Torque Converter with Wider "gear" Range?

[l008com]

I've been looking around at various gearbox options trying to find something that would suit my needs. Plenty of Reverse gearboxes out there, but I was looking for something that had a normal forward, and a low range forward, plus reverse. OR something that was just a semiauto manual with 3 or 4 gears. But I didn't find much that would suit this cheap old kart.

OH yeah btw it's a Manco Dingo 285 with a 6.5hp Subaru Robin. I pretty much never use it because I live in the suburbs but in theory, I Like to buz around in the thing from time to time.

So anyway, the other day, I was thinking maybe I'm making this too complex a problem. Are there torque converters out there that have a wider overall gear range? Something I could install that I could pair with the right sprockets that would give me the same top gear I have now, but ideally a much lower low gear?

The idea here is that i'd like to use this thing as a toy to screw around in sometime, hence the factory gearings. But I'd also like to use it as a utility vehicle sometimes, hence the lower range.

Long ago (about 20 years ago) when I was building trails with this thing, I got a cheap riding mower trailer, welded a hitch on to this cart, and would go down to my spot and dig dirt from up high, and pill in spots down low. I burned out my belt in no time so when I replaced it, i got a normal sized one, and I also got a longer belt along with a larger driven pulley. This gave me a lower gear. But because only the driven pulley was sized up, I wasn't getting the full range of the unit. The drive pulley couldn't pull the belt all the way tight in the larger driven pulley. Also the larger pulley was only I believe an inch larger in diameter. Which isn't nothing, I'd honestly love a low gear that is 2:1 x the normal low gear.

I have a 5x8 utility trailer, the kind of trailer you tow behind a car, the kind of trailer you would transport a go kart with. I had it in my back yard full of sticks and I didn't want to drive my truck on the grass. So I hooked it up to my kart and tried to pull it on to the drivway with that. But it was slightly uphill and my kart just couldn't get the job done. This was with the factory sized torque converter.

Anyway, I don't plan on towing car trailers any time soon with my dingo but theres a good chance ill be dragging large pieces of fallen trees around and who knows what else.

 

[MWKarter]

Years ago, I had a riding mower with a 3 speed? with reverse gearbox. I believe that it was a Snapper, rear engine type, 28 or 30” cut. Something like that might work.

 

[Snaker]

If you really want to screw around you could play with a second CVT used as a "range" trasmission.

People have bounced around the idea of having 2 standard CVT's in line.
Not sure about that setup.
I could see the two CVT's conflicting with each other because each has a rpm sensing drive and a torque sensing driven that may fight they other.

But there have been a lot of CVT's built and many don't use rpm or torque sensing.
Some use a operator controlled linkage through a "throwout" type bearing to move the drive pulley movable sheave instead of using the flyweights.
The driven torque sensing would replaced with a simple lateral movement movable sheave setup
I could see that making a fine range transmission to work in conjunction with the regular CVT

 

[MWKarter]

If you really want to screw around you could play with a second CVT used as a "range" trasmission.

People have bounced around the idea of having 2 standard CVT's in line.
Not sure about that setup.
I could see the two CVT's conflicting with each other because each has a rpm sensing drive and a torque sensing driven that may fight they other.

But there have been a lot of CVT's built and many don't use rpm or torque sensing.
Some use a operator controlled linkage through a "throwout" type bearing to move the drive pulley movable sheave instead of using the flyweights.
The driven torque sensing would replaced with a simple lateral movement movable sheave setup
I could see that making a fine range transmission to work in conjunction with the regular CVT

Clausing Lathes used a setup like that for variable speed. It would just take making up an adjustable sheave on the driver of the second CVT so that it would be fixed.

 

[MWKarter]

Used to put a device called a Graphmaster, (2- speed gearbox), behind the transmission in ’55 Ford P/U to give them overdrive. And then there is this:

which is a little crude but would work.