Mudd Ox questions/Mudd Ox answers

[akexpress]

i don't think so as the first 4 Alaska machines were all high geared, our riding is at low elevations most of the time so we can get away with the higher gearing even with tracks in most conditions in that we have all the horse power available.

[hancock]

I see. I figured you had ordered those low geared since you had plans for tracks. I never did confirm with you if you actually ended up with a camo as originally planned?

Dunno at this point where the low gearing came from in mine. I guess Matt and I will work out the details for the replacement. No dealers in my immediate area, but Matt had assured me when I bought mine that if any warranty issues arose that couldn't be resolved easily, that he would send his guys this way in a truck with tools on board to solve the problem. He still owes me a heated throttle cable and a skid plate anyhow. Hopefully the gear replacement is within my capabilities to swap out (to save the trip from Ind). I'm looking forward to the laid back cruise down the woods road.

Incidentally, (speaking of the laid back cruise down the woods road), for those that aren't an advocate of the sticks for steering (vs. the handlebar like the Argo has): I have found that the sticks stay in place quite well for a cruise and you can fairly easily put the left stick in position and once you get the motion going you can basically steer with only your right hand on the right stick, manipulating the throttle and the right stick for steering, and have your left hand free for other activities, (sipping that adult beverage, etc.).

Hancock

[akexpress]

latest word is skid plates available the 30th of this month and the heated cable is very easy to put on and probably not necessary if you have any kind of cab enclosure because water won't enter the cable anyway. the gear change will probably take a couple of hours and a couple of adult beverages!!

[travisch]

Hancock - if the inner sprocket on the axle is 21 teeth you have a high geared machine. My machine has a 23 tooth inner sprocket - low gear and I ordered a set of 21 tooth sprockets for high gear which are sitting on the bench. Increasing the size of this sprocket increased the gear ratio (low gear)where a smaller sprocket lowers the ratio and increases speed. make sense?
Your GPS readings however indicate a lower speed then advertised. Why? that's the million dollar question.
Is you GPS off a bit. I know with my Garmin if I'm in a wooded area and only have locked onto a few satellites mine is less accurate then if I was out in the open country with many satellites. we need to look at other items such as throttle cable pull - is it actually opening the card all the way at full throttle. Is the govoner set properly - you would have to call Matt for this as he has a certain settin g for that motor.
With low gears (23 tooth) in my machine and a back pounding 10PSI in the tires I can run 16.6-17 mph on flat ground (no tracks) at 5200 feet elevation which is consistant with Matt's calculations for low gear.

[hancock]

My machine has a 23 tooth inner sprocket - low gear and I ordered a set of 21 tooth sprockets for high gear which are sitting on the bench. Increasing the size of this sprocket increased the gear ratio (low gear)where a smaller sprocket lowers the ratio and increases speed. make sense?

Interesting information, Travis. It is conflicting with information from others and I would wonder where the answer to the puzzle is at this point. Wayne has a high geared machine and has counted the teeth at 16, very close if not the same as the outer sprocket. Yes, it does make sense that increasing the sprocket would be the low gearing and mine being larger with 21 teeth is commensurate with this scenario. Also....... Mark has taken this information with the tooth count and has stated that I definitely have the low gearing, so I am guessing he has confirmed the low gearing for his machines to be 21. The GPS is extremely accurate, by the way. I have checked it on numerous occasion with the car and the road I have been checking the Ox on is not tree covered, although I do agree with you that tree cover would affect it if it were there. I already thought of the possibility of the throttle cable not opening the card all the way and checked this. It lacks about an eighth inch of pull or so but I don't believe enough to affect the top end speed.

Hancock

[travisch]

One major thing I forgot that needs to be taken into consideration is the type of wheel motor used. Mine has Poclain motors abut some have Sauer-Danfoss. Depending on the type of motor the primary (motor) and secondary (axle) sprockets will be different as each hydraulic motor has different specs.

[hancock]

You beat me to it. I was just logging back on to add that the sprocket size on the hydraulic drive could also affect the gear ratio, and possibly that is where the conflicting information is coming from. I didn't realize he changed up brands on the wheel motors. I don't know if the difference in the manufacturer is time driven, or random, and I don't remember when you bought your machine exactly. But, Wayne, Mark and I were all roughly around the same time frame, (Wayne a little earlier, actually), and I think yours was maybe a little later, so maybe that is the source of the conflict.

[akexpress]

what color are your motors, if they are yellow they are poclains.

[hancock]

They are yellow. I looked up the Poclain motor on the internet and mine don't look like the blue model they have advertised as the one they put in skid steer equipment, but they do look closer to that than anything I could find that Sauer-Danfoss had. I checked the tooth count on the sprockets on the hydraulic motors and that is 13, which is the same that Wayne had, however he had 16 on the axle whereas I'm at 21.

I guess the question would be if the two different types of hydraulic motors have the same tooth count on the associated sprockets at the motor. In other words, either Wayne and I have DIFFERENT hydraulic motors but the SAME tooth count on the motor, or we have the SAME motor and he has the high gear and I have the low.

I thought we were onto something there at first, and to be honest I was hoping the problem was going to be that mine had the low gearing erroneously. Than would be somewhat of an easy answer to the speed, and at least some of the heat issues. If the yellow color defines the motor as Poclain, and Poclain only........ and if the high gear tooth count on the axle sprocket is 21 with Proclain.....then I guess it's back to the drawing board.

Which do you have, Mark? Poclains or the Sauer-Danfoss? I'm guessing Poclain by virtue of the fact that you know the color, but then again I would think if 21 teeth on the gear meant low gearing to you, then it would be the Sauers.



Thanks for the info
Hancock

[hancock]

Here's whats on board: 13 teeth at the motor and 21 at the axle.

[akexpress]

I have a machine with the same yellow poclain as you a different variation of hoses but the same motor i will count both sets of teeth tonight and get back to you as I know i have the high gearing on my black machine.

[hancock]

Thanks AK, but i think we finally have a verdict. Matt called and left a message yesterday and confirmed with me that it is indeed the high gear set-up. I just left for work for 4 days and forgot my phone, (sorry Matt), but I will call you when I get back and we can discuss the other areas you had for me to check out. (There is both an up side and a down side with forgetting your phone). If the low gearing were the problem, it would have been a "comfortable" fix. I hope there are some other reasonably easy avenues to get the speed up close to where it should be. It's roughly 25% off of what's expected at this point.

I've received some good photos of Aussie's muffler and exhaust adjustments and plan on pursuing that before too long.

Hancock

[FGuedon]

Hot Mudd Ox

I now have about 60 hours on My Mudd Ox here in very hot Mississippi. The heat under my seat with the cab and windshield was unbearable! Taking them off helped a lot but it still felt like I was driving an old 5020 John Deere tractor on my fathers farm. The engine also got hot, but not the hydraulics. I added a tachometer and a temperature guage to my engine. The temperature on a bolt next to the dipstick, where I put the underbolt temp guage, would get over 255 degrees farenheit when driven hard. My solution was to put another fan exactly like the one for the engine under the seat, blowing over both hydraulic motors. Before I put this fan on, I had already put a small 7 inch cab type fan under the passenger handle bar to blow across the legs. These two additions have made the under the seat heat much better and lowered my temperature on the motor by about 10 degrees. To keep my battery from going dead I added a large marine battery, from Walmart, with one of there battery boxes for a trolling motor, in the back compartment and connected it in parallel with the battery using 4 guage starter cables. I also have extra lights on the roll bar, a commercial radio, and a sony am/fm/cd player connected. I can spot light varmints all night before my set up runs dead. I charge the battery over night every night and this works well. However, when I drive it hard, loaded, during the hot day, my temp will go up to 260 degrees. If I drive slow for a while, it comes right back down. I have already ordered a fan from the "Fan Man", that doubles the cfm and will fit in the stock place. Then all I should need is the alternator upgrade. By the way, the 10 inch fan fits perfectly under the seat Matt, hint, hint, hint...

[Matt O.]

FGuedon,
Please give me a call at the shop 260-768-7221 The 2010 Mudd-Ox has a large engine bay fan that has a much higher CFM rating. This might be the very same one you ordered from the fan man. If so I will send you a mounting bracket that will make the fan change easy. I also have the 105 amp alternator systems.

Matt

[Amphiman1]

mudd ox

What kind of warrenty do these machines come with? even after problems arise and cures are made, is it still under warrenty? parts too?