Wheel Horse Raider 20 6x6.. It's a long story!

[Ian 2,417]

This is what I started with..

 

 

 

Over 4 years later it looked like this

 

 

 

Told you it was a long story

 

 

 

 

 

[pmackellow 2,738]

More like the never ending story mate !!

[Ian 2,417]

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!!

[meadowfield 1,900]

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

[bowtiebutler956 166]

 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

[Ian 2,417]

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

[Ian 2,417]

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.

[Ian 2,417]

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.

 

 

[Ian 2,417]

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

[Ian 2,417]

Evening chap's, to give you a break from all the lathe work that has gone into building the 6x6, let's have a look at the chassis instead

 

As mentioned earlier I had to lengthen the chassis a bit to fit all the wheels on..  Can you guess which Muppet measured wrong?   Yep me!!

 

So the chassis once again was sliced and lengthened a bit more.

 

 

 

 

Trimming off the parts I didn't need.

 

 

 

 

Garry with the first bit of extra metal to go on the chassis.

 

 

 

A double barreled chassis

 

 

 

Masking tape and measurements..

 

 

 

Not quite "Charlies Angels" but close    The chassis was getting a good de-rust and clean up.

 

 

 

And painted...

 

 

 

More to come later, dinner is ready

[Ian 2,417]

Morning chaps, with the arrival a of a big delivery of new steel, I could start working out where the outriggers should go.

 

 

 

Which meant more lathe time to finish the widened rear wheel hubs..

A length of steel bar in the lathe taking shape.

 

 

 

More key-way cutting..

 

 

 

 

And the final part, shrink fitting the bit's of bar and the rest of the hubs together.

 

 

 

Time to cut some holes in the outriggers.. Two different jigs were used..   One to make the bearing block bolt holes.

 

 

 

And one jig to make a rather bigger hole.

 

 

 

A steel crop circle

 

 

 

Hole cut out and finished off with with one of these strange sanding wheels in a drill.

 

 

 

[Ian 2,417]

Now I knew how far out from the chassis the outrigger should go. I could mock things up to get some measurements.

 

 

 

 

Some odds n sods of steel were used to keep the outriggers lined up, making the chassis look more like a bed frame with a gear stick

 

 

 

 

Lot's of cutting steel.

 

 

 

And welding other bit's of steel together in strange shapes followed.

 

 

 

The first outrigger mount/chassis extension done.

 

 

 

The outrigger will be bolted on.. as you can see I didn't have the correct bolts at the time

 

 

 

Just for fun the engine (yes I was still planning on using the original 12hp engine at this point!), a wheel and a few panels were thrown on just to see how it looked... Er, it looked a bit strange to say the least!

 

[Ian 2,417]

Morning chap's, it's about time I got some more of this build posted up, so here's some more

 

More steel was added to the chassis, the small box section running front to back is to add some more strength and give me somewhere to bolt the inner axle bearings onto.

 

 

 

When it came to adding the extra steel on the right side I ran into a drive belt problem!  The pulley on the 8 speed trans was so low the drive belt would have to "around" a bit of structural chassis!!   A removable section in the chassis just wasn't an option!

 

 

 

The solution landed on my bench a couple of weeks later when this large lump of Wheel Horse C-175 was bought..

 

 

 

The Eaton 1100 hydro trans has it's drive pulley mounted up high on the pump... It's behind the cooling fan on the far side... 

 

 

 

Working out how to get the hydro control levers etc...

 

 

 

Inside the skinny Raider body was going to be interesting

 

 

 

Meanwhile getting the wheel hubs off the new trans was proving to be a pain.. One hub puller with a stripped thread!

 

 

 

After lot's of repairing/breaking my hub puller, the wheel hubs eventually came off with the help of a grinder!!

 

[Ian 2,417]

Back to the "fitting the controls in a tight space" problem..

 

After measuring both the C-175 body (which has all the right holes for the controls) and the Raider body I found they were almost (and I do mean very close) the same width..

 

 

 

Lot's of measuring and marking out..

 

 

 

Chopped!

 

 

 

Welding old and slightly less old together.

 

 

 

A little filler bit.

 

 

 

Ta-Daa..

 

 

 

I'm now getting very confused working out when and in what order things happened... All my photo's are numbered but something has gone amiss somewhere!!

 

So have some engine photo's...

 

I was never sure the 12hp engine I planned to use was powerful enough, so I took a chance on a very cheap Fleabay engine...

 

Of course the package had to arrive at the shack in style

 

 

 

A Kohler M18 engine in kit form..

 

 

 

Bit's everywhere!

 

 

 

Even though the bare engine turned over by hand the valves wouldn't open on side, so the case was split..

 

 

 

Problem found... The camshaft gear was missing a few teeth!!

 

 

 

Add in the very deep rust pitting in this barrel meant the engine was only fit for parts!   Oh well, at least I paid less for it than the parts were worth

 

[Ian 2,417]

While on the subject of engines I might as well post this here.. Another Fleabay find but this time a good one... A Kohler M20 with seriously low hours... Less than 1 hour on it when I bought it!!

It was bought new as a spare for a wood chipper, only it was never used just started once in a while to make sure nothing seized!

 

As you know this engine runs and sounds great

 

 

 

 

This may not be in the right order of the build, but there you go.. Confused.co.headscratch!

 

 

At this point (I think it was at this point but can't be sure!) I still needed to make the middle and front axles..

 

One axle taking shape.

 

 

 

One machined and two blanks.

 

 

 

The part the wheels actually bolt on to were cut from this thick steel.. Same about the hole in it, but that's an easy fix.

 

Machine a bit of bar so it's very slightly too big for the hole.

 

 

 

And bung it in the freezer for a few hours to shrink..

 

 

 

When the time was right the hole was heated to make it expand a bit..

 

 

 

The shrunken bar was then dug out of the freezer and beaten into the hole.... I don't think it will come out now

 

 

 

You can just about make out the bit of bar during turning..

 

 

 

Marked out for wheel bolt hole drilling.

 

 

 

Cutting the threads.

 

[Ian 2,417]

The new axles needed some key-ways cut in them... I was going to do it the easy way this time..

 

A slot mill was bought and this bit of bracket work was made for holing the axle on the lathe.

 

 

 

An action shot.

 

 

 

A freshly cut key-way..

 

 

 

Now you can start to see why this build had been taking so long to do.. 20 bit's hand made on the lathe, and these are just the front and middle axle parts!

 

 

 

The front axle being mounted..

 

 

 

And a visit from Andy (Wheeledhorseman).

 

 

 

All four axles mounted, bit hard to see two of them though..

 

 

 

Three wheels off the ground, getting close now to the first real milestone

 

 

 

Which was a rolling chassis

 

 

 

A quick bit of hood stretching..

 

 

 

And off the bench she came..

 

 

 

This was the first time I had been able to have a good view of her all the way around... I was very happy

 

 

 

Pete having a drive

 

 

 

And that I think is a good point to stop for now, thanks for reading hope your all enjoying this build..

[meadowfield 1,900]

Ahh.... Memories

[Ian 2,417]

Memories indeed Mark

 

I still remember the day Pete and I got the rolling chassis out of the shack...  I gave the chassis a gentle prod with my foot, and she rolled out the shack door, bumped down the step as the ramps hadn't been put in place quite yet, and then rolled half way across the garden with the aid of a slight down hill slope

 

 

And now for something that's completely out of "build order" as it's getting rather hard to work out in what order things happened!  Well at this stage of the build anyway, the order will work it's self out later in the build..

 

To get power from the engine to the trans I had to work out how to get a pulley on this tapered shaft on the engine!

 

 

 

After lot's of strange measuring...

 

 

 

I came up with a plan..

 

 

 

 

To make sure I would be able to make the parts on the lathe I used Google Sketch-up to do some 3D modeling,

 

 

 

 

 

 

The "pulley" part started as this thick heavy square of steel.

 

 

 

Taking shape.

 

 

 

A pulley blank.

 

 

 

Getting into the groove..

 

 

 

Part 1 of the pulley done.

 

[Ian 2,417]

Making the taper fit part was quite interesting..

 

Starting with this pillar drill leg off cut..

 

 

 

This may take a while!

 

 

 

Taking shape.

 

 

 

Turning it around, the raised blue bit in the middle was cut.

 

 

 

So I could centralize the PTO clutch plate to mark the holes for drilling.

 

 

 

A view of it from the outside.

 

 

 

Now for the fun bit, cutting the taper inside!

 

The hole was bored out a bit..

 

 

 

Deep breath.. Here we go..

 

 

 

A little was cut out at a time, checking the fit on the tapered crankshaft, the then angle of cut was changed very slightly until I had it spot on.

 

 

 

 

Once I knew I had the angle right out came loads of material.

 

 

 

Woo-hoo it fits

 

 

 

Due to a slight change in design (fitting the PTO) I had to take some more material out of the pulley part.

 

 

 

The two parts shrunk fit together.. No separating them now!

 

 

 

I was very happy with how well they fitted together, you can see here how good a size match both parts are

 

 

 

Pulley and PTO plate bolted on....    This was by far the most complicated bit of lathe work I had ever attempted, and to date the bit of lathe work that I am most proud of