A Six Wheeled Horse. A Modified Mower IT'S WORKS

[Stigian]

This story starts many years ago when I started looking to a replacement for my very old and rapidly dying Westwood ride on mower.

The local agricultural was coming up so naturally I had to go and have a look.
Instead of doing the sensible thing and buying another ride-on that was actually working, my heart ruled over my head and I fell for this "down on it's luck" Wheel Horse Raider 10, and thus my "Wheel Horse addiction" had started ;D




The planned quick service and get the engine running turned into a rebuild stretching many months.






With some fun along the way ;D

A Wheel Horse sling shot anyone?



The Morgan look..



A trike




And finished looking like this..




Being a Wheel Horse addict is much like being a car addict, and that means you can never stop at owning just one ;D

The next Wheel Horse to follow me home was this 312-8, it came complete with paint faded to pink and odd wheels on the front.




This one didn't stay standard for long, it soon gained spot lamps, a stack exhaust and duel rear wheels.




And then a roll bar. Seen here with home made dozer blade and harrow thingy.




And with a bit of wheel banding to fit bigger Kubota tyres..




It now looks like this ;D





Many Wheel Horse's have come and gone, but I ended up getting this C-125 in part ex for one I sold.
I think Pete is head-butting the bonnet saying,"Not another one"!!!!
This is where the 6 Wheeled horse story starts..




Not being too keen on the C-125's looks and having quite a few Wh spares about the place a simple plan was hatched to swop over some earlier bodywork onto the newer chassis and running gear.

With a bit of cutting, tweaking and welding..




To keep the rear mounted fuel tank..




And the bonnet borrowed from my Raider 10 it looked like this..
Garry approves ;D




Enter Garry again, this time with some "bottle inspiration" ;D




A few bottles of "inspiration juice" and some correctly placed wheels was all that was needed to bring a "we've got to build that" kinda grin on our faces ;D

[Stigian]

Well, with a "what to build" plan worked out, we had to work out "how" to build it!!

To be able to fit six wheels on and still have somewhere to put your feet the wheel base needed widening.
A bit of measuring and some rough plans later..





And the first of what has turned into many 100's of hours of lathe work was started with a length pillar drill leg!




Taking shape..




A trail fit on the gear box.




To fit some wheels to these axle extensions some wheel hubs are needed.
I was lucky enough to find this thick and very heavy slab of steel at just the right time. It's 1 1/2 inches thick




Lot's of cutting disc's later..




And onto the lathe.




Some corner cutting, the block is starting to look the right shape against a proper Wh wheel hub.




The almost finished article..




It fit's the wheel a treat..




Taking a break from lathe work I decided to have a bash at repairing a er.... slightly rusty bonnet i had been given...

As you can see, plenty of rust worm




The only way to fix it was to split the top from the front of the bonnet..

Not much left of the front panel!!




Inspired by TonyBMW's post's (thanks Tony) the first repair patch went in.




Looking a bit better.. all the patches are cut from computer cases..
I like to recycle




The base of the front panel was... er.. not really there!!!




It's handy having other Wheel Horse's about the place for taking measurements from.. Or in this case making masking tape templates..
Masking tape!!! I love the stuff ;D




Transfer to card..




Then to steel..




Side by side with only slightly rusty bonnet.. just needs finishing off..




A view from the inside... 13 patches and a few more small ones to go..




And that is as far with that bonnet rebuild as I got. It was given a few coats of rust oxide paint the keep the red at bay and put up on the shelf while I turned back to the lathe..


A small square slab..




Cut from this..




Turned into a brake disc mount thingy..
The disc's are Kawasaki Z200.

[Stigian]

Jump forward almost two years, two house moves and two Workshack builds later Garry officially "opened" the Workshack for er... work and this project could get started again.



Starting where I left off, or in front of the lathe a second wheel hub was turned up.




Some mocking up... Hhmm.. it looks a bit wide




No problem, bit of measuring later showed the axle extensions could be turned down a bit..
As demonstrated by Rob.
By this point my old 50's Southbend lathe had gained a splashback and catch tray made out of a road sign and an old metal pub sign.
Cooling fluid now supplied by a P100 screen washer bottle and pump ;D




While Rob was doing that I had a look at the chassis and noticed it was not long enough to fit six wheels!!




Once again, no problem.. Out came the ark welder..

WARNING!! This video contain bright and strobing lights!!
Click on the picture to see pretty flashing lights ;D




That's more the right length.




Back to the lathe but this time it's not going round!!
There is something strange about using a lathe when you know it's turned on, but for key-way cutting no power is needed..
I could of saved my penny's to pay for an engineering company to cut the key-ways, but there are so many of them it would of cost a fortune!!
My way of cutting them only cost about £8 for the right size bit of key cutting steel, trouble is each key-way takes about 30 hours to cut!!
That's 30 hours of sliding the cutting tool in and out

I think it's called "character building" ;D




In case you hadn't worked it out by now, this machine is going to be steered by independent brakes each side, bit like a Argocat.
A bit of a change of plan happened when it was decided getting the planned Kawasaki Gpz305 brake calipers to work with the Z200 disc's was going to be a pain..
Best fit the matching Gpz disc's then.. Which lead to another problem.. fitting the new discs to the axle extensions..
The red bit is the Z200 disc mount flange thingy.




Que some more steel..




An action shot..




It looks like a big washer from this side ;D




But when turned over it fits the brake disc a treat..




A little bit of trimming of the Z200 disc mount..




And it all fits together.




A quick check with the caliper.. It looks like it should have "knock off" wire wheels ;D




If your getting bored of just reading about lathe work, stick with me a little longer, the chassis fun will be up next ;D

[Stigian]

Well, almost next ;D

To get this project rolling 10 bearing blocks are needed to hold the axles up.
As this is a budget build to save money for things such as a bigger engine and chassis steel I decided to do things the hard way and make my own bearing blocks/housings..

For this some scribblings were needed..




The computerized version.




Starting with a bog of bearings..




And that slab of steel again..




The first bearing block to size.



Cutting threads in the bolt holes..
With 10 of these bearing blocks to make, the maths says it's a total of 5 feet of thread to cut by hand!!




Ta-daa.




Yippie.. the bearing shells fitted ;D
You can see the bearing race the other side.





I'm sorry.. We are going to have to return to more lathe work later on, but for now lets get the sparks flying ;D


First job to get done on the chassis was to cut off the first extension and weld it back on straight, but with another couple of inches added.
A 9 3/4" stretched chassis ;D




Some welding sparks..




And cutting sparks... Won't be needing the old front axle pivot mount..




These bit's can go as well.




The basic chassis.. It's very strong being basically made from some quite hefty lengths of angle iron..




But not strong enough for what I have in mind hence Garry is modeling the very latest fashion in lower chassis rails ;D




The lower rails and uprights tack welded on.




The chassis marked up with where bit's go..




The help make sense of how the chassis is going to be built here's few (rough) diagrams.
I say rough because my plans always change..
The red is original Wh steel, the yellow is what I have to add.

From the front.



The side..



And the top..




The chassis was kinda "boxed" where the arms out to the outriggers for extra strength..




It's not all fun in the shack you know... Sometimes things get very silly ;D

Doctor Garry giving the bearing block a cutting fluid injection




Don't play with spray cans children, it can have this effect on you ;D




I guess the paint fumes were still lingering as Garry Oldfield played his rendition of Tubular hammers!!




I just hid in a bucket ;D




Not quite "Charlies Angels" but almost as sexy



But the chassis did clean up nice.

[Stigian]

Forgot to say.. More coming later.... My bum needs a break from this seat

[claymore]

bookmarked

[grizz]

Welcome back Ian !!!!


Great new build.

Looks like you are settled where you are, which is even better news.

Will keep a watch on this build for sure.

[retrowagen1234]

Amazing!! Keep it coming

[pablopancake]

excellent fabbing!

[DarrenW]

That soooooo needs a reworked Wheel-Whores sticker on it, fantastic ;D

[alecw35]

best thread on here for a while.
I think every bloke would want a go.
Might have mixed reactions from her indoors tho.

[skinnylew]

wow this is gonna be awesome supreme fab work there

[Deleted]

Loving this project. Great write-up too ;D

[Stigian]

Good afternoon Guy's, sorry I'm back a bit later than advertised.

bookmarked

Thanks Claymore, glad you like my build.

Welcome back Ian !!!!


Great new build.

Looks like you are settled where you are, which is even better news.

Will keep a watch on this build for sure.

Hi Rian, it's good to be back now life has finally settled down a bit.
Speaking of settled, we are for now but yet another (and hopefully the last for many years) house move is on the cards at some point between now and April.. Where to, is anyone's guess and it all depends what is happening with my Wife's job/next job!!

Amazing!! Keep it coming

More on it's way ;D

excellent fabbing!

Thanks but I would not go as far as "excellent", you haven't seen my lathe work close up

That soooooo needs a reworked Wheel-Whores sticker on it, fantastic ;D

I like your thinking ;D

best thread on here for a while.
I think every bloke would want a go.
Might have mixed reactions from her indoors tho.

Thanks Alec.
Every bloke may want a go, but your have to wait.. Me first ;D
Lol, my Wife can't understand why I would want to build such a machine, but she does understand "why" I build things..
I have Cervical Dystonia and can't work, but "playing" (as my Wife calls it) with Wheel Horse's when I can keeps the old brain cells working, and I like the challenge..
Oh, and daytime TV is rubbish

wow this is gonna be awesome supreme fab work there

Ta-muchly ;D

Loving this project. Great write-up too ;D

Thanks Jonny, the write-up is in "catch-up" mode at the mo, it will get more involved when I get this thread up to date..

[aar0sc]

Fantastic! When I was 14 (okay so three years ago) I "pimped" our westwood with alloys; then spinners (they didn't work very well) spot lights (off a Subaru Legacy ), a matt black bonnet and silver racing stripes

[Stigian]

Playing "catch-up" on this thread is harder than I thought!!
I have over 700 photo's of this build and picking the right ones to continue the story without confusing things is proving quite tricky

While I'm thinking here's a tip for you..
If you ever break a thread tapping tool of in a block of steel...






Heat the block up until it's cherry red..



Then once it has cooled down all by itself (don't rush this part), the tapping tool will drill out ;D




I think I've got this sorted out in my head now ;D

To drive all six wheel's I need to get power from the rear wheel forward.

This box of taper-lock pulleys will come in handy.




But how to get the power there from the rear wheel hub extensions, seen almost welded together here?

Back view.



and the front..




Back to the lathe of course




The start of yet another key-way!!




A pulley test fit, I was quite chuffed with this ;D




And finally shrunk fitted into the axle extensions.... And my Wife thinks a freezer is only for keeping food in ;D




And this is a good point to bring some big bit's of steel box into this story as you can see the axle extensions sitting on some of it.

Cut to length..




Burn holes in your shirt while being careful not to cut squares out of the box ;D




After lots of careful measuring on the other side of the box, three holes were drilled (front, middle and rear) and the first of my jig's bolted on.
This jig is for the bearing block mounting holes..




And the second jig is for making lot's of holes ;D




It looks like the Aliens have dropped in and left me some crop circles




Some careful cutting...




And some "flap wheel on a drill" action made the holes nice and round.




Best get the axle extensions on... So the real fun can start ;D

[Stigian]

Have a close up shot of the rear of the "big bit of box" or an outrigger as they are now known.
You can see the bearing block on the axle and bolted to the outrigger, with a pulley on the end.
With this done...




The outrigger positions could be worked out.




A huge amount of careful measuring later got the outriggers square..




To keep them in the right place kinda frame was built, welded on and then screwed to the bench.
It looks like a bed frame with a gear stick now ;D




At the front "hidden toilet cistern" legs were used..




To finish "playing" for that day I quickly er... played with a couple of bit's of box to try and work things out..
Hhhmmm.. The base of the outriggers is the same height as the base of the chassis.. That's handy




The next part is a bit hard to explain mostly because I didn't take enough photo's... so...

Slice up some of this..



And this..




Clamp around another big bit of box and weld up..




Garry's old wok came in handy ;D
This power hacksaw thingy was a great investment, £45 at the local Agri auction..




This photo might help explain things a bit..




And closer...
It's a bit hard to see, there is a bit of flat plate tack welded to the outrigger. This will give me more depth for drilling and tapping threads..




A bit like this.. The first 2 of 32 holes drilled and tapped
The odd looking bit of steel are just to show where extra strengthening will be going.. Once the right size off-cut's turn up ;D




Cross members the other side going on..




The engine needed to be put on so I could work out where the drive belt runs..
Rob demonstrating the er.. "office engine chair stand" thingy




On the chassis..




While we were at it we through some bodywork and the only wheel that would fit at that time on..
Don't worry, it will get a lot better looking

[cianha]

What a monster build! We're fettling an old Kubota 3cyl diesel at the moment, but nothing as drastic as this. I love it, keep up the good work Ian!

[alx]

What an awesome monster build

I reckon it'll be the size of a Tiger when it's finished. The lawn won't know what hit it. Just need an 88m gun mount on it and the nearest sherman will be running for the hills. ;D

BOOKMARKED!

AL.

[cairyhunt]

That's simply fantastic!

MOAR!! ;D