Snowblower Snowblower modification front to rear?

   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #1  

SailTrac

New member
Joined
Oct 10, 2005
Messages
13
Location
On the shores of Lake Ontario in the heart of Lake
Tractor
BX2200
Hoping I have this in the correct forum. I have a BX2200 and I have a front mounted snowblower off of an old Ariens GT17. The blower is 48" and worked great on the Ariens. I am thinking about hooking this up to the 3pt hitch, less $$$. However I have questions, do I need to worry about RPM speeds between the tractors and am I in trouble with the rotation of the rear PTO vs the front PTO off the Ariens? I would hate to hook this up to the rear PTO and blow the gear box, same thing goes with putting it on the front as well!! This is my first post, I have been a "lurker" gleaming knowledge and sage advice quietly in the back ground. Thanks in advice. Mike
 
   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #2  
Do you know the rpm and direction of rotation of the Ariens? If not, I'm sure other TBNers can help out. If both are the same as your BX, then no problem. If only one of them is different, then big problems. If both are different, then maybe fewer problems. I converted a Kubota K420 tiller from 3ph to front mount. The tiller was designed for 540 rpm and the low range pto speed on my F2400 is 1100 rpm. Also the direction of rotations were opposite. I overcame this by putting a 2:1 reversing gear reducer (cost about $50 used) on the drive of the tiller. This corrected both the rpm and direction of rotation. The atached picture shows the added transfer case at the tiller end of the drive shaft. It works great. I hope you have the same luck! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

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   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #3  
That tiller is interesting. Do you drive backwards to till?

A more overall pic would be great.
Good design and pic of the gearbox addition.
 
   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #4  
<font color="red">Snowblower FRONT: </font>
fs.jpg


<font color="red">Snowblower REAR: </font>
rs.jpg
 
   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #5  
The orientation of the tiller hasn't changed so I use forward motion for most of the tilling. However this does leave tire marks on the tilled area, so for the final pass I often do a pass in reverse. One modification that may be a little different is that I mounted a hydraulic cylinder on the top of the tiller body to control the angle of the rear flap via a cable. Attached is a larger picture of the unit. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 

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   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #7  
I went thru this same thing last year - I also was thinking of adapting a front mount blower to my BX23 and using it off of the rear PTO. There are two things you have to worry about - the rotation direction of the PTO shaft and the speed. The rear and mid PTO's on the BX do not spin at the same speed. The rear PTO is a "540rpm" PTO - I believe the mid PTO on the BX is a 2000 rpm.

I believe the rear PTO on the BX spins in a clockwise direction ( if you are looking at it from the back of the tractor). The easiest way to figure out whether the blower was designed to spin in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction is to look at the 2nd stage paddles and see which direction they would work to throw the snow up the discharge chute. If you check out pretty much any of the 3pt mount rear snowblowers they are all setup to spin in a clockwise direction so I think this may be the standard for rear 540rpm PTO's.
 
   / Snowblower modification front to rear?
  • Thread Starter
#8  
Jim, thanks for the reply. The paddles on the blower off the Ariens do run in counter clockwise motion. So thats strike one. I emailed Ariens corp, and they were nice enough to tell me that the front pto on the Arien runs at engine speed, which is 3000rpm plus. So that would be strike two. Unless somebody knows of a PTO reversing speed increasing device that I could put between the tractor and blower. I did try googling it with no success. Looks like I am SOL. Thank you to all who replied. if I pull the trigger on new blower I will post a picture of it blowing some lake effect.
 
   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #9  
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Unless somebody knows of a PTO reversing speed increasing device that I could put between the tractor and blower. )</font>

These guys ( Hub City ) make them. Surplus Center sometimes has some of their product in stock.

Whether it would be workable or economical in your situation I don't know.
 
   / Snowblower modification front to rear? #10  
The only place I can think of where you might be able to get a gearbox that would do speed reduction and direction reversal is at www.surpluscenter.com. I know speed reducers exist ( the blower I adapted had one on it) and I know you can get direction reversers, but I don't recall ever seeing both in one device. You could of course add one of each device to adapt the blower but I think by the time you did that you would be money ahead to just sell the Ariens blower and find a true 3pt - 540rpm blower. They aren't hugely expensive - like the front mount ones. You might find a used one for $1000 or less if you are lucky.
 
 
 
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