Tiller Tiller conversion - Forward rotation to Reverse Rotation Complete!!

[WilliamBos]

Hi All,

We decided last week to explore the gear box of our Kubota Turfbuster, and without too much work, it looked easy to convert it from Forward rotation to reverse rotation.

All that was involved was removing the shaft, taking the gears off, and putting them on the other end. BUT, we had to have a new key way groove, and snap ring groove machined in to the shaft, so off to the machine shop it went.

The red circle is where the gear was for forward rotation, and it has been moved as you see in the pic. The machinist recommended putting new bearings on while we had it apart, so we did that too.

We tried it out in the garage today, and it was a success. It is also in for some paint, and a few other changes.

I will post more pics once it is done.

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[SCDolphin]

What on earth posessed you to do that? Really neat but you are really thinking out of the box. Amazing!

 

[Eagleview]

I am going to do the same to one of my old flail mowers so it cuts going backwards into scrub after i reverse the flails . I hope my shaft is made to go both ways , i think it is .

What is the effect on a tiller ? Are the blades straight cut so they will chop in either direction ? Does it have an idler on the chain/belts ? If so it will need to be moved to the slack side now .

 

[WilliamBos]

What on earth posessed you to do that? Really neat but you are really thinking out of the box. Amazing!

We were looking and scratching our heads for a while. Opened up the gear box to change the oil, and we noticed that housing is set up for both. I am guessing Kubota did it that way to keep production costs down.

The rest was aphone call to our machine shop to find out how long it would take.

Once it is all done (paint) I will ut up the rest of the pics.

 

[WilliamBos]

I am going to do the same to one of my old flail mowers so it cuts going backwards into scrub after i reverse the flails . I hope my shaft is made to go both ways , i think it is .

What is the effect on a tiller ? Are the blades straight cut so they will chop in either direction ? Does it have an idler on the chain/belts ? If so it will need to be moved to the slack side now .

We unbolted the blades and flipped them over. The gear box contains 2 chains, and the idler is a gear. So looks like no changes are needed with it.

 

[WilliamBos]

Works Great!!

 

[kebo]

Looks great, and a super job on the gearbox too, but I think I would have masked off the side link arms before painting them orange!!!

 

[WilliamBos]

Looks great, and a super job on the gearbox too, but I think I would have masked off the side link arms before painting them orange!!!

My Dad needs things to keep him busy, so he is going to do touch ups on the tractor.

 

[WilliamBos]

Pic updates... (No thanks to Webshots!!)

Forward to reverse rotation was easy. The red circle is where the gear was sitting, simple flipped over, now reverse rotation!! ! Thanks kubota, so simple.





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[Don87]

Cool, let us know what you think of the difference between forward and reverse rotation.

 

[WilliamBos]

Hey Don,

The clay here is just like concrete when dry, after the conversion, the finished bed was a drastic improvement, no more clumps.

Works great.

 

[Don87]

I have hard ground with lot's of clay, and I too found that in my ground the reverse rotation was better.

I couldn't compare 'apples to apples' as the 30" reverse rotation tiller was on the old Cub Cadet 2160, and the new 48" 'forward rotation is on the Massey. Although I could plant after one pass with the reverse rotation, and it takes two passes with the forward rotation.

 

[dougtrr2]

Just curious, how did you determine the exact location of the gear so the meshing would be correct? I would think it would be critical to prevent excessive wear.

Take Care,
Doug in SW IA

 

[WilliamBos]

Just curious, how did you determine the exact location of the gear so the meshing would be correct? I would think it would be critical to prevent excessive wear.

Take Care,
Doug in SW IA

The housing is a perfect square, it was machined out by Kubota to make selling either reverse or forward rotation tillers as low cost as possible.

We only needed a new bearing pressed on. Was that simple.