"The WarHorse"

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

Brianator wrote:

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

I was going to ask about that... I didn't think you'd swapped it yet but I'd been AWOL for a while so you never know

You should go back and read some then, I have a mild pulley swap on the rear with a 3 speed MST working along with the 7 speed VariDrive, front brakes and a bunch of stuff I've done over the past couple of months! Top speed WAS 13mph a month ago during the first ride but something has happened preventing it from hitting that speed unless going downhill. I think it's the engine pulley.

LOL, it's that polished vari-pully letting the belt slip. 

Slap on a 5-6 inch engine pulley!  See what happens then!  LOL

This tractor has come so far!  May have to come up with a tractor with the most storage award for it.  

That .50 cal box might come in handy if you need to find some food out on the trail. Get your venison pre tenderized.

Real nice work as always!

Lol. Thanks guys!

@MightyRaze I wish I could throw a big engine pulley on but I feel limited by the VariDrive belts, the engine pulley is a 3" but the belt sits so far into it I bet it's riding on 2.5", I've done some scoping out and think I can get enough slack in the front belt to run a 3" B belt pulley which will make it run on a true 3 inches and hopefully make the difference. I don't think the polished looking surface is the issue on the Variator, pulleys come smooth and polish during use but good eye! I was thinking about roughing it up with some 80 grit sandpaper anyhow.

@Rustbucket Garage, well the lugs on my tires are looking pretty good for tenderizing, guess I could just run over for an hour so though then strap it to the hood with my fancy tiedowns! Lol.

I'm loving how well this rig is coming together and working, it's so much fun to ride!

Forgive my ignorance but if it's such a pita why not just go with a comet clutch or something of the likes?

Don't rough up the vario, I've seen them slicker than sh*t and work without issues and it would only be a temporary fix as it smooths out afterwards anyway.

Not at all @fbisurveilancevan, let me educate you! Lol. If you go to page 6 you will see the start of the amount of work I've put into making the VariDrive work with the MST 3speed I've installed, but here's a summary:

The tractor started off as a 7 speed VariDrive to which I added a 3 speed MST which gives me a huge range of speeds from super slow crawl to 13mph. I actually really love the VariDrive as I can control the speed with nothing more than the clutch pedal, I can be bombing through a smooth section of trail then quickly slow down for obstacles or tight turns then let the clutch back out and get motoring again!

I wouldn't put a CVT on this (like a Comet 30 series/TAV2), I don't think the belt would last long and they aren't cheap unless you buy the garbage ones which wouldn't be easy to change on the trail like a standard belt plus I'd end up losing precious ground clearance. I may in fact use one on the Silver Bullet when I get around to building it, I'm planning on making it a stripped down racer.

I agree I don't think the polished surface is the culprit, I'm pretty sure it's the front engine pulley and have some experimenting to do.

Overall I love what I've created and wouldn't change it unless it became ridiculously unreliable, the slippage only seems to be happening in 7th "gear" of VariDrive in 2nd and third gear of the MST, read the build from page 6 and you get a better understanding.

I'm still going to rough up the pulleys, cross thatch style with 40-80 grit sandpaper (need to experiment first to decide) which I don't think will hurt and should take a awhile before it wears down smooth again.

I do appreciate the input, the PITA aspect is what makes it fun for me, if it were easy everyone would do it! I haven't seen anyone who has done it on this level, to be used the way I'm using it and overall I feel I've been very successful, just a couple more kinks to work out! Lol

Another quick update, by some stroke of luck I found 4 small gas cans on the side of the road with a free sign! 3 of them are 1 gallon and there's was a 1-1/4 gallon too. None of them had nozzles or vent caps but it's all good, I got 'er covered! If I didn't stop at the hardware store and take the back way home I wouldn't have come across them!

I ended up choosing the 1 gallon Blitz because it's in great shape, fits the best, doesn't completely block my seat sticker and I had the perfect vented nozzle to work with it!


I did have to trim the locking teeth off of an old cap so it would seal the nozzle...


...and I swear this little cap was designed to work with the nozzle because it's literally a perfect fit!


Here's the anti spill nozzle I had kicking around, it fits inside the tank perfect and is vented which is required because the tank isn't!


I replaced the mounting bracket hardware with 2 more tie-down to use specifically with it and added a piece of rubber to prevent chaffing...


...then spent some time figuring out how to tie it down in a way that will hold it steady and viola! Done deal!


So there it is, now I can carry a full gallon of fuel on top of whatever my tank holds (2 gallons? I've been meaning to figure that out...) which means I should be able to ride basically all day! Most I've burned so far on a ride is a half of a tank for about 3 hours of run time so I'm pretty sure I'm good to go for a full day now!

This Monday started off pretty rough and ended on a high note, I'm loving it!

Okay, one more update for the day...

So Saturday I had a couple issues restarting the engine after shutting it down and letting it cool off, there were no air bubbles coming from the carb up the fuel line so I know it wasn't vapor lock. When I jiggled the spark plug wire it fired right up! Next time it didn't and when I tested for spark there was nothing, I pushed/pulled the wire around and all of a sudden had spark again, put the cap back on the plug and it fired back up so I figured maybe the spark plug wire went bad or maybe the coil itself is shorting out when hot. As it's running with the hood open I notice a smacking/cracking sound that happened to coincide with the misfire I could hear coming from the exhaust, the same misfire it's had since the day of the video I shot where you could hear it but it hasn't been consistent so I figured it was just because the engine was cold. Turns out...


...VERMIN(!) chewed the wire sometime between when I installed the new engine and a couple rides ago! You can't see the teeth marks in the photo but trust me, they're there!


Once I had removed the front tool box, air filter, starter cover ect. then the fan shroud I saw it, decided I would just tape it up but also added a spare coil to the rear left supplies box to be safe. I'm happy to report I was able to get it all apart, make the repair, reset the coil air gap and put it all back together with only tools and supplies I had in the box!

Stupid vermin...

Over 5000 views!

Having a little fun in the snow, had a touch of trouble at the end there though! Lol.

So... any plans on making a build with a "locked" transaxle?  :-)

Lol very funny! But no not yet, I don't find I get stuck or struggle enough to need it. If it was summer or even fall she would've climbed that, the ground was frozen and slick so even a locker might not have helped. I'm nervous to lock it as I know it puts alot more stress on the axles themselves and I'm not generally taking it easy on it out on the trails so ya... no.  Lol

I actually started working on what I'm calling a "limited locker" last winter but that was for the Peerless 910 FNR and doubt it would be compatible with the MST in it now.

This is NOT an update... more like a vent! Lol

After a couple months of hmming and hawing I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a set of SunF A003s for the rear of this rig to match the front tires from eBay, the largest ones they made (20x10x8) to level it out and make it a little more capable. Well that didn't go to plan... they shipped from California all the way to the international shipping center in Chicago only to be tagged as "unable to export"! I've ordered SunFs through the same seller twice in the past with no issues and then this with no real explanation why and apparently no hopes of getting them as they were the only ones and the actual manufacturer doesn't ship to Canada nor have any dealers here.

I'm so disappointed right now =(

I wonder if they either forgot the manifest or had an incorrect manifest?  Last I looked, Tires were fine to ship to Canada from USA.

That sucks on a level 10 on the vacuum scale. Hope you at least got your money back!

Dealing with shipping anything anymore is a PITA.

I'm not sure yet still waiting to hear back. Hopefully it was just an error so I can reorder them I really do want those exact tires, if they're not possible for whatever reason I'll have to figure something else out or just stick with what I have already.

I did get every penny back,  it was automatically refunded.  Rather have the tires though!  Lol. In the grand scheme of things...they're just tires I wanted, nothing to get bent out of shape over.

Time to bump this thread!



I want to get this out for at least a ride or 2 but first I need to get to the bottom of the belt slippage issue! It worked great at first but slowly the belt started slipping more and more so now I have only the lowest "gears" and that's no good, I suspect the original front pulley is the culprit but I'll run some tests to be sure first.

I hope it's the teeny 3" front pulley so I can swap it out for a 3.5" or 4" so I can get a little more speed!

Tonight was pulley swap night but it's still untested.

Heres the pulleys I have to work with, 3.5", 4" and 4.5".

So, with the original engine pulley I could definitely feel slack in the front belt with the clutch engaged. I dry fit the 3.5" and it felt good, it also had a good amount of slack when the clutch is disengaged. The 4" felt great but only has a little bit of slack when disengaged so I'm unsure if it will work or not but it's my first choice as it will give me the best top speed and belt gription, I didn't even bother trying to fit the 4.5" as it was a little difficult getting the belt on the 4".

I had two 1" hubs so I welded both on in a easy to cut back off fashion...

...and installed the 4" so I can start testing with it. If it doesn't work out I'm sure the 3.5" will and it will be ready to ride again with an extra MPH or 2!

I'll update with results as soon as they're in!

Okay well I went to start it and had no spark... cranked and cranked and cranked but not even a cough so I took it all apart, put the spare coil on and had spark!

I took the coil back off to insulate the kill wire with some heat shrink tubing and to put a connector on the end, once it was reinstalled and I was turning the motor over by hand it stopped dead... I could turn it counterclockwise no problem but it would always lock up at the same spot when turning clockwise. Go figure that randomly, 2 flywheel magnets decided to lose adhesion and cause a little damage tp the charge coil (which I was able to fix)!

Instead of messing around with that flywheel I grabbed a spare and put it on, got the engine back together and tested it out, the 4" pulley definitely doesn't have enough slack to disengage the belt so I welded the 3.5" and that's where I'm at now.

I sat down to have some lunch which was a mistake because now I'm feeling lazy so I think I'll just relax for now amd watch a movie or something, looks like it's going rain anyhow...

Nice having a spare.  Give you some time to clean up the one, check the other magnets for any loose ones.  JB Weld them back in.   

That's the plan man! Then I'll have another spare just in case and I should order up a spare coil as well so I have one to carry on the trails with me.

I'll pop the belt guide on today and give it a try, hopefully everything is good now? All I know is I won't be dedicating much more time in trying to make this system work, as much as I want to keep the VariDrive I'll ditch it if problems persist and will go strait gear drive setup for the MST203 so I can swap in a MST 205 or 206 in the future. I want this to work because the range of speeds and ability to slow down/speed up is awesome but it's just not worth it if I'm going over it again and again.

I installed everything and tested it out, it's still not fully declucthing but hopefully I can make an adjustment to the VariDrive control rod for a little extra belt slack. I'm not noticing any belt slippage yet but I also didn't happen right away before either so I'll need to get it out for a couple of rides before I'll know for sure if the issue is resolved or not.

I worked on the clutch a bit after work, adjusting the VariDrive control rod couldn't get me much slack but I noticed if the spring from the pedal to the VariDrive pulley was a touch shorter that I could pull the pulley ahead a little bit more for extra slack! It's so stiff it doesn't stretch one bit and acts like a solid rod anyhow so I figured I couldn't do any harm.

Instead of cutting, heating and bending the spring I made a adjustable rod from 5/16" round stock and a couple rod ends (because I happened to already have it all on hand).

That has definitely helped BUT the VariDrive pulley will actually touch the chassis when the clutch is pushed all the way in which, funny enough helps it all stop but I cant leave it like that. You can see on the very edge of the top side of the pulley where it's getting a little shiny from touching the underside of the chassis.

I did consider using a brake pad from a mower deck pulley to help but dont want to have to rely on it or finding a replacement when it wears out so I'll probably cut a little material from the chassis and also install a slighter smaller idler pulley to see if that helps any.

The belt feels like it grabs really hard when I let the clutch out, grabbier than it's ever been so hopefully the belt slip issue is over but obviously I have a little more tweaking to do. If I could figure out a way to declutch the rear idler pulley I could solve 2 issue at once: declucthing the whole drive (I tested it and it works) and the fact that if I'm on any sort of incline I have to violently rock it back and forth to change ranges in the MST... problem is I'm not seeing an easy way to make it work progressively to account for the movement in the VariDrive pulley.

At least I made some progress!