Stuff that happens when your son is an M.E. student

Bryce's Senior project in Mechanical Engineering is an electric race car. It's a group project but he thought for fun he would build a push vehicle to move the race car around. The race car has a monster electric motor and its batteries and it's pretty heavy.

He found an big old tractor riding lawn mower for $0 and stripped everything off it but the frame, steering and differential. He welded a motor stand on the back and bought a Harbour Freight 6.5 hp horizontal shaft engine centrifugal clutch and heavy chain. Milled out the gears he needed to connect it to the differential and it all looked good as a plan.

Then it got cold...progress was barely creeping along. With some clever maneuvering and the fact that no women live in this house the boys brought it into to kitchen. The kitchen with new solid wood oak floors. I would go take a pictures but I don't think things are going well right now. I'll wait 'till tomorrow.

I have been soaking aluminum intakes and valve covers in hot soapy water in the kitchen sink all weekend so I'm not innocent.

this sounds amazing! would love to see some pictures of the process

Man, I was afraid to read this post at first, all I could think was Medical Examiner !, what kind home work would that be !!

Very cool!

Don't rule out using the dishwasher for cleaning up stuff...
just don't get caught...

They got the diff out last night. They are taking it to the lab at the university to pull some stubborn gears.