PTO shaft questions

[jim_wilson]

I just recently acquired a 54" snowblower to go on the back of my BX23. It is a Loftness snowblower originally intended to be used on a large Jacobsen golf course mowing machine. Since it was not originally setup to be used on a tractor I have to do a little bit of adaptation to make it work on the BX. Before buying I checked with Loftness to make sure this would work and they confirmed that the basic snowblower unit on their blowers is all the same and it just gets adapted to each particular installation. So I am in the process of making a 3pt setup to get it hooked up to my tractor.
The blower had a gear reduction unit on it that was mounted on the 90 degree gearbox that drives the chain drive for the auger. I removed that reduction unit ( the original install had a 2000 rpm PTO) and now the shaft that I have coming out of the gearbox is about 1" in diameter and has one keyway in it and a hole drilled crossways thru the shaft that is about 5/16 in diameter. The PTO hookup on the back of the BX is multi splined - I think it has 6 splines. Since I know nothing about PTO shafts my question is this - will I be able to buy a PTO driveshaft that will go from the BX to the gearbox on the blower? Or will I have to get some sort of adapter on the blower end to hookup to the PTO shaft? Is this a common setup - are the ends different for a reason - like so you can only hook up the PTO driveshaft one way.

 

[johan3400]

You should be able to get a pto shaft to work. This seems to be a common size. The Pto on the tractor should be 1 3/8 inch 6 spline. Make sure to measure the shaft on the blower and the keyway. Most Ag dealers would be able to set you up or maybe TSC. You will also want to get the correct weight of shaft. There are three common sizes of PTO joints and shafts. I think you will want to be heavy enough. Would love to see some pictures when you are done.

 

[Jim_Fisher]

Jim,

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( the shaft that I have coming out of the gearbox is about 1" in diameter and has one keyway in it and a hole drilled crossways thru the shaft that is about 5/16 in diameter. The PTO hookup on the back of the BX is multi splined - I think it has 6 splines. Since I know nothing about PTO shafts my question is this - will I be able to buy a PTO driveshaft that will go from the BX to the gearbox on the blower? )</font>


You should be able to buy what you need at a good farm supply store. You can also get the shaft and yoke that you need from Valu-Bilt.

Heavier shafts are available. You may want to put a bolt through the existing hole as a shear pin rather than use the keyway or add a slip clutch to protect the blower in case you pick up a rock.

 

[jim_wilson]

I was wondering about the slip clutch thing too - there doesn't appear to be a shear bolt anywhere I can find on the blower. I think a slip clutch would be better anyway even if it is more expensive because if I did pick something up I wouldn't have to go and replace the bolt afterwards to get back in business.

I've got a shot of the blower attached - it shows the original frame that came with it for mounting it to the golf course mower and it also show the electric chute rotation motor. I'm going to try and figure out a way of using a joystick to do the chute rotation and chute deflector movement. I already started cutting up the mounting frame and welding it back together to make a 3pt mount. I need some more steel but hope to get it done in a week or so. Hopefully we will get a couple of storms before the winter ends so I can try the thing out.