How to improve leaf vacuums???

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I have a Trac Vac 880, a Cyclone rake and an Agri Fab sweeper. Of the three the simple brush sweeper does best job getting up leaves.
The Cyclone is on a Deere 455 and chute adapter I worked on some today making a tighter seal, but neither that or Trac Vac do that well. Both have lots of suction, and both I've used with just a long hose getting up leaves...works great but not on different mowers. The circle I made on driveway shows it and I tried deck low as it goes.
Driveway it skips places just like yard and leaves are bone dry.
Does anyone make a simple attachment like a vacuum cleaner, wide opening...say 4ft x 1ft? The problem seems to me running mower then trying suck up leaves.
Has anyone fabricated something?
The Trac Vac I made a front dolly, the motor is so heavy.
Any ideas...thanks so much.

 

[boomer1025]

I have a Trac Vac 880, a Cyclone rake and an Agri Fab sweeper. Of the three the simple brush sweeper does best job getting up leaves.
The Cyclone is on a Deere 455 and chute adapter I worked on some today making a tighter seal, but neither that or Trac Vac do that well. Both have lots of suction, and both I've used with just a long hose getting up leaves...works great but not on different mowers. The circle I made on driveway shows it and I tried deck low as it goes.
Driveway it skips places just like yard and leaves are bone dry.
Does anyone make a simple attachment like a vacuum cleaner, wide opening...say 4ft x 1ft? The problem seems to me running mower then trying suck up leaves.
Has anyone fabricated something?
The Trac Vac I made a front dolly, the motor is so heavy.
Any ideas...thanks so much. View attachment 829371View attachment 829372View attachment 829373View attachment 829374View attachment 829376

Sounds like you got a mower deck problem. Your not using mulching blades are you. Also are the exhaust vents on the vac units open and flowing air.
I have a Cyclone rake and that thing does a super good job of sucking up leave and grass clipping plus walnuts and hickory nuts that go thru the mower.

 

[ultrarunner]

Hi Lift mower blades?

I had a mower that did a great job picking up leaves until I changed the blade.

 

[DJ54]

Your picture looks a lot like when the chute on my Cub Cadet deck, or boot attached to the chute gets partially plugged by a twig. I just shut it down and remove the hose from the boot, pull clog out and go again. Always keep a 5/16" nut driver in my pocket to remove hose.

I have 2 Agri-Fab Leaf Vacs, one set up like yours, and another with a 10' hose and a wand handle. I've found that it's a lot less time consuming to use a leaf blower to pile them up, then vac using hose w/wand. Even it clogs every now and then with a larger twig if I don't catch it before it gets sucked up.

I really don't have that many leaves to pick up but my neighbors do. I use leaves to mulch around set plants in the garden for weed suppression, which works great. One neighbor I let use it that has a huge amount of leaves. He's more than happy to use it. He used to hand load a trailer and spend more than several days hauling leaves here. Now, he can usually do it in half a day before he goes to work. Both places end up piling leaves 2-3 times as they all don't seem to fall at once.

My other neighbor is the same way, only I go to pick them up. Last year I got well over 30 loads from them. This is just one of the piles I picked up last year. It had settled some from a rain the day before but found it packs much tighter in the Vac and cuts down on trips.

 

[KennyG]

I think I understand your issue, but I'm not sure how to solve it. I have a Cyclone Rake and it will pick up every single leaf when I run it over grass. However, on concrete (any hard surface) it will pick up a lot of the leaves but blow some out the front and sides. I used to just go over and over the driveway until I got most of them. My approach now is to use my backpack blower to blow the leaves off the driveway and onto the grass, then pick them up with the CR.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Sounds like you got a mower deck problem. Your not using mulching blades are you. Also are the exhaust vents on the vac units open and flowing air.
I have a Cyclone rake and that thing does a super good job of sucking up leave and grass clipping plus walnuts and hickory nuts that go thru the mower.

I'm not sure about mulching blades. The exhaust vent is at the top I believe you're talking about held in by Velcro. That's open and exiting air.

 

[triptester]

I think I understand your issue, but I'm not sure how to solve it. I have a Cyclone Rake and it will pick up every single leaf when I run it over grass. However, on concrete (any hard surface) it will pick up a lot of the leaves but blow some out the front and sides. I used to just go over and over the driveway until I got most of them. My approach now is to use my backpack blower to blow the leaves off the driveway and onto the grass, then pick them up with the CR.

On hard surfaces after first pass to get the majority of the leaves make a second pass with the mower deck shut off. The spinning blades cause the leaves to blow out the side on hard pavement.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

The Trac Vac maybe does a little better job. To me the problem seems like is mowing leaves up then vacuum trying to pick that up.
I'll get high lift blades, try that.

 

[ruffdog]

Sometimes Deere will offer under-deck baffles when the person wants it to mulch. It should be set up to fully side chute with no mulching plates installed. Your connection to the deck looks pretty good so I don't see an issue there. My agri-fab unit will stop sucking if the exhaust vent plugs up. It plugs quicker if I suck just leaves instead of a grass/leaves mixture. When I dump the load, I hit the top screen with a rake to clear the exhaust. Mine will also leave more debris on pavement than in the lawn where it cleans quite good.

 

[kozal01]

Im with Kenny, get the debris off the driveway and on to grass to improve the seal around the deck. Even with a vacuum you will get a ton of blowout on a hard surface.