Muscateer out for a drive

[riotwarrior]

Ha ha, no wonder you bost it doing all the doughnuts

Oh heck ya....and I rode that like I stole it...man it worked super hard doing that for almost 20 minutes straight...nut and figure 8 non stop, unless I did stop to regain composure cause I got to dizzy...ROFL.

Went back today and located the bearing...in great shape, and the teflon wipe/seal that helps keep out grime.

I'll be putting it back together and maybe welding the inside of it as well to make sure it don't happen again or in the field.

Now you see my bearing situation is right out at end of axle, sealed unlike other machines which have the axle with no support at wheel. As I see it this is far superior in application and design in comparison to any other machine IMHO.

I'll make sure to get more pics of axle and how it broke and so forth when I do a post mortem on it, and begin the repair procedure.

Well thanks for reading!

[robeye]

Ok that is a better way. Out there is where the support is needed.. Unless your running a big axle. Never could see the reasoning for those weird double flanged rims that the Bazoo had.. with the tiny three stud hubs.. talk about asking for failure.. All the Bazoo guys converted to a 4 stud hub & rim .

[Mike]

That was awesome. The lights and siren were great and the constant doughnuts had me laughing. Way to get some exposure for 6x6 ATVs.

[riotwarrior]

That was awesome. The lights and siren were great and the constant doughnuts had me laughing. Way to get some exposure for 6x6 ATVs.

Thanks Mike!

Siren where coming from our SAR truck, two places behind me...LOL but ya lights where added for parade for effect...kinda referred to the green light as the Santa Police light LOL

Ya the Hagen/Rooter transmission makes for an interesting machine capable of instantaneous change from forward to reverse and so forth, counter rotating etc.

It makes for a very interesting ride I must say. Albeit a super challenge to drive down hill....

[riotwarrior]

Got out to shop and began to get into this axle thing...

So for starters I removed the wheel adapter from the tyre that came off.

Here you are looking at what the axle sees, that bearing and grey flat teflon seal protector/wipe are what I found on the road yesterday! Very special bearing with an inner groove for O ring for seal and an outside double lip seal as well.


Unbolted the 3 bolt axle flange from my custom made adapters




and here removed you can see that the weld tore lose




A challenge to see, but the large drive sprocket and the axle retaining nut and cotter pin are there if you look close


Not a whole lot of clearance to remove nut, I pressed the axle out as I undid the nut


and sprocket, notice the teeth are layed over from skipping chain


with bearing now and you can see the double lip seal


Axle out


Ahh...business end that came off...


More to come

Thanks for looking...

[riotwarrior]

And now continuing on from where we left off

Ah clearly this came off from about here


and kinda sorta in place


So this appears that a 3 bolt flange was welded to a sleeve that was welded to the alxes' end, this is factory and as far as I'm concerned clearly not strong enough for the punishment I dish out!


So this weld here


Should also be here, along with the plug weld on the end, and maybe even a plug weld in two spots through that sleeve onto axle


Then the whole assembly bolts to these adapters, which when added to big grippy tyres created a tremendous amount of force and well....is it really any wonder why that weeee little weld broke based on the abuse I dolled out?


So now I'll work on getting it all back together and welded up then thoroughly inspect the other 5 axles and weld the sleeves to the axle as well.


yuppers that's a broken weld



I'll likely grind out all that schmeg weld there inside the sleeve after some measurements for location


That would enable me to re-weld that sleeve onto the end and circumferentially around the sleeve




That should be enough to make it strong and safe and hope it wont break again. Once I get going a bit further with repairs I'll for sure post more info

Thanks for looking

[riotwarrior]

Just got off phone with my good friend Steve AKA Amphiman, and he's got some Muscateers and one he be parting out.

Means to me that I can get some tensioners and replacement drive sprockets.

Hope this comes through make my work much simpler. I could take all his drive sprockets including shot ones and refab up some #50 chain cogs and that would allow an upgrade in chains, tensioners are easy to change out sprockets on so this may be cats meow...

Wait n see, may even have some axles and axle housings Hmmm...I can see it now....

[riotwarrior]

On my rear sprocket you can see greater than 180 degree of chain wrap on the sprocket, this eliminates chain skip from my observations


Buried down low you see the MIDDLE wheel drive sprocket and about 120 degrees maybe of chain wrap, that is where I'm getting my chain chatter from what I can tell. You can see the tensioner and I may need to add an idler as well on the underside of lowest chain tightening the wrap on that sprocket.


Ah. chain teeth bent over like shark fins...you bet that's chain chatter


inner axle bearing race


main axle tube which is completely grease filled BTW


Outer axle bearing


looking through axle housing


from inside back face of wheel adapter to tub clearance, no idea what other machines are but this one is what I have


From tub to outter bearing is about 7"



Here I've got RED cable on my jack shaft showing about where disk brakes could go, first RH jack shaft then LH



So I hope this can be made to have more wrap for less chatter and that I have enough clearance for a set of tracks in the future..

Thanks for looking

[riotwarrior]

Thus today I assembled my axle back into my machine however first I swapped the front and middle sprockets locations, and then checked the chain for tension. First I backed off my forward tensioner 100% and then wrapped the chain with 1/2 link short, it appeared it would work with a master link so I removed the chain punched out a link and added a 1/2 link back in. Ah then comes the fight of drawing the chain together and installing master link which I managed without too much of a problem.

After much finaggling I got it to work and tensioned the chain. Wow that sucker is TIGHT NOW! Tighter than a N(*# C@*&

Assembled the chain cover and seat back in place, dropped my tyre pressures from 17 lbs to 1 1/2 lbs pressure and then took it for a run.

Wow what a machine with no chain chatter. Now I've got to see about shortening the LH side forward chain and getting it as tight as the right. I may even add a stationary idler that will load the middle sprocket more.

So while assembling the axle decided shoot some more images

Outer axle bearing with O ring inside for seal against water entering


dust/dirt seal and spring on axle ready to install


dust seal keeps most dirt out away from bearing seal



Here you can see how far out the axle rides from the bearing...NOT FAR


inside with sprocket in place on axle which is splined to shaft but not bolted yet


Locked down


Here screw driver is pointing to inner bearing, which is again right near sprocket, and that tube between ends is fully enclosed and filled with grease


looks funny like this but I can drive it like this


Anyway, I've a winch to finnish wiring up and that's it inside, so should get back at it.

I'll report back on how/if I can shorten the LH chain and keep chatter down. I'm quite excited to have this running kick ass.

Thanks for looking

[riotwarrior]

Out for a drive over to my buddy Brian's place to top up fuel tank and snapped a master link in RH front/md chain..DOH!

So removed the chain and drove home on RH rear and LH full side. Awkward but ya I made it.

Got the winch all wired up and working, I'm quite pleased that I'm only running the two wires out to winch from control as opposed to previous four wire setup.

I can now DUPLICATE that setup with some new solenoids for my rear winch setup. Excellent in deed as now I won't need to purchase a control box I can build one. Looks like some heavy duty solenoids from my stock of FORD solenoids will suffice just fine. I'll do some scrounging around and see what I can come up with.

Machine seems to be doing ok and sure hope I can locate some wheels soon and try out the run a muks as the bear claws are just way to grippy and don't slide well for steering in damp soil. I would think in thick mud they would be ideal but around the farm they seem way to grippy. Perhaps increasing tyre pressure from 1 1/2 lbs may offer a bit more crown..but no ride

Well that's bout it. I'm waiting on a friend to head out with his quad before I go far or out alone in bush and see how machine runs.

Thanks for reading