Just ordered a steering rack boot for the shifter on this thing. The shifter was kinda crunchy for a while after riding in Haspin sand.
I also need to brace the frame tunnel. The mounts have cracked at the front edge.
Why does doing such stupid things on a lawnmower look like so much fun? That poor girl on the mini bike...guess 4 wheels are better than 2. And Rich, those were the most glorious wheelies ever. Yall makin me wish I was a mudder. I did put that 18.5 intek in the little craftsman.....
Ifitaintbroke Member
Age : 24 Join date : 2024-02-20 Points : 627 Posts : 327 Location : South georgia
There’s nothing more fun to me than taking an old lawn mower and making it go places that some ATVs won’t. There’s no feeling quite like it. The looks we get from other people out on the trails are absolutely priceless and some of them are full of questions about our rigs.
Little mod today. Holes for the front axle pivot are getting a little sloppy. Welded one of the nuts directly to the front axle plate so the lock nut locks the bolt in place relative to the frame. Gonna weld a short collar onto the rear axle mount plate for wear surface, but need a longer front axle pivot bolt for that first.
Changed up the belt system today. The belt that I’ve been running all this time is a really wore out 68”. A new 68 won’t work right with this belt system. Tried a new 69 and it worked fine but rubbed the rear belt guard a bit, so I added the upper “idler” to bring in the clutch some. Works good for now. We’ll see how it does when it gets some wear on the belt.
Thought I would have to bring the upper belt guide down but it works ok so I’m not messing with it. Also gonna run the automotive flat idler for now, the cheap bearings I’ve been running in the plastic idlers really suck. I mean, it’s definitely not a pair of them I’m running as the upper idler
Belt system has been working good. This one was on me lol. I think I bounced off of a tree rolling back off a bank and the tractor went over off to my right.
Seat pan developed some cracks again. Welded them up. Might have to put another seat pan on the thing before too long lol.
Last time i was at giverthebeans my belt whipped off and screwed up a bunch of stuff. The throttle cable being one of those things. I had to zip tie a stick to it so it would get me back to the truck where i could replace it.
It’s just old and brittle and gets bent back and forth a lot. If you’ll refer to the upside down picture a few posts up you will notice that the poor seat back is holding the whole tractor off the ground
Pull start rope has been breaking a lot more than usual lately. Figured out why. The bushing for the rope to pull through was worn down to a sharp edge. So I just twisted the bushing around to a fresh side lol. I did file the sharp edge off in there too.
Went out and went down some stupid hard trail that i don’t think I’ve ever even gone up on a big tractor. I did wind up going back up this trail. Took some pretty good tricks to make the little tractor climb out on the right side there behind the tree
I made it up this ledge once after several tries. The second go at it I bounced something a bit wrong and the lawn ranger decided to take a breather against a tree lol. Wound up stacking some more rocks so this ledge was a 1 out of 5 chance of making it instead of a 1 out of 100 chance of making it and a 50% chance of wrecking yourself. If that makes sense. Background of this picture is where the photo above was taken.
This is another one of those 1 out of 100 chances of making it. Hit a loose rock in a really steep spot, got thrown backwards against a tree (ouch), then the tractor goes over to my right to where it is in the picture, except with my leg under the back tire and it still spinning in 1st gear. That was kinda sucky. Leg feels ok tho, at least not as bad as where the tree raked up my back.
Definitely! I plan to eek every trick and ability out of myself and the tractor that I can come up with.
Took the LR out to Rocky Ridge Offroad Park, about 45min from me. It’s got some pretty good rock crawling trails for mowers, a few spots venture into the extreme. Had a great time.
I did kind of break my kill wire and fuel tank mounts though. Need to get those fixed before the ride in eastern KY this weekend.
Fixed the kill wire. Put a piece of heat shrink over the butt connector as some kind of strain relief, hopefully keep it from breaking off again anytime soon. It’s done it at least once before. Picked up a new gas tank off a go kart guy for cheap, and I zip tied the governor spring while I had the tank off. She’ll really rev out now! Gotta be careful though, don’t wanna float the valves too much.
I think I might finally get around to putting a skid plate on this thing. Better late than never lol
So the axle seals in this 3 speed are pretty bad. I’m pretty sure the right outer axle bearing has about had it too, it’s kind of loose. Don’t have time for a proper rebuild. I remembered this 00 cottonpicker grease from back in my snapper days. I think snapper used it because their mowers had stamped steel transmissions that didn’t seal very well, so they just used this thin grease/thick oil to stop them from leaking so much. It’s actually pretty cheap, only about $6/qt, find it near the tractor parts at tractor supply. Squeezed about a quart of it into the 3 speed, we’ll see how she does. Drove it around the yard some and it seemed a bit quieter, so that’s good.
My only concern with this stuff is that it won’t flow into the needle bearings to lubricate them properly. We’ll see I guess. There is some residual gear oil in there anyway, I guess.
The 00 grease seemed to do fine in the 3 speed. It leaked a little less but what mess it made was a bit worse than if it were gear oil, lol. I rode out in eastern ky friday night and all Saturday and sunday. Did wind up throwing in another quart of 85w-140 on top of whatever was in there, though it turns out the weird noise i was hearing was my two idler bearings locking up. They werent good bearings in the first place lol. One would squeal and lock up for a second and the belt would kick over to the other one that squealed at a different pitch. Made for quite the interesting range of sounds after a while they both locked up completely but didnt hurt the belt much as i was on my way back to the truck anyway.
Fun fact if theres mud or grit on the belt then the locked up bearings will throw sparks off
Didnt have any other issues besides the idler, i guess the belt popped off a few times because i never did update the belt keepers like i was supposed to. I did land on a rock once and folded the inside edge of one of my front rims back so far that the tire started leaking on the bead. I hammered it back out and it seemed to stop leaking. im gonna have to get some rock rings for these rims (or some new ones) as well as add a couple gussets to stop them from bending like they have.
Took the lawn ranger out to the car wash last night, everything was feeling a bit crusty, even the steering was a bit stiff from spaas creek grit.
So i realized i need an adjustable idler as the clutch was moving back and pushing the belt into the trans belt keeper. The square piece in the frame there supported the end of the deck lift lever. The original hole for the idler was directly above it, so I couldn’t make a slot there. Moved the idler to the left where i could make a slot. Works great.
Have an occasional problem with the belt popping off the trans pulley. It’s easy to put back on but likes to happen at the worst times, lol. Bent up a little piece to hopefully keep the belt on.
Used my mag base mounted soldering hand to hold it while I tacked it up.
I guess this is everything with the new improvments.
Went out to Canmer atv trails yesterday and had a good time with no issues!
This is on a little island in the river that i almost drowned the tractor trying to get to
Broke the pull rope again so I finally decided to take care of the worn rope hawse on the recoil. Ripped old one out and drilled hole a bit bigger
Here’s whats called a bell center drill. Standard center drills have just a 60* angle for making a cone shaped hole in the end of a lathe part so it can be supported with a 60* center. Bell centers are the same thing but with a radius instead of straight angle, for when a part is going to be offset turned between two centers out of line, or i think when a part is to be ground between centers. I honestly usually just use them as a spot drill to get a hole started closer than a long bendy drill will.
Makes a hole sort of like this. I did go back and smooth it out a bit with a boring bar and some emery cloth.
Parted it off and cut the other side, just gotta weld it in now.
I broke my stirrup coming off a like 2ft tall ledge
I just stuck a piece on to stop my foot from sliding off whats left of the stirrup. It will probably break again if i just weld the whole thing back together.
Got into some pretty nasty stuff. Theres sparks coming off my idler pulley in this picture
Subject: 
June 17th 2024, 11:51 pm
I guess I was thinking of another picture
