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

[omega]

wow
not intrested in these things but i thought id take a quick look!
a few hours later iam hooked and want one and theres one on ebay only a few miles away
but
my garden has a 10foot squre garden think the wife might kill me

[smellyferret]

Full on bonkers awesome
Fair play to you gents for making something awesome!

[Stigian]

Mar 3, 2013 16:40:16 GMT omega said:

wow
not intrested in these things but I thought id take a quick look!
a few hours later iam hooked and want one and theres one on ebay only a few miles away
but
my garden has a 10foot squre garden think the wife might kill me

A 10 ft garden sounds big enough to me for a Wheel Horse..

Then again, it is quite easy to get these machines road legal ;D


The story continues....

Having at long last got the drive train not only working right but working reliably, the time had come to move onto a non mechanical part of the build.. The fenders/wheel arches.

A few years ago a chap by the name of Michael (Thanks Michael) donated these two rotten fender pans to the build....
These pans had rotted out on the top flat bit's, which I didn't mind as it was only the rear quarters I needed..
Shame you can only see the fronts of the pans in this photo.




So here's a photo of a cut and widened pan. Not quite long enough though..




Best add some length to it then.
I should point out at this stage that I'm not an expert panel beater (If only I had the skills of TonyBmw) but I'm quite happy with how they have turned out..

Starting with a rather long length of 1.6mm steel.




Firmly clamped between two bits of box for a bit of hammer work.




Yep, I'm happy that the curves match quite well, athough the panel does need a bit of work further along.




Clamped up again for the inner curve to be added.




A few tack welds later to hold the front, rear and new middle sections together and a quick squirt of rust oxide primer.. So far so good






Now for the inside section.. Ready and waiting to be cut out.




After shaping, but will it fit?




Errr.. no




But after a bit of tweaking and trimming... Yes ;D




With a small plate tacked in here..




The time has come to see if PotatoBucket is working!!!!

[Stigian]

Mar 12, 2013 14:24:54 GMT smellyferret said:

Full on bonkers awesome
Fair play to you gents for making something awesome!

Thank you very much Sir, It's always nice to read Bonkers and awesome in the same sentence ;D


Well, blow me down, Potatobucket looks like it's working so let this thread continue

The fender came off to be fully seam welded.




But before I could do that I needed to add some curve to the front corner.




With no way of shaping the curve in situ, a few tack welds were ground off, and off the corner popped.




Using my Hi Tech metal stretching tools (hammering over a hammer in a vice) some curve was soon added.




That looks much better, welded back on and the tail light holes on the front filled.
Yes you did just read that right ;D




A lot of the welds were hand finished using a file. Although hard work, I find it much easier on my hands and wrists than using a grinder.




Looks quite good after a squirt of red stuff.. It will need a bit of filler here and there.




I won't bore you with loads of photo's of making the other side fender, let's just say it could of gone smoother

After what felt like months of cutting, bending and welding the fenders in the confines of the shack I was looking forward to seeing how the fenders looked from all sides..
So out the shack she trundled with a couple of clamps holding them on.. ;D






You may of noticed a rather large "bow" in the left fender.
This was taken care of by clamping it to a strong bit of box like so, and another clamp over the bow to stretch it to the right shape.




While the fender was off the over sized lip was marked out and trimmed down.




Looking good..





More to come later, it's time for a roast chicken dinner ;D

[Stigian]

Hi Guy's, well quite a lot has been happened on this project since my last update way back in April..

So I don't bore you all to tears with tales of months of sanding down filler, here's a few highlights..


The area behind the seat had a bit of reshaping so it would sit better around the 3 point linkage arms.






The same panel but this time in front of the seat had a curved panel added to tidy this up a bit..




A bit of experimentation was done with a panel made from the side of a computer case which led me to having a good look at the fuel tank.. Hhmm.. A change is needed!




So Pete started shaping a "buck" (is that the right word?) out of hard wood..




While I cut a bit of steel to a similar shape..




The two together..




And after lot's of arm ache later...




The next part was... Er.. Fun!!








But worth the effort






As the new fuel tank is a lot closer to the engine than the old plastic one, I made an ally heat shield just to be n the safe side..






My very old sheet metal folder was dug out..




To put a few folds in these bit's.




Lot's of clamping, hammering and welding later..




They had become covers for the ends of the outriggers..





That looks much better, you can't see the drive chains now.




The next job involved a bit of measuring..




And this old road sign..




Marked out..




Trimmed a bit.




And folded into..




A battery box.

[Stigian]

From this jumbled mess of measurements..




I was able to make this cardboard template..




The ally version makes a rather nice plate to fit around the motion levers etc..




The exhaust manifold used to exit just where the new fuel tank is, so the manifold was modified to make it exit out the center.. I still needed to cap the old exit off in this photo.




The exhaust got a chop and change as well. with a much stronger mounting bit that bolts it to the engine case.




A bit of grey primer here and there.. Makes it look like it's almost finished at this point.




More paint, only this time red.. International Harvester red to be a bit more accurate..
Don't be fooled by the photo's, the brush finish is nowhere near as smooth as it looks.. But I'm happy with it












At this point in time I was only aiming to get the panels painted on on ready for the Ardingly show next week..






And then one day I went a bit mad and painted all of the chassis I could see and reach without taking anything off or turning the beast upside down..






Painting the wheels while they were on was..... Interesting!!





And this.. Ladies and Gent's is how the ol girl looked as of Wednesday.. I still need to pull her apart and paint all the bit's I can't while it's all bolted together, but I'm very happy with how she looks

A big Thank You to Mark at Restorationdecals.co.uk for the fantastic custom decals that really finish the ol girl off.

[Mark]

That looks awesome - well done!

[georgeb]

I really, really want this. Living either in Manila or Kuala Lumpur, I've no idea what I'd do with one except go to the pub on it, but I really, really want one!

Superb work again. It just keeps getting better.

[spiny]

holy moley, that fuel tank is a work of art !

loving it

[rustempire]

Sensational! great to see this suddently come together.

Rob

[wolop]

Wow , that is badass!

[waveman1500]

This project is fantastic, and the finish is a credit to you.