Lawn tractor crawling Sears Suburban

[ThatJeepGuy]

I suppose the jig is up, ive honestly been interested in this for some time now and finally decided to get my feet wet!

 

There's plenty of mud mowers out there but who is out there crawling their lawn tractors? (Credit to OKoffroadmowers and their online content)

 

While ive been sitting on an older Murray 18GT to make some changes to, I came across a Sears suburban SS16 with some nobby tires already installed and figured id explore this setup first.

 

 

 

Plan is to revive and tune up this Sears unit a bit as its in a rather neglected state and then apply what I can appreciate to how I build the 18GT. While its seeming like a cheat to start with something already "built" by some opinions - this Sears unit is primarily original. Only real work that's been done was aggressive tires on the rear rims and then front quad wheels welded to the original tractor wheel hub. For my interests there is plenty of actual work needed to be done yet.

 

Ideally these will be offroad crawling tractors to sustain a weekend overland trip on the state land/trails up north. My plan is to add armor like bumper(s), skid plates, storage options for offroad and camping gear and offcourse Lighting!

 

I'm rather solo in this endeavor, perhaps I'll persuade my buddies to join - who isnt intrigued by some smaller offroad action with unconventional machines ;)

[89 MJ]

I’ve always wanted to try this. It looks like a blast

[ThatJeepGuy]

It sure has some major potential for my interests.

 

Got a bit of the work done this weekend. We'll start with exhaust - this unit was straight piped to some flappy covers, while fun its also deafening to operate.

 

 

Fortunately the 1" black pipe threads came out relatively simple after chopping the majority of the exhaust away and giving them some nudges with a nice pair of channel locks.

 

Considering the factory muffler are all used on ebay and a few hundred dollars at that - it was time to embrace the old school black pipe setup!

 

These are 3" long sections with some 1/4" steel rod welded to them for leverage assistance in the rather congested space of the engine.

 

Getting a pipe wrench big enough in the space to handle these isnt ideal, these tabs sure make it easier though for pliers.

 

From there i topped them both with street 90°s and then played with varying straight lengths unitl I was able to set 2 of these mufflers outside the hood

 

Then I made a little spreader piece to keep them tied together and from potentially vibrating themselves free.

 

It's now much more tolerable to run and operate. Spending around $60 for all the pieces to make it happen.

[ThatJeepGuy]

Prepare yourself for a picture heavy thread...

 

Airbox not only had the wrong filter but was also barely holding on with the 2/3 screws.

 

This filter should do the job a little better

 

Dirty fuel filter

 

This honestly shocked me... the fuel line was - in a way - just floating on the very edge of the fuel pickup barb on the carb. This tractor does run but barely and you had to keep the choke on the entire time

 

Simple fix though, new filter and I always have a fuel shutoff in line on my tractors. I had a length of this heat shield and with the prior routing to the left of the coil, I didn't like the bends soo this more relaxed routing near the exhaust warranted the heat shielding in my opinion

 

Throttle cable prior to this was just zip tied in place here, as you would guess it dramatically affected the power control of the engine.  My creative solution was to take a small strip of aluminum tag, form it around a small diameter torx driver and then fasten it to the bottom of the airbox. Very simple and much more effective than the ziptie

 

The last little thing was this vent tube from case to airbox. Very much dry rotted and without bothering for a factory replacement I nabbed some  grommets and a small length of extra fuel line to connect the two.

 

Running much smoother now!

more to come

[89 MJ]

Out of curiosity, did it have a fuel shutoff at the tank? I know all of my garden tractors (and my fullsize tractor) have had one. Of course, adding a secondary one is never a bad idea, especially if the original one was hard to get to. 

[Pete M]

can't say I've ever thought about building a 2wd ATV out of a tractor, but it looks like fun! 

[89 MJ]

49 minutes ago, Pete M said:

can't say I've ever thought about building a 2wd ATV out of a tractor, but it looks like fun! 

They actually do really well for things like crawling because they aren't designed for speed and are designed to be worked hard. Some of them even had factory locking rear axles.