Don't let it get you down man, sometimes life just gets in the way and there's nothing you can do about it. No sense trying to rush it or throw together something if your heart and mind aren't into it, maybe it would be best to consider coming up with a solid plan of what you want to accomplish (which btw I love your original plan), and spend the rest of this year collecting and testing parts and ideas for next year's Build Off?! Don't forget in the rules it states that you must be less than 50% done so keep that in mind, this is supposed to fun for all and if you're stressing over it then you're not having fun and then what's the point right?
I'll support you no matter what you decide to do buddy!
I'm thinking of doing lawn care this season, I already have a few customers that might be interested, so If I grab a trailer then I would throw a lawn tractor, push mower and trimmer on that and lug it around with the free craftsman, It would be cool to have a bed for that just to throw the smaller tools and gas in, that's why I wanted to build a non-dumping bed for that tractor.
UPDATE: (I apologize if this is late) So, I now have an engine (18 hp oppy) and some pneumatic cylinders (free) so I think I have most of the parts I need, also have a compressor pump and some other odds and ends.
So, the plan (rather half baked) is to build this rig up by Dec but I am going camping in july and it would be nice to have a 2nd atlt, so what I'm doing right now is swapping this rig 8-4 with no stretch, swapping in the oppy and using it like that until I do the stretch
Okay, not sure if anyone read this anymore, but I started on the stretched rig today, got the frame stripped down and started on the extensions, pictures might come later:)
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Age : 45 Join date : 2019-07-02 Points : 4554 Posts : 2385 Location : Ontario, Canada
Well we now have some of the world"s crappiest pictures folks! Here is a small preview of what's been going on in the shop:
But I think I have no idea what I'm doing here because I've been stuck on steering for the last few days...
Gen 1 steering: The issue is that I have to move the steering over about 6" to accommodate the second seat, I tried flipping the arm over to the other side of the box but that made a difficult problem 400 times worse... I'm thinking direct steering for now, but that would probably suck.
You meant a car steering rack, or what were you thinking? I ruined the old steering box by trying to weld to it, I melted the plastic bushings from the heat (and probably gave myself lung cancer from the fumes) I have another steering box in the other tractor that I could mess around with, I might just wing it though.
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I wonder if a small steering box would work. You could probably get away with just a couple u joints and there shouldn’t be a need to re engineer the entire steering.
You meant a car steering rack, or what were you thinking? I ruined the old steering box by trying to weld to it, I melted the plastic bushings from the heat (and probably gave myself lung cancer from the fumes) I have another steering box in the other tractor that I could mess around with, I might just wing it though.
That's the bushings I was speaking of earlier, search around or get creative and you can replace them with bronze bushings but a rack sounds nice too!
I agree with @Rustbucket Garage, universal joint(s) will save you alot of headaches overall if you keep a stick style steering "box".