DIY Half Track for Riding Mower 

For those of you that are considering this go for it! I have one almost identical build, but after I drilled a hole towards the rear axle on the square tubing and mounted a 100lb weight from my basement it makes a world of difference along with the wheel weights. If we get a lot of really wet heavy snow I'll even throw another 50lb weight on top of the 100 and it has no problems.

looking good 👍.... Here is a little trick to keep in mind,,,,, de-flate your tires , make your adjustments to your tracks and then re-inflate tires back up to get a little more tension on tracks..

Awesome! I told my wife I was going to do that she said I was crazy. But I told her, there’s gonna be somebody else from the Midwest who thinks like me. LOL I love the design.

I am throughly amazed that they stay on, have enough down pressure in the rear to help assist the plow and that it steers as well as it does. Congrats.

The beauty of this design looks like it's ease of disassembly back to lawn mowing duty. Not bad! And that sure does push the snow....super impressed!

I used to do Cub Loboy Conversions. You could make them full track so long as you explained to the owners not to try to lock the differential and to lightly skid steer so as to save the brakes. One of the companies that had the NOS brakes in stock got to realizing why I was going through so many and they cut me off. I went out and bought as many rear ends as I could just to build them. I think in total we did 12. A popular engine was IH imported Mitsubishi small diesels like in Toro's so if the gas engine was blown up we went to diesel. People got to restoring Cub's and they dried up for conversions. It is quite wonderful to see people not only come up with good ideas but also follow through. Bravo.

Brilliant. I love the simple engineering and effective results.

Well, at least it's a useful tool! Now he just needs to build a snowblower for the front. Great job!

Looks like they are working very well,nice job and simple as well

Credit where credit is due. That’s pretty genius my dude.

Bro that’s pretty slick. Nice work

going to do this with my 70's case lawn tractor, using a rear axle from an old yard machines riding mower, and using old car tires with cleats riveted to the outside for tracks. wish me luck! going to record it and put it on my channel. very well done, good video.

Nice job. Simple and elegant. A great idea.

Definitely going somewhere with it. Few suggestions 1. Put your winch controller on your shifter. Then you dont have to move back and forth. 2. Put a shock pushing down on the tracks to keep some down pressure. 3. Get a heavy duty truck shock or similar and use it as the track tensioner. That way it auto adjusts

Smart idea hope it keeps working for you.

Boy that thing can really push snow!-- thanks for taking the time to show this. I like the idea of a half track for a garden tractor. They even market them in Europe (Hensutracks for example but i have never seen one up close). But a lawn mower like this, used regularly like this (plowing significant amounts of snow each year for example), simply will not hold together for long. After a few years the frame will start to bend or the front end will collapse or the drive-train will have issues. A lawn tractor like the Craftsman being used is built mainly for lawn mowing and light towing (about 300 pounds or less weight) and the units themselves typically weigh about 500 lbs or less. Even if they make a snow plow for the machine it doesn't have the beef necessary for the machine to hold up if the driveway being plowed is more than about 25 feet long with an annual snowfall of more than 25 inches per year and you are careful not to strike any immovable object under the snow (like a sturdy tree stump near the driveway not seen under the snow). The frames, the drive-trains, the axles, the axle housings, the front end (usually no bearings just bushings, weak front axle, narrow spindles, weak steering links, etc) just aren't designed for heavy duty work like plowing significant amounts of snow each year, tilling soil, pulling heavy weights, etc. If you are very careful with the machine it might last 20 years mowing an acre and a half but only with a lot of attention placed on servicing the machine including the front end bushings, not abusing it in any way, not using it for ground engaging activities, never hitting a solid tree stump by accident with the mowing deck, etc. These are not real garden tractors which can do ground engaging activities successfully so your half tracks are terrific if applied to a real garden tractor (of which there are not too many brands around these days, like their used to be back in the late 60s and 1970s. After the early 80s year-by-year they simply faded away as more and more people bought inexpensive and perfectly fine lawn mowing "tractors" which look like a tractor (for the coolness factor) but simply cannot do heavy work but which cost a lot less $$.) It would be great to see you apply this to a 1970s Cub Cadet, Bolens, Case, Gravely, etc, garden tractor.

I have 2 LT1000's. One is shiny, waxed and bone stock for mowing grass, named "Abel". The other ("Cain") has no deck, a dozer blade from my old water heater, 22" ATV tires filled with water and alcohol, and 75lbs of barbell weights bolted to the back plate. 18-1/2 hp Briggs and he does well; I push mountains of leaves, gravel, dirt or mulch. Spins occasionally and I'd love to halfback it, but not so much that I'd spend the time, because the rough old cod does well enough.

when you slide the large-diameter pipe spacer, lubricate it on the inside with cheap lube. it will keep moisture away and will not allow the pipe and the axle to corrode.

That’s awesome! Now I’m considering doing that myself lol🤘🏼

I like how simple you made these tracks, and the quality of the video! I would have made the trackers a little wider they look close to the edge of the wheels and also maybe for tension something like a turnbuckle would be more durable! however excellent video, keep up the good work

I'll do this pretty cool Idea. Ill change a few things but the concept is solid. I have everything in the barn tracks and all.

Buddy that is very cool i realy like that mower now great job

What a great idea! I can’t think of a simpler way to do this with. To make things easier drilling larger holes, make a pilot hole using a smaller diameter drill bit. Also when drilling longer items clamp the long end or work where the piece will spin away from you if the drill bit grabs. This will save you a surprise or injury when the drill bit breaks thru and spins the piece on you. Great job designing this and building it.

Thats an awesome idea ! Thanks for sharing!

Looking at doing something similar to a mobility scooter that I want to use working around my property, but the land is a bit too rough for its current wheel setup. Nice easy to understand, mechanically simple build.

I have been watching some videos of guys building "Mud Mowers" and cant help but think your track devise here might be something that would work well on those "Offroad Mowers". Cool little build.

Excellent video. Simple design, and seems like it made a huge difference on you being able to really push that snow. Im sure you already have plans to perfect it, but so far so good ! Good job!

I think now you need a bigger snow blade... LOL you've got plenty of traction. Great design and video. Thanks

Dude I gotta give you credit bro ... I skipped thru ur vid to see the finished product and I was like "ain't no way it'll work" .. for sure I thought you were gonna chuck the track but I stand corrected bro you did good lol 👍👍

Very nice. Do the tracks ever slide off the side of the tire? What keeps them aligned? Do you think adding wheel weights to rear tires would be benificial for traction? Would rigging independant tire brakes assist in turning in deep snow? I can see optional 4x6 conversion using same setup with a threaded guide instead of a wratchet strap and welded spokes and chains. You would just have to exchange spacer and tires equal in size to the back tires of the tractor. Great job.

You definately need to rig that snowblower on to it!

Good job though.!! Little ingenuity goes a long way.

I see a lot of people talking a lot of shit about it. I own the very same mower but plain stock and it sure as hell wouldn't do anything like that so seems like you're doing something right.

great thank you for the information and I will keep you posted on my 318 build

I truly think you have a great mind What you have made will put do the old machine

Fantastic diy!

Saw your video a few days ago and decided to give it a try. My tracks stay on for about 60 seconds and fall off. Did you grind out all the nipples from the inside by chance? I don’t want to put angle iron on the sides so I don’t rip the tires apart by accident... I’ve tried offsetting my bogies, dropping the tire pressure to flatten the tire profile (mine are quite round) and tightening the tension extremely tight... next I might use the drive wheel from the skidoo as bogies to keep them in line. Any other suggestions?

This is incredible. How has it been working since you first built it? Any mods since?

This is the second greatest video on RU-vid!

That is so cool great job

If you make a pulled tarp w/motor, you can bulldoze snow high onto it, flip on the motor, and move all the snow to a singular pile on the side. I've seen winched pull tarps for the back of trucks, really cheap.

Realy good job man and simple and simple mantaince and it should realy work

How well do snowmobile tracks hold up on off road use. Thinking something like this would be useful on my woodsy gield property.

nice job thats very cool and you dont see any thing like this..i just use a 1964 cub cadet 100 that has a drive shaft i use for snow plowing mowing and brinly plow you can plow a Garden or plow field with it,its very fun,i seen this and might try it on my cub,i do have videos on my cub cadet.

Can’t argue with results 🤔

great work! hey when you put your bolts through hitch you might want to put a piece of square wood inside to keep it from collapsing over time.

Unique and well done. The only detriment is the hydrostatic transaxles on those mowers that are made by M.T.D. They are extremely weak and barely hold up under normal use. When they break(and all do!) the cost to repair far exceeds what the mowers are worth. You can already hear it whining excessively on the mower in the video and that is the sound of death for those transaxles. I have a mower graveyard full of those broken transaxles

That's pretty cool. Now you need them movable wings to cup the snow pile.

I like the simple design. Imma try a similar design for a Subaru gl sitting in my buddy's yard. The fronts are gonna be a little tricky buti think I got something in mind

cool, but think your only getting more traction at the main wheel, not all the track, needs weight at the back of track to hold them down.

Very cool vid. Also I gave you your 1,000th up vote.... yayyy

I bet the neighbors appreciate hearing a lawn mower at midnight, lol.

Works good! Like said below use a turnbuckle and add some weight on that rear most axle and that thing will really dig. Also if you had just used twist chain for snow chains and not the V-Bar it wouldn't have damaged you asphalt...

That's awesome! You have a new Sub!

Very cool. Good job

Bravo ! Should have incorporated a coil spring inside the square tube for track tensioning .

Excellent video... man, I'm going to subscribe and post a comment since you need more of both. Really neat cost effective system design. The only thing I can think of for more performance enhancement might be suspension on each track to keep tension on the rear wheel track area more. Thanks for sharing!

I like it ! good job .

How did your drive belts on the mower hold up?

I am impressed !

Hi auper project !!! Can I use part of your video to my compilation homemade inventions ?

Brilliant concept! Very nicely done. I would suggest using a heavy spring for track tensioning (like my bulldozer), and using the ratchet strap for compressing the spring for installation. I'm thinking compact snow and ice build up between the tracks and wheels might pop the strap. I see a patent for a kit in your future.

How’s the traction when pushing since you only have any real weight on the very front of the tracks?

That's pretty cool, but why are you piling up the snow by the garage?

At first I agreed that it needed a downward pressure device. After watching it in action, I believe he achieved that goal by the angle of the pressure bar pushing on the rear axle assy.. All I can say is you must have done something right, or it wouldn't have worked as well as it did. When the tracks spun, you made even gouge marks directly beneath all 4 tires, so you must have equal pressure on the rear. Great job.

hey iknowaguy is there any way you cam make a video of how you mounted the wench to raise and lower you plow blade please...

Bet your neighbors love you..

Why do you have the mower deck on? Late grass perhaps?

that was awesome!

Impressive it still turns I thought it would just go straight must be the limited slip

Let air out of the tires, pull the tracks tight and then add air again. Should be pretty easy and tight. Is the tractor still clearing snow?

where did you find that hitch attachment bracket? i need that with the ball hitch and the small hole for smaller pin attachments? i got a DYT4000 craftsman

Very nice ! Have your tracks ever popped off on you????

This is a nice design if I every get my hands on tread like that for cheap I'll make a similar set up but I'd put a shock from the front fork of a motorcycle in instead of the ratchet strap.

Angle your blade one wayor the other it would save lots of time having to keep going over spots you already have.

.lmao..this is the first time i had ever saw any one wearing a hellment on a mower..& Lights on one either..but what ever floats your boat !

Cool Man …. Time to jerry rig your self a snow blower attachment on the from of that !!!! Only then will you be the proud owner of a snow tank …. I love snow tanks !!!!

Where did you get the tracks ?

Like your half track if I try i wanna use a turnbuckle for the ratchet strap

Bruh that is amazing

good work

😂 what did i just watch. Super cool!

Good job.

how harder is it on the transmission ?

👍 Sehr gute Idee !

That is really cool. Good suggesting yt!

Hey kid simplify your track adjuster with a turnbuckle, put a hundred lbs. weight on the back of your track axle and buy a snow blower to mount of the front of your little half track.

Awesome idea great build but you should be pushing your snow further because when that pile freezes you wont be able to move it

The helpet was a nice tutch haha

Good idea but no rear tracton and my opnion is to cut 1/3 of the track off so you have a shorter length

Cool idea

What are u going do win its wanting to go left or right

nice job

What keeps the tracks from walking off the wheels? How do you get any traction pressure beyond just the weight of the track rig?

that is sweet man

When doing snowremoval the very first time you move snow youneed to push it to it furthest put right off the bat because snow encroaches on your driveway very quickly

I’d go larger blade as well so it can move more meters as it has the traction

I thought that I had seen everything before I saw this video

Hey I have a question for you, have you ever had an issue with the tracks trying to come off while driving?

Lol, I like the name of your channel. Interesting idea you got here. It's been a couple seasons, how's it holding up?