Leaderboard

Speed up that Horse? For those of you that do not know, I race Lawn Mowers with the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association. I compete at the top level of Lawn Mower racing, the Sta-Bil Lawn And Garden Mower racing Series. I race the #M37 Cool Rides Online mower in the C/P Class. After Several inquiries as to speeding up tractors I decided to do a write up on just this subject. So let’s speed up that Horse! Put a 6†pulley on your engine, and a 4†pulley on your tranny and you will boost the speed of your tractor to approx 10MPH... But that isn’t enough...LETS GO FAST! WHOOAAAAA BIG RED! You did not think it was going to be that easy did you! First thing, before we talk about gears and pulleys and revs and all that jazz….lets look at a few things! LIKE SAFETY! Your tractor is a tractor, not a go-cart! Tractors are made for working, not flying around the neighborhood. There for, many of the components on your tractor were neither designed for , nor are they correct for High speed applications! First of these being the brakes! Higher speeds are much harder on brakes. That little band brake that will flip you out of the seat at 7mph…won’t do much more than make some smoke at 30 MPH! On USLMRA Racing mowers we upgrade to some pretty serious Disc Brakes, some of us running front & Rear brakes so that we can safely Whoa up our trick Pony’s! Next is Wheels; Now compared to most, WH’s have some strong feet, but speed is hard on wheels! On our sanctioned class racers we upgrade to some pretty stout stuff! Along with wheels comes steering; That wobbly gobbly thing we call a “Good Strong Front end†is not near stable enough for high speed application. One of the biggest things is Stability; A USLMRA Prepared Class racer sits as low as 4†Off of the ground, has a 38†tracking width, and weighs in the neighborhood of 300-350 pounds, give or take. With our tractors sitting 3 times or more than that up, several inches narrower, and two or three times the weight…..things get interesting REAL quick! Having a 600 or more pound tractor land on you can get way past dangerous in less than a heartbeat. Now that we have considered how unsafe this venture can be…why else DON’T we want to make changes to the gearing of our tractor? How about your engine? More than likely, without some major modifications, that K91 is NOT going to pull a doubled up gear ratio! How about your tranny? WH trannies are NOT models of efficiency. They may be great for the job they were intended, but when it comes to high speed application they would not be your first choice, or second….or 23rd? Over speeding them can have catastrophic effects on them, to the point of actually blowing them apart. Do you really want to do that to your 50 Y/O treasure? Finally there is the subject of the purpose of your tractor. If you ever connect any type of attachment or implement to your tractor you DO NOT want to speed it up! Plain and simple here gents, without re-engineering and re-gearing your transaxle, you cannot speed up one gear without speeding up all of them. Tractors are made for working, and Wheel Horses are capable of some simply amazing feats when you consider the amount of work they get done for the size of engines they have. The minute you start increasing speed you decrease the amount of work your tractor can do. And as far as mowers or snow blowers go go, excessive speeds on rotating attachments can be fatal, for the attachment and the operator! You start speeding it up, forget about dirt work, snow pushing or all that other “Tractor†stuff with your now very poorly designed Go Cart! SO just so we are clear, if you decide to proceed beyond this point… I AM ABOUT TO SHOW YOU THE EASIEST AND QUICKEST WAY TO MAKE YOUR TRACTOR USELESS AND WORSE YET....SPILL YOUR BEER!! Now that you have decided to ignore my very intelligent and worthy cautions.....lets get to the fun! You can slightly “boost†the speed of most tractors without any major ramifications...so for youthat want to make your 7MPH Horses go a whopping 9MPH...or get really out there and hit the double digits at say 12MPH!! here is the goods! Making your tractor faster is relatively simple, it takes a little bit of math, some minor mechanical ability and fabrication skill. The speed of a tractor has 3 basic elements; The speed of the engine, the overall gear ratio and the size of the tires. Now immediately someone is going to tell me I forgot the SIZE of the engine. In theory the engines size or power does not determine how fast the tractor will go but rather how long it will take it to get to that speed! In actuality, if you do not have enough engine to get the thing rolling in the first place...the amount of time it takes to reach top speed is exactly never! We are going to focus on the second element only. The engine build is an entirely different subject, and I am going to assume most of us already have our tires. So what you guys really want to know is, how to manipulate your gear ratio. Simply put, the overall gear ratio of a tractor is a comparison between how fast the engine turns and how fast the axle turns. The fewer revolutions your engine makes for every revolution of the axle, the faster your tractor goes. The overall ratio on a WH is broken into 2 sections. The primary, or belt drive, consists of the engine pulley, the belt and the transmission pulley. The final drive, or trans-axle, consist of.....you guessed it...the trans-axle! To find your overall Drive Ratio you Multiply your primary ratio by your final ratio. To speed up your tractor, you must change one of these ratios. As I said earlier, there is nothing you can do about the trans-axle ratio without re-engineering the whole thing. The primary drive however, we can whoop the hell out of that! How much speed you gain will be determined by how much you change that ratio..most of us would prefer to know how much speed we are going to get before we buy the pulleys. So NOW we are getting to what you really wanted to know. I know....Rooster just shut up and tell me what size to get! OK..A 6 on the engine and a 4 on the tranny...happy now? If you want to know how I got those numbers...read on. To determine your pulley sizes you need a formula...and here it is... Top Speed = (Engine RPM * Tire Diameter) / (Gear Ratio * 336) SO lets break that down a little.... Engine RPM: I usually govern “working†engines around 3500...so we will just use that #. Tire Dia: This is the actual measured Height of your rear tires...not what is printed on the sidewall. For argument, we ar going to use 23†336: This is a constant derived from the circumf...ohhh you don’t care...just use the number! Gear ratio: This is the thing we are working with...remember... To find your overall gear ratio takes another formula.... Overall Gear ratio= Primary Ratio * Final Ratio Primary Ratio= Transmission Pulley/ Engine pulley SOOOOOO I believe most WH’s have a 4†engine pulley and a 6†tranny Pulley Gear Ratio= (Trans Pulley/Engine Pulley)*Final Ratio ANDDDDD Top Speed = (RPM*Dia)/(((Trans Pulley/Engine Pulley)*Final Ratio)*336) We now have the complete formula for figuring speed. So lets plug our numbers in here... I believe most WH’s have a 4†engine pulley and a 6†tranny Pulley, and the final gear drives best my research shows on manual tranyy’s is 24.6/1. Top Speed=(3500*23)/((( 6/4 )*24.6)*336) 80,500/(( 1.5 *24.6)*336) 80,500/((36.9)*336) 80,500/ 12,398.4=6.49 MPH So, the speed of a Manual transmission Wheel Horse Tractor with 23†tall tires, at 3500 RPM is about 6 ½ MPH...more or less depending on how many beers you have had. Now ….I still have not told you how to make it faster.... Simply change the pulleys... Bigger on the engine or smaller on the tranny makes you faster. Smaller on the engine or bigger on the tranny makes you slower...but you can pull more How much faster is simply a matter of how drastic of a change you make. To make this easier, I have made a calculator for you to use....Wheel Horse Speed Calculator Insert your Pulley sizes, tire Diameter and engine speed and it will figure your Overall Gear ratio and top speed for you. So now we are all done! Oops....wait....your clutch doesn’t work anymore....dangit. Here’s an Idea...since your clutch and belt are made to work with a 4†& 6†pulley....use those sizes, only put the 6†on the engine and the 4†on the tranny....where have I heard that before? We still have a belt guard issue, which on many tractors is also a belt guide issue...which must be addressed. I am sorry to tell you, but I have not devised any other way than making a new belt guard? As for the issue of attachments, all hope is not lost. You can buy “Stepped†sized pulleys. So your drive pulley would be the 6†and your attachment pulley what ever size the original was.

Here are a couple of photos of my ditch mower. The state thinks I need a canyon for a ditch, so after a year of weed eater tourture, I decided that there had to be a better way. I just took an old lawnboy and made a new aluminum deck with open ends, then made a frame and arms from square tubing. A harbor freight winch raises and lowers the arms with the control switch incorporated into the tractors motion lever. On the right side of the tractor, there is a car battery, onboard charger, and 200 pounds of steel which all serves as a counterweight. This was the sixth year I've used it and have had really good luck so far. The only thing I want to change is to make the unit quick tach so the tractor could be used for other things.

Progress has been slow but here's and update. Each track is made up from two 10' lengths of #80 chain, 118 angle pieces, 59 channel pieces, 59 (1/8x1-1/2) 8" long flat, and 59 (1-1/4x1/2x1/8) 8" long channel This is a stack of the track cleats, need 59 of these for each track. This is a section of track welded up with the angles before the cleats go on This is the cleats getting welded onto the above trak section. This is the frame fitting to the undercarrige. This is a finished track. One more track to go. Still waiting on 6 more of the large sprockets which are on intergalactic back order apparently . Still plenty of things to do before I am at a standstill because of them. I ordered a 10hp diesel and that should be here any day .

So just for fun I thought I would share my journey... This is a first for me. I put myself to the test, my wife always tells me to use the tools I keep buying so I did as she wished. First job, make a mount to connect the old MTD blower to the 312-8. Took some 1.5" "U-channel" and welded a 5/8" solid round bar that fits in the front atachamatic receiver. Bolted the U-channel to the blower with both tractor and blower sitting level. The blower mount area is much wider that the atachamatic receiver so I centered things up, measured twice and tack welded a couple of washers to the round bar on either side of the receiver, now it slips right in and stays centered, welded it all the way around the washers and that part is done. (My phone camera seems to distort the pics a little) On to making the blower spin. Start with some pulleys, idler wheels and a spring to keep the belt snug even with the blower up. OK , I'm not gonna lie here it took nearly a dozen tries to get this right! Pictures aside, and I had many from my web searches. It went like this. Too much tension, not enough tension, idler wheel too big, belt so tight blower won't touch the ground. I actually laughed so hard at myself I pulled a muscle! PAUSE................................... Major problem, motor spins opposite direction than the blower needs to. Found the info needed for the remedy on this forum ( THANKS TT !! ) Bought some sprockets, chain and idler gears and start building. The mount hole for the bottom sprocket in the pic is slotted to tighten the chain. Mounted the two back together to test with fingers crossed!!!!! The jack shaft is 5/8" solid round bar that passes through 2 pillow block bearings. Started her up engaged the pto and hoped nothing flew off and killed me!!! Minor centering adjustments to pulley and gear positions and locked them down. Success so far and all fingers still attached to my hands. ( whew!!!) Tensioner works well and keeps auger spinning when raised, ensuring I can raise the blower to keep from chewing up the grass as well as coming up the drive approach without hanging the front wheels in the air. Ok time to button up.............. Why not make a cover for that chain drive and front pulley in case something breaks and flies my direction........... hmmmm what to use,,,,,,,,,,,, I got it! 2 of these. Stop laughing!!! they are teflon coated so the snow won't stick to em..........LOL. They were on sale at the dollar store for $2 each. I bought 3 and used 2. An absolute b*tch to mig weld the joints, I cursed a lot!!! Now it looks like this. That is the end of this tale................................ BRING ON THE SNOW FOR PROPER TESTING!!!!

Got alot finished on the hood this past week. Welded up and repair all the damage did some bodywork and gave it a heavy coat of primer. It looks like alittle ford 8n now LOL. Made up a new front bottom bracket old one was unrepairable The bodywork and primer

I have some tires like that on an old BOLENS walk behind. I hope they are worth something, because the rest of the machine is junk!

I doubt your charger is doing anything with the batteries connected in series. It will see 12 volts x the number of batteries and they only put out 14 volts at best. With 5 batteries you have 60 volts at the charger cables. Multiple batteries wired in parallel equal one big 12 volt battery and should charge with the tender. The amperage gets divided up by each battery so 5 batteries will take 5 times longer to charge than one. Garry

Great you were able to help him get that. I remember back in high school my older brother had his and while working on his car he took it off and put in down on the air cleaner of his 69 nova. He then closed the hood and took it for a ride. By the time he rembered it was on the air cleaner it was too late. Close to 10 years later a guy stopped by the house and asked if the ring was his? He lived about 2 miles away and found it on his front lawn while mowing his grass. Funny how things happen. Make sure he keeps it on his finger and oh yeah.... don't let him let his girlfriend wear it either !!!

You are one lucky man that is for sure. If my wife wanted to get rid of me that would be the quickest and easiest way for her to do so. I'd have a heart attack and drop dead if she ever bought me a tractor.

Here's my first year, 1988 520-H with an Original cab and blower set up.

Got some work done to the dash plate tonight From this To this

I'm a Solid Edge guy myself I have a nice model of an 8 speed transmission, I used it to set up my hitch and wheelie bars for the puller PM me if ya want the files and what format you would like. here is a taste

I used a JD road grader on Mt Hood in Oregon that had serrated teeth on the cutting edge of the molboard, this was designed to cut snow pak off the roads. A typical set of bits would last a week, with the JD bits (serrated) we could go a month and this was 3, 8 hour shifts 7 days a week. Here is my computer rendition of the bit (UUUUUUUUUUUUU) if the U's were upside down and conected between each other you would have a good idea of what I am explaining. the open portion of the upside down (U) is where material breaks up the cutting edge was beveled forward like a single cut edge chissel. Hope that gives you and idea.

here is a pic...

Quite sure, thanks for your comments. You're on the right track. Good noodle.

Hello, Here is my 1968 Lawn Ranger. This tractor was the tractor I used to mow my parent's property like 20 years ago. But like any kid I abused it. Now it has an easy life going to the different tractor shows. It has a C-81 front axle to make it wider, a Kohler 8 hp pull start engine and an 8 speed trans. I also did not like the looks of the back of the tractor so I cut it off and put a toolbox from an older tractor on it. If you look at the seat you will see that I installed a shock and spring off of a mountain bike. Because I am a bigger guy and the seat would have scratched the paint. Thanks for reading my story, Jim