Thought about redoing my home made excavator to make it drive with mower transaxle

[chad22]

I built a home made excavator and have done lots of work with it and it's holding up just fine.

But the only thing I don't like about it is I have to crawl it or tow it into place. Crawling it is so slow and kind of limits it's use. I've also been removing brush with it so it would be nice to just drive right over to the burn pile with the brush and place the brush on the pile instead having to move it by hand later or to load a trailer with it.

I originally put an old Buick Regal rear end in it and was gonna eventually hook a hydraulic motor to it. But couldn't because of costs.

So I got to thinking. I have an old Sears Lawn tractor with the cast iron transaxle with hubs and those big lugged wheels that would work great on the excavator and will probably put mud tires on it for better traction.

I was planning on restoring the Sears lawn tractor. But really I'd get more use out of my excavator. It also has a good steering gear and everything.

If I use the transaxle I can just run a belt from the engine to the transaxle and use the clutch/brake pedal off the sears tractor as well to operate it with.

Everything would be right there to salvage parts from to make this excavator driveable.

If I make it driveable I can put a grapple on the excavator too and move firewood, some scrap metal etc.

I have the excavator here in Arkansas but the sears lawn tractor is 500 miles away in Kansas so can't really start on making it driveable yet.

But I can at least tear down and start redoing the frame to get it ready to mount the transaxle once I get the excavator back to Kansas in March or May.

I hate to re tear down the excavator. But sometimes it sits when there's things I could be doing with it if it was driveable.

So I know it'll be worth it to take that rear end out so I can put the transaxle in it's place to easily and cheaply make it driveable.

I could also then use the extra unused spool on my valve to work a blade in the front to push dirt around and level the ground with which could really come in handy.

Since I'm making it driveable I think I'll leave the twin engine on it instead of going smaller like I was planning.

When I get started I'll take some pics.

Chad

 

[Kernopelli]

I have a hydraulic drive hoe and while it's not as nice as a mini-ex, it does have way more advantage than a strictly tow behind. I say go for it.

 

[NormL]

Hey chad!! Good to see you continue to have those creative juices flowing! Since the Craftsman transaxle is too far away right now, maybe you will find another one locally for cheap and then you can get on it. Just my two cents!!

 

[chad22]

Hey chad!! Good to see you continue to have those creative juices flowing! Since the Craftsman transaxle is too far away right now, maybe you will find another one locally for cheap and then you can get on it. Just my two cents!!

Nice to hear from you again NormL

I'd look for another axle but I gotta go back to Kansas in the spring anyway to get some more stuff out of my house there.

And I'd still need the wheels and front axle as well as steering from the old sears tractor as well.

And there'd really be no money spent except for welding rods. Since I'm gonna be spending the $100.00 or so in gas anyway.

So I'll just wait and use the axle I have. In the mean time I'm thinking of putting a receiver hitch tube on the back and weld a hitch coupler to a piece of tube so that way I can switch between the ball couple and a receiver hitch to pull things with it once I get the axle in.

So if I want to tow it I can remove the receiver hitch with the ball on it and slide in the ball couple for towing.

This way I can just hitch it to the back of the mower and move it around the yard here to work on some digging projects until it's time to go to Kansas with it.

Course I'm not towing the excavator clear to Kansas. I'm gonna put it on another trailer for the trip to Kansas.

Plus we have a car lift in our shop in Kansas which will make it much easier to work on it with and to get underneath it to do some welds for the transaxle.

It's been raining here lately and I don't have a shop here to get out of the rain so I'm waiting for the weather to clear up before I start tearing it down.

I'm gonna be using a piece of thick I beam I have that I know won't twist or break and weld that in the center.


Chad

 

[notme]

chad throw up some pics of your unit and maybe we can chip in with some ideas

 

[chad22]

chad throw up some pics of your unit and maybe we can chip in with some ideas

I've got some pics of the excavator somewhere on my other computer. I'll see if I can find them.

It'll be a few days yet until I get out there and start cutting on it and welding it. I'm waiting on my new angle grinder that I ordered and we're getting ICE at the moment.

My brothers engine on his murray riding mower got water down the carb last night which made it's way to the intake valve and built up inside the head which locked it up.

I went to start it today and I was like "What the heck" ? I pulled the head off and it was full of ice. It was all covered up too I guess moisture got to it. lol

Chad

 

[chad22]

I just remembered I had some already uploaded in my attachments. So here they are. This is the excavator when it was in Kansas.

I'm gonna use that I beam that's attached to the axle. All it'll take to remove it from the axle is a few cuts through the welds holding it together.

That Ibeam is what I'm gonna weld in place of the flimsy piece in the middle. I'm gonna move the controls further up in front too.

When I get the front end steering components off the lawn tractor I'm gonna rig a way to lock the steering so I can tow it if I want to.

The transaxle will go in the back mounted to the I Beam.

Good thing about the sears transaxle I'm gonna use is the pulley is mounted to the side so I can get a Horizontal shaft engine which would make it much easier to route the belt to the transaxle at the side.

But I can still use a vertical shaft engine if I wanted to as that's what was on the mower when we got it. The belt was twisted from the motor and then back around to the transaxle pulley.



Chad

 

[notme]

wow looks like you made good use of the scrap pile! I love things that look like **** and work better then fancy store bought stuff!

 

[NormL]

wow looks like you made good use of the scrap pile! I love things that look like **** and work better then fancy store bought stuff!

Agreed!!:thumbsup:

Function over fancy (or form, if you must). Chad has built and put to use what too many have begun but have not completed as yet, myself included.

 

[chad22]

Agreed!!:thumbsup:

Function over fancy (or form, if you must). Chad has built and put to use what too many have begun but have not completed as yet, myself included.

You know before building this one I was thinking of saving the $2,000.00 I put into it and buy one of those harborfreight ones. But after seeing some videos of them on youtube they looked awful flimsy especially at the boom and stick.

Now I couldn't say for sure because I haven't seen one in person. But felt it'd be a waste of money and I wouldn't be happy with it because it looked so light.

Towable Ride-On Ditch Trencher

So I decided what the heck. I'll just see what I can scrounge up around our salvage yard and piece one together.

I did buy all the hydraulics new and the steel for the boom and stick. That engine came off an old riding mower my dad and I scrapped out.

My dad didn't think I'd finish it. He was surprised I did.

I was determined to have me an excavator and excavator I got.

The same day it arrived here people going by saw it on the trailer and they loved it. My dad even said on the way here when he stopped at gas stations and rest stops people were stopping to look it over and asked him if he built that. He said no my son did.

They were amazed and said they loved it as it wasn't just another factory built fancy excavator and it was unique.

To them it was beautiful. As they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Just like I love to see old tractors and cars and any junk sitting out in a field a long side the road. That's beauty in my eye. But to some it'd be considered an eyesore.

Chad