PTO drive mixer

[Matyac]

My dad and I are looking for an all purpose PTO drive mixer to go in halves on. Does anyone have any experience/advice with these mixers?

I see that Gearmore has one with 11 CF capacity and a hydraulic dump. I haven't had a chance to get pricing on it yet. I'm assuming it will be a special order item at most dealers.

Best,

-Scott

[centex]

The biggest problem with them is the PTO drive. Dumping and raising the mixer causes a very big change in length of the PTO drive shaft. You have to shorten it so that it cannot bind and break something and then you cannot lift the mixer high enough to dump into a wheelbarrow. If you lower the drum to make loading it easier the drive shaft comes apart. You have to do a good bit of experimentation to determine what lift height you can use and not have too large of an angle on the u-joints when you dump. You have to be able to back up to the form to dump the load. The solution is to use a hydraulic drive for the mixer. That is what I plan to do when I get the time and money to buy a hydraulic motor. I don't know if anyone makes one with a hydraulic drive but I would look for one if I were buying another. An electric motor could be rigged up but I want the tractor/mixer to be independent for remote use. I think you are right about no one stocking them. I had to order mine. If I had seen it on a tractor and tried it out I would not have bought it. They are very expensive for something that does not work too well and needs a lot of modification to make them usable.

[DDT]

The one I have runs from PTO but the hyd dump just dumps the barrel. there is a small hard tire under the drum that spins the load. How ever if the tire gets wet it slips & does not turn the drum very well. I remove the rubber and welded 1/2" round rod across the drive wheel, then welded the same rods to the drum. it is now a gear drive mixer. It is alittle loader but does work great.

[Matyac]

Just a follow up on the Gearmore PTO mixer. My dad bought it last week, and we took to my place this weekend to pour ten 36" x 8" round, reinforced concrete pylons for supporting my carport. The mixer worked very well, and we were able to dump three 90 pound bags of redimix into the barrel at one time. We were only mixing three at a time because it took a certain about of time to spoon feed the concrete into the forms. I'm convinced that we could have easliy done six or more bags at a time if we needed the conrete fast, such as when pouring a patio slab or walkway. The hydraulic dump worked perfectly, and we were able to pour directly into a wheelbarrow. We did have to shorten the drive shaft by 2" to keep it from bottoming out, but it didn't fall off with any combination of lift and tilt (although we are careful not put an excessive angle on the u-joints. All in all, two big thumbs up!

Best regards,

-Scott

[mrcaptainbob]

Any pics available? Sounds like a neat addition....