The Ox
The Woolly Booger's big brother — a riding lawn tractor converted to crawl on caged tracks instead of roll on tires, so hillside ground too steep or too soft for a wheeled mower stops being off-limits.
The MM Stable is a work in progress on this site — read this page as a reference and a preview of what's coming, not a build guide you can follow today. This one has a real dimensioned spec, but it hasn't been sourced, fabricated, or field-tested.
The donor is a Cub Cadet–class riding lawn tractor (the specific model isn't picked yet). What makes it The Ox instead of just a riding mower is a caged track kit wrapped around each rear tire — the same idea the Woolly Booger runs at RC scale, proven out full-size on a machine a person can actually ride.
The caged track kit
The track works like a bike or roller chain: alternating inner and outer links, each a flat-bar crossbar welded between two side plates, driven around a tensioner wheel. The plate lips cage the tire on both sides so it can't walk off under load — a simple weld project built from flat bar stock, made in quantity rather than machined. It's designed as one shared piece across the fleet, not a one-off: the same kit is meant to fit both the lawn-tractor donor here and the golf-cart donor The Shire uses, since both run on a similar rear tire.
Dimensioned so far
This is the one part of The Ox with a real parametric spec behind it (a track_link.py script), not just a plan — Zach already has an existing CAD file for the tensioner assembly. The numbers below are the script's typical/placeholder defaults, not a measured donor tire, and the script is built to be re-run once a real tire is measured.
- Target tire: 18" diameter, ~9.5" width for the mower donor (vs. ~8.5" for the golf-cart donor), 0.25" side clearance per side
- Side plate and crossbar stock: 0.25" × 1.50" flat bar
- Link pitch: 2.00" · pin diameter: 0.375" (hole oversized 0.03125") · plate gap: 0.0625"
- Tensioner wheel: 12" diameter · rear axle to tensioner center distance: 30"
- Derived: ~108.7" track loop, 56 links per track, ~102 lb of steel per track
- Placeholder cost (steel at $1.25/lb, pins at $0.60 each): ~$161.59 per track, ~$323 per pair
What's still open
- No specific donor tractor has been chosen — model and source are still TBD
- The tire dimensions above are typical defaults, not a real measurement — a donor tire needs to be measured and the script's Params re-run before the track spec is final
- Drivetrain: a shared tractor-transaxle-plus-belt-drive module is proposed for The Ox (and under consideration for Mammoth Jack), but not finalized
- Whether The Ox also adopts the fleet's proposed universal accessory plate (already planned for the Woolly Booger, Mammoth Jack, and Shire) hasn't been decided
Status
Concept stage — real dimensioned design work exists for the track conversion itself (a parametric script, derived numbers, an existing CAD file for the tensioner), but the vehicle as a whole still needs a donor sourced, a drivetrain decision, and real tire measurements before anything gets fabricated or field-tested. Same standard as every other concept-stage entry in the catalog.