transaxle for homemade utv

hey guys. im brand new here and have alot of questions. please have patience with my long explanation here.

my family has always been into atv's. through the recession we had to sell them off one by one until we now only have one 90cc atv left. i am not into wide open trail riding like i used to be so i have been looking for something to take the whole family off road in(there are 5 of us). i still want to be able to take it on atv trails so a cheap 4x4 (like a samurai) is out of the question. our budget is going to be restricted too so na 13000 dollar utv is out of the question also.

i have been contemplating building a family utv from scratch for a while(not just because of budget, but its always more fun to build it yourself) but havent started yet cause ive been debating on the most cost effective way to get something that will carry the family, but also have reverse(fat boy aint into pushing, thats why it has a motor right?)

i also would like to have 4wd which is another challenge in itself. all of these things can be accomplished fairly easy with a big enough budget(which i dont have). when i was little i used to inherit my dads old riding mowers when he upgraded and i immediately modded them to the best of my ability in order to try tpo go off road when my friends went riding their atv's.

anyway here is my idea, and some info that i need. in order to have 4wd that is simple enough for me to fabricate, and cheap enough for me to afford i plan to have a typical 2wd front end with 2 drive axles in back. probably go kart type axles. chain driven off of a lawn tractor transaxle in order to have reverse and enough gear reduction to pull the weight of my family. the rear tires may be as tall as 28". i plan to have as much of the weight as possible in the back with ballonish tires up front to help with front flotation so the front end doesnt sink and cause the rear to dig a hole.speed isnt real important 30 mph would be real nice, but 15-20mph would be fine. i have an old twin cylinder twenty-something horsepower briggs off of an old craftsman mower but no other parts. im kinda going for a frankengolfkart with the finished product.

my first two questions before i get too far and find out it isnt feasible are...
1- is there a reasonably priced/available lawn mower transaxle capable of handling the stress of turning 4 28" tires while carrying the weight of my family? i can gear the ratio down before the transaxle so the motor can have enough power to turn the tires, but the transaxles i heve seen dont even have bearings so i dont know if they can handle the load.
2- is there a lawn mower steer axle capable of handling the load or should i look elsewhere?

i appreciate any help,insight, and recomendations you guys may have. thanks in advance for your help.

p.s.-i also plan to do some off road lawn mowers, especially one for my pappy in law to take hunting, but they will be after i have something to take the family out in. thanks again.

I've been wanting to do the same thing and been wondering about the transaxle I have.I have a craftsman 5 speed with 3/4" shafts with keyways and it would be pretty easy to hook it up to an axle.There's alot of ways that you could hook up the kind I have but just not real sure if it could handle a load like that without tearing up easy.

i did find a heavy duty transaxle on ebay with hi/lo and actual ball bearings in it with 1" axle shafts. but i didnt want to take that route if there was NO chance that it would work. i guess i need to have an off road mower ready first in case the transaxle breaks so i have a way to tow it back. i think a heavy duty transaxle would work though. just wanted to check with folks that have more experience than i do. i checked some garden tractor pulling sites, but they didnt really have much info(or recent activity for that matter)

i even debated something as elaborate as a winch operated swingarm on the front with a transaxle and, say, a 5hp engine for when things got real hairy. would only be good when going straight, but priceless when needed. not to mention big bonus points in the "wth" category.

This guy on YT did it with minimal parts :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OJkMSJiE_c

Im going to attempt a 4x4 setup on my agway sometime, cept ill be building my own adapters to a spare trans up front instead of using a NOMA 4 wheel steer trans - will be 'almost' a true 4x4 setup - i dont plan on locking the rear trans- the front cant be locked ( need to steer).

Id find something beefy , hauling a lot of gear around , might want to look for some used ATV wheels as well. Id stop by the local metal recycler and see if you can purchase ( cheeply) some steel for a chassis setup.

One build ( in the future) i plan on a 4x4 setup with a trans like you mentioned off my 90's GT6000 - itd stay in the GT , id use a 69 wheel horse trans up front - also has 3 hi/3low trans , 4 of the rear gt tires would be used for a tall stance , a horizontal twin and the factory electric clutch would power it - one pulley would drive the stock rear trans, while the clutch would run the front trans - motor would need to be mounted sideways to work. Would be a seriously beefy machine if i ever get around to building it.

i would be worried that the engine couldnt carry a load up hill or through thick mud. my 21.5hp v-twin in first gear starts to bog when i go up a 30% grade in first

well then either your gear ratio is way to high or theres something wrong with you engine cause my 12.5 hp brigg has haul some pretty big things in its years. cars, truck and campers, boats trees .... and go pretty fast too! max speed is about 40 km/ hr and with a load about 20 km/hr is where im comforable. only thing im thinking is that it wont be wide enough. thats alot of people fer one machine. Why not make a insane mud bogger mower with that huge engine and solid trans and make a custom trailer that has seats and big balloon type tires that are nice and wide. be alot simpler

sounds like the twin has a dead hole. fire it up and run it for about 5 minutes. pull the spark plugs as soon as you shut it off. the one you can hang on to is not firing. the other one should be hot as hell. if you have insulated plug wire pullers, you could yank one wire at a time. if you pull 1 and it dies , that is the good one. they will run on 1 cylinder but will not have much power.
if you find the bad hole, do a compression check. I have gotten bad motors on junkers that have had a busted rod and didnt rattle and no holes in the block. had an old onan that would pull the front wheel on an old SS16. then every once in a while the motor would lock up. I think it was getting rod chunks stuck in the cam gears

as far as the width i was going to fab a frame with 48" live axles and use the transaxle via chain drive to drive the axles. that way i can build what suits my purpose better. ill probably have to skip the front driven axle, it looks like the fab work may be out of my league right now, but im seriously considering the front winch activated swingarm for those just in case moments.

as for power i can gear the ratio down as much as needed before the transaxle. thats no problem.my concern is that the transaxle wont be strong enough to turn 4 tires when fully loaded and in a mudhole or any kind of bind like a hill or pulling someone out that is stuck. ive debated using an engine and transaxle from a front wheel drive car, but i wont be able to go on some trails with that setup(darn rules).

i had a trailer that i carried the family on when i had my grizzly and when i got rid of the grizzly the trailer went with it. having the family on the same vehicle will be better for safety, and towing something that does not have its own drive power is a recipe for getting stuck. carrying the whole family i wont be interested in going very fast, but you can bet ill be hitting every mudhole i can find.

so, is there a transaxle that can handle the load that wont cost an arm and a leg? heck, i may even use two(one for each axle) like the guy with the lifted 6x6 craftsman.

OHV motors stock just dont seem to have alot power stock to me - i have a few and theyre just gutless wonders - the flatheads do have the power, i ran a 10HP briggs flatty on the agway for 4 years - only thing that stopped me was the lack of traction due to the stock tires - it had the power .

Newer OHV motors are geared tward being more enviromentally freindly , theyd have the power advantage IF theyre gone thru with new internals and tweeking , at a lawntractor race a few years back these guys were taking 20 something HP OHV twins and getting 60-70HP out of them - sounded like snowmobile motors....

Tdawg75: More i think about it, maybe you should look for an old golf kart , inital price might be a bit high, but youd have the chassis and drivetrain to modify , plus the independent front suspension. A guy on YT used a peerless 700 hooked to a 12HP briggs and ran a setup to the stock rear axle on a golf kart - that thing climbed a dirt pile, was fast as hell too.

we have a golf cart junkyard nearby and i debated using one of the bodies they had with three rows of seats but with my own chassis or a combo of theirs and mine since i want 4 drive wheels in back. i think i want something a little bit wider, though.

You need to get a peerless 720. They're extremely heavy duty they Have one inch axles and I'm pretty sure they have bearings instead of bushings too. Some guy on you to build a home a dump truck and he had a transaxle run to a set of tired so it was four wheel drive in the back and used a 14.5 hp lawn mower motor

There it is, use bench seats unstead if a dump box.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=-gwHwDstVRU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-gwHwDstVRU

dylansrockinrigs wrote:

You need to get a peerless 720. They're extremely heavy duty they Have one inch axles and I'm pretty sure they have bearings instead of bushings too. Some guy on you to build a home a dump truck and he had a transaxle run to a set of tired so it was four wheel drive in the back and used a 14.5 hp lawn mower motor

I believe you mean 820, not 720.

My bad.

I'm working up a design to do the same thing. I want to build an amphibious ATV for 2 passengers and the transmission is the hard part. I plan to swipe one from a lawn tractor and extend the axles to the width I need.

Hmmmmm. 4 yr old thread......... ZOMBIES!!!

Raising the dead is what I do.
Also thinking a golf cart differential might work, but that's a different forum.

Alrighty then, consider me schooled.

LAWN MOWER MUDDER wrote:

This thread is over 2 yrs old..

Rules Thread wrote:

The zombie thread, the one that came back from the dead... Please- especially the new guys- Check the posting dates on the thread you're about to reply to. If, 2 years ago, a guy asked what was wrong with his transmission- don't reply. He's either sorted it out, sold the machine, or isn't even around here anymore! Also, avoid digging up an old one, and posting "Cool LOL". A lot of us check the recent threads, and something like that is just a waste of time.

The OP of this thread last visited on: Nov. 28, 2011