alright so I brought the beast out into the wild here
to do some testing I'll just go through a few things that I've done
to get to the point where I feel I can start playing around with it
%uh first off I have
done some reinforcements on the front here you can see I have this brace here thats going to
stop it torquing this way
cross piece all this is quarter-inch thick tube
so I'm pretty happy with that i think it is adequate
I didn't put cones on the front here yet or anything like that because I've
actually acquired to
large hundred pound propane tanks i think im gonna make some new parts there
about sixteen inches
in diameter instead of 8 should give me some better flotation so I'll leave that for
now I'm just gonna play with it as it is
try testing the drive train out
got the fenders on and the seat on. You can see i've put these
handles for the controlls so that's all kinda taken care of
I did end up having to cut this one fender to fit
around this brake caliper you can see I've done lots reinforce
on the back here the only thing I could really think of have to stop this from
twisting in
was this big plate around here which had to curve around the caliper
so that's helping pull this way then I also put a
receiver hitch on with the pintle so I can start
using that for pulling that's all reinforced in here
and this all obviously as well has tied all this together from pulling
had also put a spring loaded chain tensioner on the side
so which is adjustable their
just pivoting on a bolt there
another thing I did as I did also taper the
end of the fins they're not just 90 degrees anymore
so it doesn't get hung up on a rock or anything
so... I think that's pretty much it
gonna give you look of it here and then do some testing
its a really wet weekend out here really rainy so
we'll see how it performs in this muck
on also mounted this bison sweet Manitoba hood ornament
this is kind of a project i've been working on for a few years now
i'm digging this huge hole for no apparent reason
can see its full of water right now it's probable 5 feet dep
i've been mining it out with my
little excavator but
since the big rain its full i'm going to have to pump it out again
but i think i'm going to attempt to drive the
screw machine through the muck here
maybe go through this wet stuff and try to make it up the other side
as a kinda first test %uh
not sure what it's going to do as far as inclines and that stuff is probably a foot deep
muck so hopefully i don't just end up just getting stuck to right there
like I said the screws are not perfect I don't have a cone on the front that's
very good right now
so hopefully doesn't just plow too much, but
we'll see what happens
well... it's screwed
i don't know if you can see it on the video here but it actually broke the transmission
there is a huge crack there on the axle shaft
and it actually bent this axle shaft you can see how the disc is no longer even near the brake pads
the torque of going through that muck bent the axle
blew the transmission so
ahhh....fuck!
basically I'm screwed
well i have have extracted from the mud pit
and the damages are severe
the more i look the more i see whats happened here
so i'll show you
at the actual axle shoaft from the tractors is bent,its cracked the case
i don't know if you can see it. it's getting dark and stormy today but the case
on the axle shaft is broken and also bent the jack shaft on this side
and bent the gear
on this pod as well so
basically catastrophic failure again
I don't really know where to go with it now
so i think it was
a fun project but I'm not sure if it's gonna make it
you know it's so much torque on those pods that
i don't think i have a strong enough gear here to turn them really
even if I did replace the transmission now I don't feel confident with that
setup because
basically all it was doing is driving up a bit of a slope but it
wasn't a crazy grade or anything
so this might be a might be the end of this one unless i come up with
something else
in the near future. but sure looks interesting