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.