Ian

I'm guessing you have a "thing" for Briggs engines then Matt

A fantastic collection, they should be be displayed in the house... Keep em nice and warm

If it works then why not

I like the idea of using bit's of scrap to make something to do a job..

Nice thinking to whoever the builder is

That looks like a very handy machine Tom, nice save

Is that the same brown machine that joined our section at last years show?

A fantastic machine

I'm guessing the graves are a bit close together judging by the size of the deck!

Nice find Kev

Is the the machine that I saw trying to take off though a tent the other year? 

It's amazing what you can create from a pile of parts Nigel

Very good Mark, some expert slicing and dicing going on there

Here a quick version I did rather a long time ago. at the time I did have enough engines and wheels to build it

Now that's what a call a solid looking wheel hub

Although it's not been welded together, bolting the brake disk on and adding some threaded wheel bolt holes help with the looks

To add a bit of colour have a couple of welding action shot's.. I was welding on captive nut's to hold the brake disk on.

And a bit more colour in the form of a  quickly made layout plan.

The red is the original WH chassis, the yellow and green is steel I had yet to add!

Thinking ahead a bit about mounting the axles I bought a load of tapered bearings.

And scribbled out some plans for making some blocks to hold the bearings.

The computerized version of my scribblings.

This power hacksaw I paid £45 for years ago paid for it's self once again slicing up some more of that 1 1/2" thick steel.

A "Raw cut" bearing block and a faced off block.

And one finished bearing block.

That will do for today I think... If your lucky I might move away from the lathe for the next update, and start on the chassis

Evening chap's, it's time for a bit more of the 6x6 saga..

With the new Workshack operational work on the 6x6 could continue..

After a year of storage the wheel hub parts had got a little dirty and rusty, but here's all three parts together to give you an idea of how it all slot's together.

The rear end mocked up to see how it would look.. Quite wide as it happens, I'm sure I narrowed the wheel hubs a bit after this photo was taken.

I think it was about this time that I found the chassis would need lengthening to fit three big wheels in a row.

Now for one of the "not much fun" sort of jobs... Cutting an internal key way in the hubs..

Not wanting to pay an engineering shop to do the work, I had to cut my own..

This was done by scrapping thin slivers of metal away a little at a time..   Cutting key ways the manual way can take some time... About 30 hours per key way!!  So glad I only had two internal key ways to cut!!

Ta-Daa..

A slight change of plan meant a change of brake disks for the brake steering,, which also meant the new disk would not fit the small mounting thingy I had turned.. (The red bit).

So from this flat plate..

A couple of big washers were turned up. 

Which fit in the disk.

And with a little bit of faffing about it all slots together.

I think all dog beds should look like that.. Very classy

Where's the fun with only having one project on the go? :D

Here's a little bit more of the build before I head out to the shack to play with the GT and a 3 point

Starting where I left off..

Corners cut off.. I'm checking the size against a standard Wheel Horse wheel hub in the photo.

More material taken off.

Until it looked like this

Yep, that fit's the wheel

Part 3 of the new wheel hub was a smaller steel doughnut.

From this.

To this.

Which neatly fit's the center of this Kawasaki Gpz305 front brake disk.

It was about this sort of time that work stopped for almost a year as I moved house and built a Workshack twice!

Here's Garry about to "open" a fully functional Workshack..

That feels like a good place to pause the story for now... More to come later.

It's a epic from j.r.r. Stig I love this story of how a dream can evolve with passion and ingenuity into something so awesome

Thanks Mark... I guess the other way to look at is "it's the work of an insane mind"... Well, a slightly warped mind

 I love the Saga, or mini series of how this monster came to be!  The RS's longest ongoing thread in existence!  Also one of the very best!

 

Matt

Ta muchly Matt, some very kind words indeed... Lol, yep it has turned into a rather long thread on RS. This tread won't go into quite so much detail of the whole build (2500 photo's is a lot to post up) until I've got it up to date, but it will still be a long story

Hi Nateb77

Sorry I can't help you with any info on your machine, but I can say what a great looking machine it is.... I've always had a "thing" for small crawlers, but I've never had the money or space to own one..

Thanks for posting it, keep us undated with your progress with it.

its an annagram paul!

a clue its my mate dennis"es other halfs name

joshtim?

I have to say Paul.. That's the funkyest mower chassis I have ever seen.  Somewhere between a 4 legged spider and a big ally doughnut!   Love it   

Ok, maybe the story's quite a bit longer than that

It all started when I sold a Wheel Horse C-125... Somehow I ended up doing a part-ex for another Wheel Horse C-125!!

Here's Pete crying into the hood saying,"oh no, not another one"!  

As I wasn't too keen on the "black hood" looks Plan A was hatched..

A few panels swapped later (ok, all the panels) the black hood had taken on a slightly different look... Kind of Raider hood stand and hood/bonnet, and a 300 series rear end.

By tweaking the Raider hood stand a bit it was possible to fit a later rear mounted fuel tank.

Then....... One day Garry turned up with a few bottles of Old Speckled Hen!!!

A few bottles later and a few extra wheels plonked roughly in place, the drunken idea looked so good it just had to be built

So how did we turn a 4 wheeled grass cutting machine into a 6 wheeled monster?

Slowly is the answer

The problem with adding 4 extra big wheels is a lack of space to put your feet.. The track had to be widened a bit..

Starting with a length of pillar drill leg in my lathe..

And some vaguely scribbled out measurements.

Work could start..  Here's Garry getting a bit of lathe time in.. Back in those days I didn't have a "cooling system" for my lathe, so a brush was used to paint it on.

Taking shape.

Part of one of the widened wheel hubs being test fitted on the 8 speed trans.

Part 2 of the new rear wheel hubs was the bit a wheel bolts onto..

As luck would have it this massive and extremely heavy slab of steel came my way a few weeks before... It's 1 1/2 inches thick!

As you can see a strip has been sliced off it. A long job with a normal sized grinder!

A big square on the lathe.

Er..... More to come tomorrow. it looks like I've hit my photo posting for the day limit!!

This is what I started with..

Over 4 years later it looked like this

Told you it was a long story

£3000!! Ouch!!   I wouldn't dream of paying a third of that amount for a Wheel Horse no matter how special!!

So are you going to sell yours and make a very big profit Neil? 

Very nice Nigel.

I wasn't going to post this as it's not one of my better bit's of work, but as you have posted a Trumpet have another.

Before.

After

A nice project, not too much left to do to finish it by the looks of it.

I like the more sporty air filter

Fantastic photo's, and it's always good to see a machine get "worked".

I hope to take part in some kind of "working day" myself this year.

Fantastic work dude, certainly a better sized load lugger than it used to be. I'd love to have something similar..

With all this rain the main tub would make a great boat

I was following all the "weather going's on" on the BBC yesterday.. The amount of water everywhere is just staggering!

I hope your safe their Neil, more rain forecast this week!

There is just something that makes it feel more like a big tractor when you sit between the rear fenders, rather than above.

 

Yes.. That's it.. You hit the nail right on the head there Matt