Snapper 3pt tiller? And wow, that's the last place I expected to break it...

[whodat90]

A while back I saw a tiller in the paper. $500 for the tiller and a handful of other implements. Bought it.

The tiller is red, and has snapper written on it. Has a slip clutch on the intermediate shaft; appears about 42" wide. Chain drive. Has a ~2:1 reduction on the input gearbox, a ~2:1 reduction in the primary chain, and a ~2:1 reduction on the final drive chain. Total of about 10:1 reduction from pto speed. Spun way too slow for my tastes. Originally I regeared the intermediate to 1.75:1 and that made it usable. Still cut the yard into chunks rather than tilling it though. Eventually I turned the input gearbox around, making it a 2:1 speed increaser, which worked great. Ended up with a 2:1 reduction in PTO speed. This, however, made the slip clutch a pain to adjust since the shaft it was on was spinning twice as fast as designed.

I got rocks. I'm sure other people got rocks, but I got lots and big rocks. It's worn the tiller tines to near knife edges. No problem, says I. Every time I till I have the kids out there and they help gather the rocks. Every time it rains more come back. Well today I went out to retill a food plot, after having tilled it last week. Apparently a new and exciting rock surfaced, one that was roughly football shaped and sized. This was exactly the right size and shape to lodge in between two of the tine holders and pry against the shaft itself. Snap! The main shaft that all the tines are mounted to is snapped clean. Ouch! Unfortunately this is one of those things that no amount of slip clutch could have fixed; the rock wedged between the shaft itself and the guard, so it had tremendous leverage against the shaft but almost no increase in resistance to turning.

Anyway, now I have to weld it back together. Anyone ever heard of this tiller? Am I right on my guess that it's supposed to be hanging on the back of something smaller than my little 17hp kubota, with a faster shaft speed? For some reason I have this picture of a large lawn tractor with a 2000rpm pto shaft?

 

[Neophyte]

Do you have any pictures you can post?

 

[whodat90]

Not yet but I will be able to take some tomorrow.

 

[Willl]

You snapped your Snapper ?



















Hey, somebody had to say it !

 

[Farmwithjunk]

You snapped your Snapper

Hey, somebody had to say it !

Well, at least it wasn't some distasteful "red snapper" joke.

 

[hwp]

My guess is that you have a tiller that is designed to be used with a Snapper tractor. I had a Snapper 1855 (identical to a Massey 1855) and one of the attachments was a tiller like you describe. The rear PTO on the Snapper tractor ran at about 1000 rpm so if you are trying to use it with a 540 rpm PTO, it will run too slow. Mine worked very well but I don't have rocks.

 

[whodat90]

Still haven't had a chance to take any pics (my son's been in the hospital since tuesday) but I finally got the thing put back together. Total damage: Broken main shaft, couple of broken tine bolts, broken main chain, bent main sprocket, and a couple teeth of the main sprocket were chewed up. Basically what happened is the rock wedged between the main shaft (the part that all the tines spin on) and the housing. As the shaft rotated it rolled the rock against the shaft stressing it till it broke. Once it broke the tines dug in and pulled the broken end down pulling the sprocket against the gearbox, which snapped the chain (60 size). Minor ancillary damage to gearboxes and such.
I got some 1.5" schedule 80 black pipe and sleeved the broken shaft with it. First I beveled and welded the broken shaft ends back together as best I could, mostly for alignment. Used stainless wire, since that's what was in the welder at the time. Then I sleeved the break with the pipe, welding both ends and 10 1/2" plug welds. Ran multiple passes on the ends, with a touch of grinding here and there to knock down high spots. It's not the prettiest weld in the world, but it works. The sprocket I put on the vise anvil and beat back into shape, and cleaned up the teeth with a grinder. The chain was a pain (mainly in spain on the plain) because it broke on an inside link rather than an outside link. If it had been an outside link I could have just replaced it with a master link. As it is, I had to buy 10' of 60 size chain so I went ahead and replaced the old one completely. Total cost about $35 plus the consumables. On the bright side I found the main chain tensioner bolt, and replaced it with a non-broken one so now the thing operates somewhat more quietly.

 

[bx23barry]

Kool! That is making stuff work not just replacing parts. Could ya of got a couple half links to repair the chain?

 

[Slamfire]

I broke the tiller shaft on a gear drive Mitsubishi tiller. It snapped right at the gear box and isn't repairable, with my one-eyed welding. There is one rock under my property, you can break off big slabs with a sub soiler. A neighbor was building a replica of Stonhedge, but had to stop for lack of blue stones, ours are all sandstone.

 

[whodat90]

Kool! That is making stuff work not just replacing parts. Could ya of got a couple half links to repair the chain?

I'm sure I could have found a couple half links or ordered chain by the foot, but the tiller was apart open to the elements (no garage or workshop yet, so this was done on the slab outside the back door) and I had to get it put back together, so I had to go with what was available. Next thing I need to do is find replacement tines. I've built up the leading edges of the existing tines with stainless (again, because that's what was in the welder at the time) but these rocks are pretty freakin' aggressive. I may just buy some 1/4"x1.5" strap steel and some hardfacing rod and weld new 'teeth' on the existing tines. Problem is that it's a biatch to run stick beads on a 1/4" edge (for me anyhow) and the stock tines are some kind of a mix of hardened and spring steel, so I don't know how well any weld would hold on the action end. I wanted to take pics during the rebuild but my hands were way too greasy to be grabbing on the digicam.