Sorry- I've been slack, not keeping this up to date. It's a long term project, and progress is slow.
I recently acquired the front tires- Carlisle 13x6.50-6 on 6x6 Douglas aluminum kart rims. This past weekend, I started building my front end. The axle tube is 2x2" SHS, the knuckles are made of 5/16" steel plate. The spindles are old kart spindles that I'm reworking to suit the task.
As of right now, she is sitting on all fours, but much of the frontend is still in a mockup stage. I used old heim joints and scrap pipe to mock up the tie rod and drag link. Just yesterday, I picked up new joints. Tomorrow on lunch I'm running over to Fastenal to get some related NF hardware to go with them.
The caster at the axle is set to 14 1/2*, as the tractor sits raked at about 4 1/2*. This will leave me with an actual caster angle of about 10*. KPI is set to 10*.
I had to slice and bend the original kart steering arms to clear the deep dish of the rims. In the current position, I've a bit too much Ackermann. I'm probably going to cut the original arms off completely and make new ones. The "extra Ackermann" may not be much of a problem, though. It's not like I'm setting up for a particularly tight turning radius. The tracks are dirt, and the inside front won't have much weight on it.
There's still a TON of stuff I have to do to this. 90% of what you see is temporary, mocked up, or only tack-welded. And of course, the bodywork'll be dead last. I'll shoot detail pics of the frontend tomorrow.
