Your opinion of the BX Front Mounted Sweeper....

[Junkman]

I am looking for others experiences with the front mounted sweeper that Kubota sells for the BX series tractors. How long does it take you to install it from the time you remove the loader till you have the sweeper operational???? What is your opinion of the type of performance that it delivers?? Do you believe that it is worth what it costs and how often do you use it?????? thanks The Original Junk......

 

[Junkman]

Do you have the front mounted wheel kit and if so, do you believe that it is worth the cost that Kubota sells it for????? Have you used the sweeper without the wheel kit and what has been your experiances. What type of work do you do with your sweeper?????? thanks.....

 

[ccsial]

I bought a rear mounted sweeper around 1980 for my long blacktop driveway. It is lined with pines and has a lot of needles and cones dropped on it daily. The sweeper moved everything around but still left most of it on the driveway. I sold it after one year and bought a push type commercial driveway blower. I walk up and back once and it is perfect. The sweeper is probably better if you have heavy stuff to move.

 

[PineRidge]

Junk don't have a sweeper as you already know from our previous conversations. But at my last place we had a rather large parking area and drive that were all concrete. To keep it all clean we purchased a used commercial gas powered push blower. The whole drive and parking area could be cleaned and the machine put away in less time that it would take you to mount your Kubota sweeper on the BX.

 

[OrangeGuy]

Junkman,

I've been longing for a front mount sweeper for my Kubota F2260 front mower for years. I believe it is very similar to the BX sweeper. My current sweeper is a Sweepster 60" front mounted on my 20 HP Allis Chalmers 620 lawn and garden tractor. I use it primarily for sweeping the crushed limestone back onto the driveway that gets blown onto the lawn with my snowblower. I added guage wheels similar to the Kubota type a few years ago to control the sweeping height. This increased the ease of use significantly.

My rig works great except that it does not have the ability to manually or hydraulically angle. It has a fixed angle to the right. The problem is dust and dirt. When I sweep with the wind behind me, it works great. When the wind is in my face, it's almost impossible to see (and breathe). I usually perform the chore of sweeping the stone back onto the driveway over a week or two waiting for favorable wind conditions.

The Kubota with its hydraulic angle would be a dream. However, because the above described sweeping chore is 95% of my sweeping needs and a new Kubota sweeper is over $3000, I will continue to get by with my $150 sweeper.

OrangeGuy

 

[DannyD]

I will second PineRidge on the push type blowers. We just had the drive coated this year. While I had the drive very clean with my water broom etc, the guy took his Billy Goat blower and I would never have beleieved what else came off the drive in just dust. His machine had a 9 hp motor on it. Only thing with my drive is that I would hate pushing that thing up it since it pretty steep. I could go self propelled.

http://www.georgetownsmallengines.com/billygoat.html


this is what he had, and they do have selfpropelled

 

[Junkman]

That is the exact reason that I asked the question. I just had the top coat installed on the driveway and used the broom to clean it. It was a big pain to install the broom since the loader needs to be removed first, then put the valve back onto the tractor. Install the front quick hitch, a misnomer if I ever heard one. Install the center drive shaft, and then put the broom onto the quick hitch and get the broom drive shaft lined up with the quick hitch drive shaft. My best guess is that I wasted 30 minutes just doing this operation from start to finish. It will take at least half that to remove it. Once installed, it works well and I intend to use it for leaf clean up in the fall. Just wouldn't use it any other time of the year.
The Billy Goat does work well since that is what they used, but there was one area that needed to be broomed after they Goated it and that is why I got it out. It had rained the night before, and the blower will not move wet sand or dirt.

 

[ccsial]

I've though about welding a bracket to my blower and pinning it to the loader so I could drive it up the driveway. I decided the once a week walk is good exercise, but my drive has a gradual slope down and is not that hard to go back up. You could also mount it to a 3PH bracket. That would be cheaper and less maintenance that a self propelled unit plus you get to drive the tractor.

 

[MidMichigan]

The pain of hooking up the sweeper is why I use mine only fall and spring. In the fall after the mowing is done I hook everything up and use it for fall clean-up, then I put the snowblower on. Then in the spring I take the blower off and use the sweeper for spring clean-up before the mower goes back on. It does work well for cleaning walnuts out of the neighbor ladies yard.
Lisa

 

[kennyd]

This is the BLOWER you need!
The smallest one moves 3700+ CFM of air! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
I bet they are pricey /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif