"The WarHorse"

I have a couple updates for this old girl.

I installed grab handles and a rear grab bar (which is for pulling only), they're working very well so far!


I got it out for a shakedown run and overall it did okay, when it was working well it was working really well and plowing through the mud and crawling pretty well BUT I have some serious tweaking and tuning to do with the VariDrive controls and other stuff on the tractor.

First of all when the tractor is flexing the VariDrive will pop out of "gear" and go strait to 7th which can launch me while crawling over obstacles if I don't have my foot on the pedal to control speed. This is happening because of how much I modified the shifter plate so to fix that I will install/modify the one for the Silver Bullet but take off the bare minimum I can for clearance and reinforce the tractor frame to minimize flex.

Another issue with the VariDrive is when it's in 7th "gear" the sides of the belt aren't in contact with the pulley and riding on a 1/2" shoulder which was causing it to slip really badly and I'd have to push in the clutch to regain friction so there's some tweaking to do there as well.

I snapped the MSTs shifter handle off the control rod early in the day but Vise Grips to the rescue! I'll reweld it and make sure I get better penetration this time. I also need to find a way to declutch the rear ider pulley to make shifter gears easier.

I lost a exhaust bolt then found it, snugged both down then lost the other one a few mins later, found it, lost it again but this time for good! Lol. I'm missing the locking plate and that's why they keep coming out, if I have a spare bolt I'll probably make a locking plate but I'll be building an exhaust for it at some point so whether I fix this or just build another I'm not sure yet.

The muffler is also soo close to the carburetor that any time I shut it down it would vapor lock and I'd have to wait awhile for it to cool down until I could restart it so maybe I'll tackle the exhaust sooner rather than later!

Now the good!
- The engine ran strong
- The front brakes seem to be working pretty well
- The winch is working great
- Everything else is working as it should and I didn't have any other issues

So, a little disappointing I had to spend a bunch of time messing with it BUT with all the modifications I've made I was half expecting this on the shakedown run and I didn't have any serious failures or break anything important so I guess it was a success?! Lol

It's a cooler and slightly rainy day today which is good for working so I'm going to get at er!

Later!

Personally, I would want some stuff to break or mess up in the shakedown. Otherwise, I have that voice in the back of my head "what will break or mess up later?" LOL

Yup, you’ll probably deal with issues for a few months before you get all the bugs sorted out. That’s just the way it goes… ask me how I know . But once they’re all sorted out I’m sure it’ll be a beast… it was built right.

As far as the vapor lock is concerned, there is supposed to be a heat shield that mounts to the muffler bolts. All the briggs engines that I’ve had with the carb above the muffler had heat shields so that the heat wouldn’t evaporate the fuel. Like you say you’re gonna work on a new setup, so I wouldn’t worry about it but if you’re gonna keep it for a bit you may wanna look into that.

I think i was just spoiled by The Trailblazer because I basically threw it together and it works just fine! Lol. Only issue with it is the slop in the front axle and I have a plan to solve it.

Neither of my old flatheads had a heatshield but there's nothing saying they didn't disappear before I got them, it's all good though, once I build an exhaust that problem will be solved and yes I plan on keeping this beast so I'll sort out all the issues as they arise!

Look how close the muffler is to the carb and that's a stock muffler for this motor!


I will not go down without a fight! Lol

Well it took a long time but I built a new exhaust! It better work and sound good for all the time and effort I put into it! Lol


I wanted to run it out the back if possible so I held a muffler up and had a looksee... I like it!


I started by making a flange out of a scrap of 1/4" steel using a gasket as a template and used a hand file to plane one side...


...then I welded a exhaust bung in it that's for a GY6 engine, tacked on the outside and fully welded on the inside.


The threads in the head aren't really the greatest so I made studs out of a long carriage bolt so I could get them in as far as possible. I smothered them in red LocTite to hopefully hold them secure.


Then it was time to start bending pipe and boy will I tell you that front pipe was a real pain in the butt to clear the carburetor, steering rod and tire! I had a 8 foot piece of clean 1" OD pipe to use that has a 1/16" wall thickness making it strong but not heavy. You can't really tell in the photo but there are a couple of micro bends in there!


Here's the full mockup just before I tack welded and removed it as a single piece, the lowest point is where it goes under the clutch pedal and it goes up on a little bit of an angle from there. The rear pipe also has a couple micro bends that you can't see in the photo.


Once it was off I fully welded the seams...


...then primed and painted it with Rustoleum high heat paint! It's hung up to dry and all that's left to do before installation is to header wrap a section up front near the carburetor so I'll get to hear it soon (hopefully tomorrow)!

That's all for today!

I have that muffler and it is quite crap, other then that, looks like a pretty nice pipe

I agree @TechnoChicken I've used these mufflers before and they don't seem to muffle very well but I've only used them right off a motor and on very short pieces of pipe so I'm hoping the length, size and bends of the pipe I made will make a difference! I have a small dirtbike/quad muffler I may try next if I'm not happy with the results.

Stay tuned!

***I wrote the above earlier and forgot to hit send!***


Okay so I fired it up and it doesn't sound too bad! It's not crazy loud so that's good, it sounds kind of like a small offshore ATV! For the first time since I've had it the motor was surging at idle and even at WOT so I'm going to *assume* there's an increase in exhaust flow but it could've gone the other way as well, either way I'll need to retune the carburetor and hope the surging stops. I could feel the exhaust pulses from about 10 feet away from the muffler so there seems to be good, fast flow.

I didn't get to test drive it because the rear belt came off right away which is something that had just started happening near the end of the ride on Saturday so tonight I worked on a little pulley alignment between the VariDrive pulley, idler and trans pulley so I'm hoping that issue is solved.

Another issue I worked on is how the front belt isn't making proper contact with the VariDrive pulley when it's in 7th "gear", I was able to adjust the VariDrive shift control rods length (made it longer) easily because it's threaded which in turn limits how far back the pulley itself can go and I'm hoping that's solved.

I also removed the spacer washer from the underside of the VariDrive shifter plate so I'm hoping that stops it from jumping out of "gear" and going strait to 7th when the tractor flexs a little because that means I don't have to mess with the other one, it's quite a pain to remove and reinstall it.


Hopefully I can do some testing and tuning tomorrow!

Sounds like the word of the day is "surge".

MightyRaze wrote:

Sounds like the word of the day is "surge".

Yes, I've heard that... lol.

Some results from my tinkering:

- surging has been solved with a minor carb adjustment, I had to enrich the mixture telling me more air is flowing now.
- fuel looks to still be vaporizing in carb despite exhaust being further away and header wrapped close to the carb. Perhaps a spacer/isolator is needed?
- new exhaust sounds pretty good, similar to an ATV.
- the rear belt didn't attempt to come off once.
- the VariDrive shifter didn't jump out of "gear" while flexing on obstacles.
- the front belt is still riding too far down into the VariDrive pulley, more work/adjustment required.

So I'm getting there with it but an actual trail ride will be required to really test it all out.

I'm back with more updates!

I forgot to add this to my last post so I'll do it now! I made a snorkel intake out of some plumbing parts and a little dual stage air filter, simple yet effective!


The engine in these LT11s are mounted differently than any other tractor I've ever seen, there's a motor plate that has polyurethane(?) bushings as isolators I assume to dampen vibration but it let's the motor shake and move alot which isn't going to be very good for my new exhaust so I've made new motor mount bushings out of a fiber/resin composite material I picked up a few months ago for just this purpose. Here's what went down:

First I made one (bottom left) to figure out the method to get a raised areas like the originals (bottom right) that fits in the holes of the motor plate, then I scored the outer diameter of the other 3 with a hole saw.


Then I used a smaller hole saw to cut the raised areas at a depth just a hair over 1/16", this acts as a depth gauge to remove material around the outside...


...with my beater rotary tool clamped in a vise while the bushing spins in my "poor man's lathe" (drill press). With the drill press as slow as possible and rotary tool on medium speed it only took a couple minutes per bushing to turn them down.


With all bushings done and hardware acquired...


...all that was left to do was drill the mounting holes in the tractor to 1/2" to match the hardware and install them!


So of course I took it for a little spin to see and the vibrations going to the exhaust are almost non existent now and I didn't notice much of a difference in the way of extra vibration running through the tractor so I'm calling it a win!


I wanted to have a little fun so I started building a small technical course in the treed area at the end of my property, the first attempt didn't go so well and I stuffed it into the tree instead of going around it! Lol


Luckily this thing is light enough I was able to pull it back over the logs without too much trouble. What happened is as I was trying to turn left to go around/under the tree the logs I put on the other side of the big log decided they wanted to go for a ride too... =s


Then I decided to add a couple of additions!


The "nuts" that hold them are for cargo nets in car trunks and give me tie down points, pretty cool eh!? Whats even cooler is there's more than meets the eye with this axe and shovel... the shovel is hiding saw and knife blades in the handle and the axe has a double cut saw and a hammer built in so there's 5 (different) tools in 2 right there! 9 if you count the bottle openers (x2), a can opener, the hole at the top of the hammer head which I'm pretty sure is a multi-tool for trying wire/anchoring/pulling ect. and the fact you could scale fish with the shovels saw blade of needed.


So slowly but surely I'm picking away at it and finding more things to fix, upgrade and add! Feels good to be able to use it, I'm hoping to get out for another actual ride soon so I can find more things that need tweakin'! Lol.

That's all for tonight, later!

Thats some nice Upgrades! Really liking the usefulness but yet fun this tractor exhibits.  Excellent!  Can't wait to see what you have in store for it yet!

Thank you @MightyRaze and you didn't have to wait long because I've got another couple little things done!

First of all I needed to move the tool box forward so I elongated the mounting holes and while I was in there I had an idea to relocate my bicycle air pump from inside the toolbox because it doesn't fit well (on a angle), I was able to use existing bolts to attach the mounts and that's that!


It doesn't look like much space but trust me when I say it's not difficult to remove and reinstall it.


As for the toolbox itself it's pretty crammed with goodies! I have various screwdrivers, wrenches, Vise Grips, needle nose pliers, side cutters, a ratchet with an extension and sockets, a small pack of grease, electrical tape, fuses, cheater leads, tube repair kit, a few bits of various hardware, a knife, a flashlight, spare spark plug, allen keys AND there's still room for 2 bottles of water, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and my keys so I think it's doing pretty well! Things to add are my short tire spoons (if they fit) and a tire plug kit that I have around here somewhere...


Last but not least is something I thought about a couple days ago... a water bottle holder so I can carry a little bit of oil in a Powerade/Gatorade bottle just in case, better safe than sorry right!


It's darn hot out so I retread to indoors until it cools back down a bit, maybe I'll get a bit more done later?

Hot down here too. Was out spreading gravel by hand yesterday. Feels like temperature was 98. She’s looking good there!

Nice as always!  Been 105+ here for a month or so.  There was a few 90 something days a couple days.  I hear ya on the heat!  I went riding today and had to stop about 1 hr in.  Too hot.

Well I got a few small things accomplished before it got nasty out, it's not as warm as yesterday but it's really humid because it rained last night.


I found a spot for spare belts in the side panel, a couple of zipties seem to hold them in place just fine.


A small first aid kit just in case (blue thing), that's actually been there for a couple weeks and gone through some test rides without moving.


Then I decided to keep working on the utilitarian aspect of things by filling the space on the hood behind the hatchet with 20' of paracord. I heated and bent the tabs strait(ish) on a couple of those cargo net "nuts" then installed them. I also painted the mounting bracket for the hatchet.


I added another tie down on the other side of the hood to balance things out and also painted the shovel.

Little by little all the flashy bits will disappear to keep it low key, I have an idea for a paint job I've not seen done the way I've envisioned it but it probably won't happen until next year, I still have other tractors to work on as well!


I ended up mounting a 6'x8' tarp (brown/green) under the hood using cargo tie downs from a car or van and another 20' of paracord.


Why a tarp you ask? Why not!? The weather can be unpredictable around here, a storm can blow in on a beautiful sunny day so it could used as shelter. It could also be used as a sun shade or help hide a tractor in the forest if one needs to be left behind for some reason.

Well, thats probably it for today, it's too sticky outside to enjoy tinkering! Lol

Alrighty so I was able to get this rig out for another romp today with my friend Jace on his Suburban 12 and did we have a blast! We found a couple cool riding areas and an old single track dirtbike trail that doesn't look like it's been run in awhile so we followed that for about an hour and half until we came upon a section that's had recent logging done and boy I'll tell you it was interesting to get through! I'm calling it the "Tractor Trap" because it's literally just logs and brush piled up, it's much worse than it looks in the video and I'm planning on shooting a proper video of the area with my GoPro in the near future.

Here's a short video of my buddy Jace (aka @atractorkid7 on YouTube) going into the first bit, the engine you hear is mine with the new exhaust, it's stuttering because it's not warmed back up after us scouting out the area to find a way through...


...and the only way out is by winch unless you have a light machine like me and can push/lift it over the last log. He seems pretty happy with his newly installed and wired winch eh!? He tried to throttle it over several times and it just wasn't happening.
 


So it's time for the good and the bad!

The good:
- Overall my tractor is doing decently, it's fun to ride and is surprisingly capable.
- The front brakes are working really well and make going downhill more controlled.
- The MST (3 speed) is holding up well.
- The winch is proving to be very useful, we used it with a snatch block to pull a downed tree off a trail.
- The exhaust is doing good and it's STRONG! I've literally had the tractor hung up on logs, resting on the exhaust and it hasn't bent or kinked it at all, it did leave burnt marks on the logs though! Lol

The Bad:
- I've lost alot of top end speed, presumably because the front belt has stretched and has too much slack.
- The MST is still a pain to go from forward-neutral-reverse and vise versa but I'm working on it
- It doesn't crawl over some obstacles as well as I'd like, larger rear tires are needed.


I can't even be disappointed with the "bads" because it's doing better than I thought it would. Overall I'm happy with it and having alot of fun, that's what it's all about right!?
Until next time!

I got out for another ride with my buddy Jace (@atractorkid7) today and we rode the second leg of the trail I scouted/started clearing as I had described in the off topic thread https://www.atltf.com/t6826p471-off-topic-anything-2022#123138. We finished clearing the heavy stuff so now it's a strait ride through from point 0 to 4 with a couple of bypasses to go around some real nasty, impassable sections.

We even stopped between 2 and 3 to cook up some hot dogs for lunch and keep our energy level up! Lol.


A couple weeks ago he told me that he liked that I name my machines and loosely started calling his "The Suburbanator" so now I'm posting it here and on YouTube to officialize it! Here he is testing out the replacement transmission (633a) that he locked Moose Knuckle style and did a rear pulley swap at the same time so now he has a 8" front and 6" rear. He was doing 22mph with the 7" rear pulley and is closer to 26mph now with the 6".



Now onto my machine!

I made another addition so I have quick and easy access to a saw, it doesn't stick out any further than the MSTs shifter on the other side and didn't get in my way at all today. It also never came out of the sheath as it locks in pretty well, it was designed that way for arborists.


A couple shots of it all kitted out.


Time for some more good and bad!

The good:
- I'm still loving those front brakes! They really came in handy today.
- I was able to get over obstacles way better. I'm learning to get my front wheels up, stop, then throttle it and dump the clutch to launch myself on top of the logs, I still want bigger tires though.
- Hillclilmbing ability is seriously impressive.
- Vapor lock of the carburetor has only happened once in 8 hours of riding (over 2 sessions) and I got it restarted after only a few minutes so I'm not calling it an issue anymore.
- Shifting the MST is a little easier because of a adjustment I'll describe next in...

The Bad:
- I adjusted the length of the VariDrive control rod which added some tension to the front belt BUT I'm still suffering from belt slippage in 7th "gear" and also can't hit the same top speed I was! It has helped with shifting the MST though, although not perfect but it is easier. I need to figure out where/which belt is slipping, I'm expecting it's the tiny engine pulley and believe I can go up in pulley size a little without throwing the VariDrive out of whack.
- The front spindle bushings (plastic) are just about smoked now so I'll need to replace them with a steel sleeve/tube sooner rather than later.

Other than that it's all good! This beast is doing awesome and exceeding my expectations by a longshot! I never thought it would be as capable as it is or handle the crap I'm taking it through! Lol.

That's it for today!

I did some more scouting on my Z50 today, I did find some of the trail past 4 BUT it's a impassable mess. I even went around to the end and tracked it backwards, between 4 and the end is a complete write off which is too bad...


The good news is I backtracked from 0 and got that section (to the arrow) ready to ride, I would call that section an intermediate ride with some obstacles and bypasses so I think we're going to use that section and the black circle beside 1 as training/testing areas, if man or machine can't cut the mustard there then there's no hope of making it further down the trail!

I have to say, it was a beautiful day for a rip!

Man, I'd love to have a trail near the house.  The closest one, "when I use to ride it on a 4-wheeler" was specific to atvs and motorcycles.  I've found that if they allow sxs's then they seem to not care.  Checked out the area on google maps.  Seems like a fun wooded area!  Pretty large too!

There are trails all over the place around here, some are actually regulated by various dirtbike, atv and snowmobile clubs while others aren't. The trails we've been on are very quiet, the main riding area is all on the other side of the main road and yes its quite large! Lol. All the trails we've been on (marked in red) are technically closed and unmaintained so when people see all the trees and crap on the trail they just turn around (I've seen the marks), I rarely see/hear other people and when I do they're just on the main double wide trails (marked in green) but they're mostly flat and boring anyways unless you're looking to do speed runs! So basically the trails we're on which are single track dirtbike trials are kind of ours now. Lol. Anyone who rides them will come up to nasty areas, think the trail ends because of logging and take a logging road back out to the main trail(s) which is fine by me, just means they're nice and quiet for us and I've yet to see anyone else on it or even tire tracks that weren't ours. Now that's its rideable for a long distance I'd like to shoot some video of it, there's some very interesting areas and a couple of sketchy hills! Lol

As I mentioned in a recent previous post my plastic spindle bushings are completely shot and I figure I'd better do the upgrade sooner rather than later before they break apart so I decided to tackle it today after work! The whole process took me about 3.5 hours.

I've been planning this since I had the axle out and reinforced it several months ago but haven't had any luck finding the right material until earlier this year. I think it was water pipe and is almost a perfect 5/8" ID to match the spindles, pretty thick walled and most importantly seamless on the inside! What I did was cut 2 pieces at 90mm which is 1mm shorter than my outside measurements of the bushings in the axle, line bored them with a 5/8" drill bit, cleaned the heck out of the inside with a small sanding drum on a Dremel and polished the spindles until they fit in well and turned smooth. I also added and tapped holes for grease fittings.


I got lucky and didn't have to drill the hex bushing hole out, the tubes slid in and there with minimal play so I held them back against the rear of the hole cradled in the hex "point" and tack welded them in place...


...then fully welded them around the top and bottom, installed the grease fittings and added grease...


...touched up the paint...


...then got everything hooked back up, the wheels on and set 'er down!


I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture but the camber has been corrected to have a touch of positive camber (top of wheels tipped out) as most lawn and garden tractors have from the factory which should actually improve the steering a little! Not that I was unhappy with it or anything.

I'm really glad I've finally tackled this, I didn't drive it around tonight but there's basically no play in the spindles now and the steering feels very nice and smooth! Test drive tomorrow after work perhaps?!

I didn't get around around to testing the new spindles tubes until today, I have to say it's feels really good! The steering is very smooth and I can feel there's less play in the front end so that's a big win!


I was able to swing by the salvage yard today quick and I scored a variator pulley in way better condition than mine for $10! It cleaned up really well check it out, the old one is one the right and as you can see it's in pitiful shape! (pun intended)


I can't say for sure if I've gained any speed back, it doesn't really feel like it but I didn't GPS speed test it and I thought I felt a little slippage while going up the road... guess I have some more figuring to do.

I installed a new rear belt idler that is a touch smaller and looks the same as the stock size, it seems to have solved the hard shifting issue on the MST when I'm on any kind of incline which is super but I'll put it to a better test soon enough.

Well, not much of an update but a update none the less!

Well, I made another addition yesterday before going for a ride and boy did it come in handy!

I bought a ATV rack off the local buy & sell for $40 and got it fitted! In this first pic all I had done was cut the front center bar out to set it down and have a look. As you can see it's quite a bit wider than the fender pan.



So what I did was section it by 3" so it only hangs over about 1/2" on each side to protect the fender pan without getting in the way. Here you can see the slugs I made, staggered 3" sections I removed, holes drilled to weld the slugs on the ends and it mocked together ready to weld. I left a gap in the center so I could fully weld that all the way around as well.


I cut and bent the front parts to act as handles, then I fill welded the gaps in. After the ride I got to thinking I may cut and bend the corners up a little bit too. They work, but they could work even better!


Once it was welded up and the front mounts bolted on the fender pan I made rear support brackets out of some flat stock, painted everything with bedliner and added a couple of small ammo boxes!  I was going to use .50 cal metal boxes but they were just too big, would've gotten in the way and the corners would have been jabbing me in the sides so I opted to use the smaller plastic ones. Once I build a small tray in the center I'll be able to carry a 1 gallon jerry can as well, it will fit perfect and not interfere with the seat!


This morning I figured out where to add some tie down points. I happen to have some cargo tie downs that are threaded to match the spots where the reflectors went and found that I can add 2 more on the fender pan where I had the grab handle mounted.


Now to have a look at storage capacity!

The front box is for tools, supplies and I can carry 2 bottles of water in it as well. I've used refective, insulated bubble wrap stuff on the bottom and side facing the engine to keep it cooler in there.

The left side box holds straps, a snatch block, pruning shears (useful for trimming small branches and thorn bushes) and has some space left over for? Perhaps a small hammer and more paracord would be a good addition!  

The right side box I turned into a cooler with the same reflective bubble wrap to carry another bottle of water (frozen to act as a ice pack), and some food & snacks!


That rack is SOLID! I can pick the rear end up with no noticeable flex and it worked really well to protect the fender pan yesterday while going through a really tight area of trees.


I have to say this rig continues to surprise me with how capable it is even with the small 18" rear tires, I can't wait to see how much more capable it is when I get 20" in matching tread but I'm not sure when I'll actually order them. The extra 1" of ground clearance doesn't sound like much but it will help as will the extra circumference for crawling over logs and stumps. Something I'm REALLY loving about this machine is the low seating position and overall low center of gravity, I've had it at some crazy angles and haven't come close to feeling like it was going to tip over so say what you will about the platform but I'm loving it! I know guys have stated they don't like them claiming they're weak and flex too much but I'm not having any issues and I haven't even reinforced it yet...yet being the key word! Lol.

I'd like to shoot a proper video soon of at least 3 of us out there (we have found a 3rd and have a 4th in the works hopefully) but until the new fella is more experienced, his tractor is better prepared and we can make a full day of it I'll wait. As some of you know it takes alot of time to shoot and edit videos (especially for me who's slow at it and picky) and I want to do it right, so I wait! Lol.

Well that's it for now, I'll probably get a little bit more work done on it today!

I did work on the jerry can bracket and it's installed and basically done, a couple of minor adjustments and I can call it finished!


I cut a piece of steel out of a scrap snowblower...


...bent it up, drilled some holes and got it did!


It can also hold a .50 cal ammo can if I'm not planning on going far but need extra gear.


So this beast is essentially ready for a full day's excursion which is something I would like to do at some point!

Good stuff man, she looks like she's really coming along

Thanks @TechnoChicken I think so too! Now I just need to get a little more speed out of it! Lol