3 Pt. Hitch Leaf Blower

[WillingtonPizza]

What a way to make a lot of money, I am sure with the amount of compact tractors being bought today by do it yourselfers and people with large lots and not much time to take care of them someone could make a lot of money. I have an 8 hp giant vac push blower, there new design, it works extremly well. I would gladly by the exact same model for a 3 ph with no motor, even pay the same price. This can't be that hard with all the computer drafting out there.

 

[scruffy]

Why not investigate the possibility of pulling the motor, adding a splined sleave (set with woodruff key/bolt?) first, PTO shaft, and 3pt hookup (recommend tempory setup until you see if works to specifications) and give it a try?
If done with care, you should not damage the unit, at least until you decide if it will work or not.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

If you take a blower that is designed to operate at 3600 RPM and operate it at 540 RPM it will not work very well at all. The result would be very little flow and very little static pressure. It would be like the engine mounted blower running at idle. A gearbox or belts and pulleys to increase the PTO speed would be necessary to get good performance.

Andy

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Larry, I will post pictures as soon as I am allowed to.

I guess you could call a radial blade impeller a centrifical fan. If you look inside any leaf blower they all use the radial blade design. The reason I mentioned the different types is because of the idea of using the blower from the welding fume apparatus. Often exhaust vent devices use the other types of blowers because they are quieter. These other types will not work well for a leaf blower.

If you do make a PTO blower I would suggest starting with a blower much larger than the type found on a 5 to 8 HP push blower. Since a PTO usually has much more power available than 5 or 8 HP, why not use it on a larger blower. The larger blower moves much more air and because of this, many more leaves quickly. What used to take 2 to 3 hours with my 5 HP push blower takes about 15 min. with the PTO blower. It is also a lot more fun. I have to be carefull, since two times now, I have blown my wife's flowers near the mailbox right out of the ground, root ball and all. The blower puts out so much air that I typically have the adjustable discharge nozzle I made for it half closed. I also usually run it at only 2000 tractor RPM (PTO speed is at 2600 tractor RPM).

I have been clearing the neighbors yards for them since mine is done so quickly. The guy up the street has a 5HP blower that he mounted a trailer hitch on and tows it behind his garden tractor. After seeing my 3 pt blower he went out and priced them.

Andy

 

[gmason]

Has anyone found this attachment yet? Under $1000
gary

 

[tanuke01]

You may have gotten a reply, I have a Trac-Vac grass catcher.
it's attached to my JD4300. Price was about $2000. You can check them out at www.trac-vac.com/ They have 2 diffent models.

 

[BrierPatch]

The cheapest and most effective solution I have come up with so far, is to pull a 8hp gas Little Wonder push leaf blower behind my tractor on the 3pt. The good thing is, it blows the same direction as the mower deck. I run the mower deck at the same time so I can get up close to things and the mower deck blows it out a little then the leaf blower will send it 15-20 feet depending on conditions.

I found an old used 8hp Little wonder push leaf blower in excellent condition for $500. Went to my local Tractor Supply and got a 3pth draw bar and some U-bolts. You want a leaf blower with a front swivel wheel. One of the things I do alot when bloweing leaves is backing up so I am always blowing in one direction.

I had an old used Trac-Vac pull behind leaf vac. It worked good, but for my property it was a lot of trips to dump it and would get clogged with sticks quite often. I even ordered a new one at one point for something like $3700 (like 7 years ago) and I couldn't stomach the cost and cancelled it the next day. I have the benefit of being able to just blow my leaves into the woods so I don't really need to collect them. So my first attempt at using a push leaf blower was a $350 5hp Coleman Cyclone from HomeDepot. It worked good, but was just a little too small and flimsy to be behind my tractor. It had a very small front swivel wheel and would bend easily if it pushed into a tree root or similar obstacle, but I still used it for a couple of years until I got the bigger Little Wonder.

I went form taking a day or two with the Trac-Vac, to 6-8 hrs with the Coleman, and now 2-3 hrs with the Little Wonder.

You just have to remember to be very careful when backing up. The tractor doesn't even know it's back there and will bend/mash it up easily before you know it. I intend to make a more rigid frame/dolly for it, just haven't got around to it yet.

Here is quick video of it running.

 

[Dwellonroof]

I purchased this used from a golf course.