Smithco Runaway!

Or "Smitty" as I call it!

So yeah, we picked up a small trailer load of toys early this morning:





I know what you're thinking, but unfortunately the Allis tractors aren't mine.

My Uncle bought them to get running and use them.

But anyways, what we have here is a big ol' three wheeled utility vehicle, with hydraulic drive and dump box!

It's powered by a big Kohler K Series opposed twin:



Couldn't find the I.D. tag to check the exact model, but I'm assuming it's a K532 or K582 or something.

This ol' girl features suspension all the way around, which is obviously super cool.

Leaves and shocks in the rear:



Springer style in the front end with little coilovers:



Got 'er off the trailer and had to adjust the hydraulics a bit to get full drive power, but she works great now!



Pretty simple controls, just a rocker pedal for forward and reverse, and a parking bake pedal:




Then there's the choke, throttle, PTO, and bed lift on the front of the seat:




Better view of the hydraulic workings and what not:





It starts and runs great!



So after a bit of testing and making sure all systems were go, it was time to put 'er to work!







Yeah, this thing is too friggin cool, hahaha.

Everything seems to work real nice on it, once I got some fresh fuel in the tank and drove 'er around some. We were told that the ignition coil would loose power after the engine got up to temp and it would run really bad, but in all the messing around I did with it today it never acted up, so I'm not sure what the deal is. I'll keep an eye on it though, see if it does anything funny. Probably gonna check the valve lash too because if the clearances were too tight I can see that causing issues once she got hot. Either way, for now she works fantastic!

So yep, this is the newest workhorse, haha. Should be super handy for stuff around here. Let me know what ya think!!

Nice haul there AK.  That dump cart looks to be super handy.

Thanks Mighty! Oh yeah, it has already proven it's usefullness! Haha.

Nice, that thing is like a Atv, golf cart, tractor all in one. I would put some big tires on the back and run it.

Man, looks like the factory only got it 99.999% finished..... Where's the tailgate?!

mrshaft696 wrote:

Nice, that thing is like a Atv, golf cart, tractor all in one.  I would put some big tires on the back and run it.

Thanks, yeah it's pretty cool! It has 12" rims on the back and an 8" on the front, so I could put some aggresive ones on that back and a round knobbie like a Kenda Scorpion on the front. That'd be petty cool, haha.

Murraymountain wrote:

Man, looks like the factory only got it 99.999% finished..... Where's the tailgate?!

Well the prevoius owners removed it.

Haha! I didn't even know it had one.

Had ol' Smitty outside again today. Fired right up with a quick shot of choke!





It does seem to start really well, hot or cold. Still haven't had an issue with the coil like the guy mentioned, although sometimes there is a bit of a stumble on quick acceleration, so I'm sure a carb clean and a couple new plugs would do 'er some good.

Turns out I'm not the only one who likes this rig!



It's doggie approved I'd say!

Oh also, since I had it laying around I welded up a mount for this little scooter mirror and bolted it to a spot by the steering column:



Oh yeah!! Pretty much too small to be of any use, but I thought it kinda looked neat so it'll stay there I guess.

Might come in handy for backing it up!

Looks good.  That engine looks to be in there tight.  I hope you don't have to change the coil.

Thanks, I hope so too. They're not super cheap, haha.

It is a little tight, but there is lots of room to get my hand in between the cylinder heads and the frame, so it's not too bad.

That's good.  Kohler coils pretty $$ then?  LOL, my last briggs was less than $10 for my oppy.  

I think the coils are fairly pricey yeah, however the folks at isavetractors.com have them on there rather cheap, so I could pick one up from them no problem.


Anywho, ol' Smitty was acting up on me yesterday after a longer trip down the road, so I decided to tear into the engine a bit and check those valve clearances:



I was worried I'd be into taking the intake manifold off to get enough room to work, but after removing a few minor parts I was able to get both valve springs covers off no problem!



Used the super handy Kohler adjustable lifters to get the clearance within spec on both sides! All four were much too tight, so I imagine it would be causing some issues once she got hot.

Also the previous owner bypassed the mechanical fuel pump in this engine and installed an electric one, so I figured since I had the old pump out to get to the cover on that side, I should just leave it out and make a block off plate:





Perfect!

Then I put 'er all back together and ran it for a bit:



All seems well! You can hear the lifters ticking a bit more now, which is no surprise. Run some straight 30 in it and shouldn't have any issues.

Then after a bit we did some work, turns out she makes a good rig for doing fencing!





Also holds a few empty oil buckets quite nicely:



Then a small load of scrap steel at the end of the day:



She seems to be running good! It never seemed to get into a fit at all today, although I think the high speed jet on the carb needs some tweaking, so I'll tinker with that to try and get it tuned in a bit better.

Oh, also I'd like to maybe try and make a skidplate of sorts for it, cuz when we were driving though the field I was a little worried about snagging a hydraulic hose on the corn stubble. Shouldn't be hard to fab up some protection. Don't wanna risk tearing something up. But for now, she's working good!

Let me know what ya think!

That's a pretty cool machine!

Thanks! Yeah she's a neat rig, super handy to have around really.

Took a couple more pictures of Smitty on the weekend, it's been getting used quite regularly stound here:





Working good! I think the coil issue is definitely there though. I noticed some rough running when she gets hot, and recently if you run 'er for a while and shut it off, it's a bugger to get started again. That's okay though, I ordered a coil from isavetractors.com a few days ago, so once that gets here I can put it on and hopefully she'll be good to go!

Real minor update here, dropped the oil and filter in the big ol' Kohler today. I woulda done it sooner but I had to order the filter in. I actually got two so I had one for next time.



Got the correct filter for it, the one put on by the previous owners was a Kohler filter, but it was much smaller than the ones they are supposed to have.



All filled up and running again. Darn thing holds a little over two liters, haha.



Good to have that done.

Next thing I'd like to do is fab up some sort of drawbar for this unit. It has reciever looking deal at the rear, but it's too small for the smallest automotive draw so it must've been for a factory attachment only.



Oh well, I'm sure I can find something to make a nice drawbar out of. Might be rather handy to have!

Well long time no update. I actually got the new coil for this thing a while ago and installed it:



The issue was, it ran 5x times worse than before. I put the old coil on and it was the same as before. Bugger....

So that made me think there was another problem that was being made worse by the new coil. Long story short, I replaced the condenser, reinstalled the new coil, and the big Kohler runs better than I have ever heard it run! The difference was like night and day, haha. Makes a lot of sense now that I've figured it out.







Definitely make me feel better about using 'er, the running was starting to get quite rough at times.



Great to have the issue solved! She's running like a dream now.

Let me know what ya think!

I saw you driving it the other day when you "wrecked" the MTD lol. Glad it's fixed!

Pretty cool, looks handy to use. Now you need a roof on it lol.

Thanks fellas! Yeah I'm super happy with how it runs now.

Haha, a roof would be quite an upgrade! Even a little canopy of sorts would be nice for some sun protection.

With all that scrap metal... you could have one fab'd up in like 30 minutes.

Haha, no kidding.

Well this ol' unit has still been running great lately and proving more usefull than we ever could have thought.

Got a couple snap shots of us cleaning up the limbs we trimmed off the cedar trees today:







It really is quite a machine!

Been meaning to post this for a bit... we found a 2" ball to fit on the drawbar of the ol' Smithco, and it turns out that it pulls a small trailer quite nicely!

OOPS wrong thread


Sorry I had to

Only you CQ...

Very nice. I forget.. the PTO work?  If so have you tried it yet?  Not sure what you could use it with with only the hitch.

EDIT: Looks like they have a pto driven lawn sweeper.