SpudFiles

I am trying to make a vehicle powered by a 4.5hp lawn mower engine. The shaft rotates on the bottom though, and I need to somehow gear it or belt it to spin upright so it can spin the wheels. I sound like an idiot but I don't know how to word it. Here is a pic of what I have and what I want. What is the simplest and cheapest way to do this?

This I know about!!!!! Instead of a belt, use a bike type sort of chain, and weld a sprocket to the shaft and a sprocket to the axl that the wheels are on!! Picture how you pedal a bicycle, but instead of the pedals, you are using your shaft to make the wheels turn. I made a hundred go carts when I was your age. Any other questions, feel free to ask me!!

So you need to get your "transmission" spinning about the X axis, rather than the Y?
You may be able to cannibalize the gears from a small outboard motor. Hell, even an angle grinder gearbox may be able to handle a 4.5hp motor. You'll most likely need a welder however you slice it.

Haha but the shaft faces down and the wheel is perpendicular to it so my question was regarding the 90 deg angle.

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Unless the gas tank has to be on top, just rotate the engine. And if that can't happen because of the gas tank, take it off and replace it with one that can go up and down.

Warhead, it's not the gas but the oil.

Fnord and SB, thanks for the info, I'll have to look around.

Gun Freak wrote:Warhead, it's not the gas but the oil.

Fnord and SB, thanks for the info, I'll have to look around.

Can you post a picture of the engine? I may be able to help you, last summer my hobby was taking apart old lawn mower engines, so I have a bit of experience with them.

As SB said, a dif is the way to go, unless you only need one wheel driven, then and set of bevel gears will work, try a metal scrap yard or wreckers, there'll be difs galore.

(Dif=differential)

Edit: Just thought I'd add, if you can get a large chainsaw instead, that would work very well, there used to be turbo charged saws I believe.

Well we got two push mowers out of a trash pile and we got the first one up and running, took the exhaust off and it is loud as hell I am going to have to keep an eye out around to see if I can pick up any old things that might work, or maybe we can head over to a scrap yard when we get the time.

I have an idea to use a belt instead of gears, and maybe the belt could run on one pully under the engine (Y axis) and the second pully would be on the axel (X axis) which means the belt turns 90 degrees. Would that work? Are there special belts made for these turns or will any belt work?

Don't know if you can view this without joining.

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/AFUvTlAlSd ... arts-2.pdf

If you can view it, you'll see the idler and mounting assembly from a Case garden tractor...used to mount the mower.

The belt comes off the horizontal pulley (on the mower deck) takes a half twist, runs around the idler and tensioner pulleys, takes another half twist, and lines up with the (vertical) clutch on the front of the engine.

Exactly what you want to do...in reverse. V-belts with kevlar last longer for power transmission.

Thanks Gippeto. Our options now are to turn a belt 90 degrees or use an old transmission that will come out of the shaft and spin the axel. So far the transmission is our best option but we have to get a cheap one.

can't you just get a 90deg gearbox?

Yeah I could, I'm looking around for anything that will work.

google 90 degree gearbox... I don't think it is a good idea to improvise with something that spinns really fast and to make matters worse you've got to sit on it

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dalton-Gear-90-degr ... 4aa9f2ba9d