Northern Ohio mud mower

Hello everyone. New to this group but not new to off-road mower mayhem. I started when I was I think 19 I will be 37 this summer. I've been working on my MTD for 2 years now. Improving it as I go. I am in the middle of a drive train swap and soon a carburetor swap to a mikuni type

Welcome to the forum! Neat looking tractor you have there, is that a hood off a newer Troy-Bilt? Feel free to start a thread for it!

Welcome!

Welcome and nice Rig!

Love the way that tractor looks, hadn’t even realized it was an older mtd till AK pointed out the newer hood and I looked again and saw it didn’t match the fenders. Just assumed it was a Troy-Bilt mtd

That's a sweet looking tractor! Like the newer hood, nobody uses them because they come with FNRs. Glad to see that, always thought they looked sweet.

@AllisKidD21 @AllisKidD21 yes that is a newer Troy-bilt style hood sitting on what's left of a box framed MTD chassis. I do need to start a thread on this thing show everyone what it started out as and how I got here.

That sounds like a great idea!   LOL

We all love a build thread!

@Double W Cross Ranch can you define what is fnr's?

@Mtdmudmower Single speed with reverse MTD rear axle, has a vari-drive instead of a gear shift in the transmission. They're very weak and lots of people hate them.

or less detailed...  "F"orward "N"eutral "R"everse. 

yeah, FNRs R the biggest junk ever invented for Mowers!
I drove my MTD 1 time, and threw the fully working FNR outta the mower and my Bud killed it! A MST is working on tis old place now!

So I should share what I've done to that trans. Stock it is not a good candidate for offroad or increasing speed. It was designed for cutting grass and nothing else. For that matter any open diff trans is not ideal for offroad use either. I dumped the vari drive off of it for a straight belt drive with custom pulley ratio. Locked the diff and rebuilt the internals with better bearings and a higher pressure grease to handle the increased load on everything. Had it clocked at 27mph. Ultimately except for a drive belt nothing has broke on it. And mostly that is due to a lack of using the right belt. Really needs a wrapped kevlar corded belt but getting the length right it was cheaper to use cut poly cord belt so I could try the length variations closest to what I calculated.

Last weekend I busted the belt doing donuts in the snow. Still the original belt I went with after some trials. I am dumping off the current drive train for a cvt clutch going through a right angle box then to a chain driven kart axle. Not happy I'm loosing reverse but ultimately I get a better torque curve and better speed range to the wheels than I had previously.

Wow I always wondered how a pulley swapped FNR would do.  Sounds like you found a pretty good pulley ratio for a rally machine and yeah reverse is great to have.

So you're going to bolt a CVT to a vertical shaft motor?  A predator clone could cost less than a good quality RAGB.  The biggest problem I see is guys putting CVTs on engines that have a much higher horsepower than what the CVT is rated for.  This causes the belt to shred and the return of the belt shredding problems.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

Wow I always wondered how a pulley swapped FNR would do.  Sounds like you found a pretty good pulley ratio for a rally machine and yeah reverse is great to have.

So you're going to bolt a CVT to a vertical shaft motor?  A predator clone could cost less than a good quality RAGB.  The biggest problem I see is guys putting CVTs on engines that have a much higher horsepower than what the CVT is rated for.  This causes the belt to shred and the return of the belt shredding problems.

What about using a Centrifugal belt clutch? this should have almost the same effect

Centrifugal clutches don't like to be slipped for very long though, so if you weren't going full bore all the time the clutch would not be very happy. A CVT would work much better for general off-roading as it would have a full range of speeds. Biggest thing would be keeping mud and water out if it.

AllisKidD21 wrote:

Centrifugal clutches don't like to be slipped for very long though, so if you weren't going full bore all the time the clutch would not be very happy. A CVT would work much better for general off-roading as it would have a full range of speeds. Biggest thing would be keeping mud and water out if it.

Does make lots of sense!!

It's a CVT clutch I got European race mower guys use them.

CVTs kick ass..... WAY Better than Centrifugal Clutches!

MightyRaze wrote:

or less detailed...  "F"orward "N"eutral "R"everse. 

LOL I actually never put that together.  I feel so dumb lol  


Nice CVT!  I like that plan you've got going, why not try to get a right angle box with reverse?  Or a right angle box and a GoPowerSports reverse box?

Double W Cross Ranch wrote:

MightyRaze wrote:

or less detailed...  "F"orward "N"eutral "R"everse. 

LOL I actually never put that together.  I feel so dumb lol  


Nice CVT!  I like that plan you've got going, why not try to get a right angle box with reverse?  Or a right angle box and a GoPowerSports reverse box?

GPS is really expensive...

I have a 90 degree box but it has no forward reverse option. It's rather heavy duty too I want my weak link to be the chain drive not the 90 box. I have kicked around the idea of using a trans type 90 degree in the future though.