Garage tinkering today, might be interesting

[Doubletrouble]

 So I was in the garage today, bored. Had a 44" John Deere snow blower sitting around for a while. (Long story) and decided to see if I could adapt it somehow to my Kubota B5100 lawn tractor. 

 Tractor has a vertical PTO pulley and clutch up front and the blower has a horizontal belt drive so didn't see why this couldn't happen. I began to fab up a mount on the tractor to connect the quick connect hitch for the blower. So far so good. Have to fab a couple mounts for the idler pulleys to transition from horizontal to vertical to drive the blower. Then work out the lift system using the 3 point in the rear for now. Once I have the brackets and such mocked up and welded I'll clean them up some. The pics below are just rough mock ups right now. I think it'll work though. Just thought I'd share.

 

 And yes,.I know. The garage is a crazy mess.

[Dieselfuture]

My snow blower definitely got a lot of exercise this year and they keep talking chances of snow a few times a week. Temperature's been pretty cold too, dropping back down to negative 20s again brr 0 seems worm now . Not to derail this from the tractor and the snowblower thread

[Doubletrouble]

 They're saying we may get another 1-3 inches on Saturday. Got about an inch yesterday to. Be glad when spring gets here 

[JAG1]

6 hours ago, Dieselfuture said:

My snow blower definitely got a lot of exercise this year and they keep talking chances of snow a few times a week. Temperature's been pretty cold too, dropping back down to negative 20s again brr 0 seems worm now . Not to derail this from the tractor and the snowblower thread

He shoots beer cans out of it. Aims at neighbors. 

[Doubletrouble]

 I hope they're empties!

[dripley]

4 minutes ago, Doubletrouble said:

 I hope they're empties!

I hope @Dieselfuture knows that already. Empties for launching and cab corners. 

[Dieselfuture]

1 hour ago, JAG1 said:

He shoots beer cans out of it. Aims at neighbors. 

No way man I keep it to patch the truck 

[Doubletrouble]

 Right, you only throw full beers to people you like. Lol

[Dieselfuture]

12 minutes ago, dripley said:

I hope @Dieselfuture knows that already. Empties for launching and cab corners. 

Exactly

[Doubletrouble]

 Got the mounting brackets welded up today. My weld aren't pretty but they'll hold. Have to figure out the pulley placement next time I'm out there. Scavenged a couple of idler pulleys from some old wheel horse parts I have. No pics today but I'll get some tomorrow.

[Mopar1973Man]

I've got an option for about $2000 for a front mounted snow blower for my ATV but this winter has bee a joke. I've not even shoveled snow at home to clean the step but once. The storm that came did less than 1/2 inch last night. NOAA is calling for 4 to 8 inches here and +10 inch above 6000 feet. 

 

I know all you seen me pushing snow with my ATV... I've not even had a good chance at doing that this winter at all.

[Doubletrouble]

 It's been pretty mild here as well up until the past couple weeks. It hasn't been above 32° in two weeks. What snow has fallen is still on the ground. 

 This all started because I was bored. Lol My son brought this blower over here with intentions of selling it. He had it posted for a while with no interest, I was outside one day and got to looking at it and thought I could make it work on my tractor. Turned into a project to keep me busy for a bit. End result if it works out well will be I will sell my wheel horse tractor. It's a good little tractor with a 32" snowblower and a 36" mower deck. Which would be fine for a smaller yard. We have about 3 acres we mow. The wife has her rider also. So I'm thinking I can thin things out a bit. One more machine I won't have to maintain. 

 Been trying to get rid of things the past year to clean things up and minimize some what. It take alot if time and money to maintain so much machinery.

[Doubletrouble]

 Today the wife an I had some running to do so not alot of garage time today but I did get the lift part somewhat figured out. I will refine things and make improvements as I go. I'm sure I will run into an issue at some point and have to modify something. Like now, the lift rod is a bit to close to the tire. When turned all the way in either direction it will contact the rod.

 Loaded some pics for ya, and a short video if I can get it to load.

 

 Tried to load the video of it lifting but the video is to large. Sorry.

[Mopar1973Man]

15 hours ago, Doubletrouble said:

Tried to load the video of it lifting but the video is to large. Sorry.

Upload to Youtube...

 

I kind of like the old A/C compressor clutch idea for control of the belt to the snow blower. 

[Doubletrouble]

1 hour ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

I kind of like the old A/C compressor clutch idea for control of the belt to the snow blower. 

 I believe that clutch setup came with the woods belly mower arrangement. Might be a Kubota piece, not sure. It does look similar to an a/c compressor clutch though. I'm just hoping once I get the fan work done that the belt will follow the rout of the pulleys ok. The belt will have to go from the clutch down to an idler then turn horizontal to the tensioner but also twist to match the horizontal blower pulley in a short distance. Then same thing in reverse coming off the blower pulley on the way back to the clutch.

 We will see. If it does work I think this should be a useful attachment and bigger, more powerful than the one I use now.

[Doubletrouble]

 Ok, kinda stuck on the belt routing. Thinking about loosing the two small pulleys on the blower frame and mounting a fixed idler and a tension pulley near the bottom of the mount frame I made. It's where the belt would be redirected from vertical to horizontal. I was originally going to use the oem tensioner but I think it's just to compact there to tension it plus the belt will be twisting to align with the driven pulley on the blower.

 Any thoughts? 

 This is a crude drawing but something like this. I could put the tensioner on an arm with a spring to keep the belt tight. That way from the side the belt would be in an "L" shape and run straight on both vertical and horizontal planes and have enough room to for the 1/4 twist to realign for the pulleys.

 

[Dieselfuture]

Looks like you got the right idea

[JAG1]

Snows probably over, did you get it rigged up anyhow? 

[Doubletrouble]

 No, I didn't. I actually scraped the idea. There just isn't enough room to get the belt to twist and turn the way I need it to. Would have been neat to get it to work but I had to move in to other projects. 

[JAG1]

10 minutes ago, Doubletrouble said:

 No, I didn't. I actually scraped the idea. There just isn't enough room to get the belt to twist and turn the way I need it to. Would have been neat to get it to work but I had to move in to other projects. 

Oh well....Maybe Grainger sells a gear hosing that can get it from verticle to Horizontal . Anytime you build custom it generally takes a lot of time and enginuity sp.. Whenever MoparMan runs into something like this he goes smokes that funny tobacco for a solution to suddenly arise. Usually on the sofa when something like that occurs.

 

Happy Easter all you people out there, remember Jesus was resurrected on this day and remember how much he suffered for us. He stayed alive longer to make sure he loved us in in full and then some.