It's a revelation!

[farmboy12]

I had the idea, just today, about taking my 19.5hp Craftsman, removing the front axle, and mounting a Gravely or the like two wheel tractor to the front, and have a pivoting, two motor, 4 wheel drive tractor. I would sit on a sit fit to the hood, and only run the gravely motor, until extra power is needed for 4wd, or if using an attachment like a belt tiller on the craftsman. I'm sure the gears won't match up exactly, but that won't be too bad if you're spinning in the mud already. I figure with the 6 speeds on the Craftsman, and throttle adjustment, I could get them to move at close to the same speed.

I figured, that this way, you could run out of fuel on one, and run the other. But the only power needed most of the time would be from the Gravely, and I would be steering that. On a good day, you could have two people on it.

I would get a motorless golf cart to use the frame pieces and 4 matching wheels. Paint the combo up to match, and go on!

Probably not as much work as play and shows, but I figure less than $750 and this project should be done. What do you think? Anything else to add?


Kyle

 

[Taylortractornut]

Good I dea but youd be setting yourself up for a roll over. With 2 engines you need to pretty quick throttles and some sort of a torque converter to absorb the gearing differences. I had a friend once to this and re ended up with his mowers ontop of him. Also twin engined scrapers will flip over if the rear engin and axle arent decelerated in a turn even in a a slight turn. Ive seen a Terex TS14 flipped in a flat lot in first geear because of this.
You might try a rig like Struck Corporation sold a kit for a Mini Beep Articulated utilty mower tractor. Its has a light tubing frame with 2 mower transaxles on it. The pivot pin for the articulation had a 3 step pulley to take power from the motor and transferr it to the axled. It had a cable to shift both axles.

 

[Mace Canute]

You mean this Mini Beep?
http://www.highridgetractorparts.com/TractorInfo/MiniBeep.pdf

 

[bobodu]

Might be easier to run another axle off the Gravely PTO.

 

[Renze]

Your idea is at least 40 years old:

YouTube - Tandem Tractor

YouTube - Doe Triple D at Work

 

[farmboy12]

Your idea is at least 40 years old:

YouTube - Tandem Tractor

YouTube - Doe Triple D at Work

I've seen them, in fact, I watched both of those yesterday. That kinda was in my mind. What I was thinking was a Gravely already two wheel to make it easier. also, I would drive the front most of the time instead of the back. So it's a little different.

Maybe I am in over my head, but like I said, I would usually just be running the front wheels. Only when I get stuck or about to get stuck will I put in the rear. I'll just make the controls (RPM, Clutch, shifter, choke, etc) of the Craftsman all available to be operated from the front seat. Like, the shifter, put a piece of pipe over the shifter and bend that to where it feels good from where I sit. It would end up being fairly safe. I'm not too good at describing things, so I have a lot of ideas to make it safer and easier to use, but I can't put them down that easy. Just wondering what everyone had to say. Thanks for the input!


Kyle

 

[2manyrocks]

I think there have been some tandem projects done with Cub Cadets on the IHregistry.com site, and they looked really, really complicated. A recurring problem was getting the front and rear wheels to turn at the same rate.

If you put dual wheels, bar tread tires and chains on the Gravely, it would take a real mud hole to get you stuck.