these a long time ago as spares for old red. I paid like 75 bucks each I think I bought one from eBay and the other one from like partstree.com or something like that.

Excellent, thanks Carl! @Crazy_Carl

#spindleupgrade

Well the right side hub seemed loose.  The inner bearing in the hub was the wrong one and measured 1.040!!! luckily Napa had the right 1.000 ID tapered roller bearing in stock and I was careful and re-used my inner seal.  I also painted up some parts!

Looking so nice

That's a beautiful touch to those awesome spindles and tie rods.

My front bump stops also got destroyed during the LCQ so I've ground the casting flat like CreepyCrawler's Rusty so the axle isn't digging into the rubbing and the rubber has a nice smooth spot to sit on.  I'm also going to try giving them more preload with heavy duty zip ties and see what happens.  I might weld on more support in the future or try a stiffer exhaust hanger from NAPA