50lb valve springs got here. Still dont have a spring compressor so i did the old compress the spring in a vise and hold it with zip ties thing. Glad i bought these extra strength black ones! It was still pretty miserable.
Threw the engine back together and filled her with oil. She lit right off! Seems like a super strong runner too!
Took a risk and drove around a bit without belt guides. Managed to get away with it without dropping or shredding the belt! It definitely will not stop in neutral like it should though.
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RichieRichOverdrive Moderator
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Bit of hammering on a stock wheel horse belt guard and it looks pretty good in there
Forgot to tighten the engine pulley back up and almost got whipped by a piece of key stock:lol!:
Slotting these tabs to hopefully save me some filing and fitting in the future
Top belt keeper done and a few other things added. More mower sheet metal. Notice the wings on the sides of all the belt rails to stop it from flopping over the side or catching around the side of the trans pulley and walking off.
Shortened that key and put a lock collar in just for some extra insurance
Oh, i also changed the hydraulic oil in the trans for some 80w140. It sounds much happier. I’ve found these trans usually get quieter as they run in, so long as the bearings stay good. The 3 speed in the lawn ranger has quieted down a lot from the hundreds of hours of riding lol.
Drilled more holes in this throttle arm. Moving the carb linkage in towards the pivot and hooking the cable further out to give the cable a longer length of pull
Whipped up a gas pedal
Cable pulling on carb side
Everything put together. Seems good, haven’t ran it yet, had to go see a marching band show
Picking up some 93 octane for it too, gonna see if the 301 likes it any better.
Put a heavier spring on the gas pedal. Little overkill but it feels perfect.
Went and remembered how stupid these clutch pedals are. Can’t wait to change that up.
Threw some tire chains on, these havent seen daylight since they were on mutt in 2016 or so
Noodled the tie rod not even doing anything lol
Took the wheel off so i could steer going back lol
Took the tie rod off and realized it’s hollow. Real goofy
Trying to go to a wheel horse kind of setup. Made a plate to bolt to the center arm and sort of give more area to work with. Bolts to the arm and then the hole’s for the tie rods are tapped through both the plate and arm.
Wound up getting the setup done, i guess it steers about as good as it did before. I have some more improvements in mind coming up.
Im told they’re supposed to be solid. Must have been put on sometime in the past 50 years. Didnt even hit a rock, i think i just tried to cut the wheel and one wheel turned and one didnt
I don't know much about those 301's, had no idea they were a Hemi. Pretty neat! Looking sweet, man! Looking forward to watching you wheel the hell out of it lmao
RichieRichOverdrive Moderator
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I don't know much about those 301's, had no idea they were a Hemi. Pretty neat! Looking sweet, man! Looking forward to watching you wheel the hell out of it lmao
There is a hemi and non hemi version just like the 212. The non hemi is apparently preferred for the smaller combustion chamber that can make more compression than the hemi head, at least without welding. Or at least that seems like the deal with them. Idk, I’m super happy with how this engine turned out, even with stock carb and exhaust!
Ok, ran for a little while with the dual tie rod steering. Would still jam the steering at full lock. Could just limit the steering, but that doesn’t jive with me.
So i did some studying…
And looked to unravel the secrets of the best steering I’ve seen…
Broke out some twine so i could discover what the wheel horse secret is
After some backfiguring, i relayed the same formulas to the sears
Chop chop!
Fixtured them up kinda half ass
Welded both sides
Here’s the new setup! Notice the new pivot plate on the center arm.
So what i figured out with the wheel horse, the distance between the tie rod pivots is determined by the ackerman angles and the distance of the tie rods from the rotary axis of the center arm shaft. Basically, i took the angle of the stock tie rod arms, and transferred those angles to the plate in the center, leaving the tie rod arms themselves to just be straight.
With the tie rod arms 90* to the spindle, the arm and tie rod never cam over center and jam up at full lock.
Steers great! It’s like a wheel horse that doesnt turn quite as tight, which makes sense, as wheel horse frames are narrower and allow you to turn sharper.
It was sitting about 38” wide, too much for my taste. So i took the hubs off and machined the backside so i could run them backwards.
Jeez what a mess in there. I had to even cut a notch so i could get the rim past the set screw. I may paint these in the future to cover up this mess
Down to about 34” wide. Much better suited to this tractor.
I made a new tie rod to replace the rusty one and then just lengthened the other one i made.
Made a little jig to drill the tie rod hole a bit further in for faster steering. Fun fact, something that guides or locates the cutting tool is a jig, while something that guides or locates the part being cut is a fixture.
These tires are badass! They really put the power to the ground, seemingly on any terrain. I can see why @redzz02 likes them so much on the mud dynamark.
He ran them when he came down to giverthebean’s a little while back, they did super good in the mixed terrain over in eastern KY. Don’t recall if he had them on at the last GER ride. Either way, the more i run these the more I’m liking them.
Its about a 50/50 chance i get a decent result out of this bender
A pedal! The stub that slips over the shaft is actually a piece of trailer spindle i cut off of the trailer spindles on Mutt. The vertical piece is some kind of deck lift hardware from the 414.
The clutch pedal is secured on the shaft with a roll pin and some set screws to keep things tight. The moto footpeg type design seems really grippy and shouldn’t have a problem with getting packed with mud. I like it!
A ton of sidewall is just the way to go. Just soaks up everything you drive over and rides much softr, especially at low psi. I have these at 1.5-psi now i think, and will be trying lower soon
Those 50lb valve springs really let this thing sing!