Loader mounted snow blower

[Fallon]

You're supposed to do maint. on slip clutches?! My bush hog was 20+ years old when I sold it and I think I might have pressure washed it in the fall and always lubed as needed...never touched the clutch and it worked fine when I hit something too big to cut. Freezing of water in the clutch could be a problem though.

Leon,

More ideas! #2 son wants belts and not chains, but then he's not building it.

Yup, every year. The clutches freeze up with rust.

This year I loosened up all the bolts & springs holding my clutch together so there was 0 spring pressure. Jammed a 2x4 into the tines & fired up the tractor. When I engaged the PTO there was a big bang & the tines dug 2" into the 2x4. So just rust & what not was holding that clutch together enough to transmit a lot of power. A 2" gash into some decent wood powered by nothing but rust is pretty bad. Add in spring pressure & it will never slip.

After freeing things up I tightened all the bolts down 2 turns after finger tight (manual said 2.5 turns). It doesn't slip under normal operation & I can tighten it up as needed if it does.

Those clutches, at least from King Kutter end up being a bit to tight so they don't slip when expected. Add to that a year or more of rust & you'll get a clutch that is so tight & locked up it will never slip. At that point you hope your PTO shaft grenades when things jam rather than internals on your tractor.

Clutches are nicer if you need a lot of protection, but maintenance is a bit of a pain. Sheer pins are 0 maintenance unless you pop a lot of them. Then the extra scheduled maintenance on the clutch is easier than randomly replacing lots of pins.

 

[Lowrider2120]

Clearly, I've never done that to slip clutches. I think the one on my bush hog had fiber plates that slipped and nothing to rust that I recall.

Nothing wrong with shear bolts on Summer equipment but it's terribly cold fingers that need to work on snow blowers in the Winter...don't like it at all. Slip clutch be good!!

 

[Fallon]

Clearly, I've never done that to slip clutches. I think the one on my bush hog had fiber plates that slipped and nothing to rust that I recall.

Nothing wrong with shear bolts on Summer equipment but it's terribly cold fingers that need to work on snow blowers in the Winter...don't like it at all. Slip clutch be good!!

My King Kutter tiller has a metal plate on each side with a clutch material in the middle. Those metal plates rust & stick to the clutch material. Even here in Colorado which doesnt have much humidity, not desert dry, but still low humidity. 1 year of rust & 0 spring pressure transmits enough power to put a 2" gash from a tiller tine into wood this year, which is about par for the course in the 3 years ive owned it.

I have the other style of cluth that isn't heald together by bolts & springs. It's frozen to my pre-owned 3pt trencher & I havent pulled it appart to see how it works. Pretty sure it has similar metal plates & a clutch disk in the middle & will suffer from the same issues. Every PTO clutch manual ive seen perscribes basically the same annual maintnance.

 

[Lowrider2120]

Thanks Fallon. I'll look into it.

Parker is a nice area by the way.

 

[Lowrider2120]

While bouncing around on my Suzuki DRZ 400 on some back trails near the house I wondered if something like that engine and transmission could withstand the stress of throwing snow. It's a 28 hp with 5 speed chain drive transmission and manual clutch. It will run all day at 5K rpm and never whimper but I wonder if it would stand up to the shock of hitting something like ice in the snow? Maybe not a chain drive between the transmission and blower or maybe a cog belt.

Thoughts?

 

[leonz]

Hello Lowrider2120,

The right angle gearbox has 540 rpm coming in to it from the tractor and then it is transmitted to the worm gearbox or the chain drive for the cross auger depending on how your snow caster is set up.

if you use this engine your going to need 9 to 1 reduction to be on the safe side of things if you use high idle where with the V 4 Wisconsin your going to have less of an issue with its high idle setting by using 2 row chain to power the gearbox.

I guess I would still check with a tractor graveyard in the Magic Valley or close by to find a power unit and then swallow hard when you start checking on prices for matched equal size cog belts and cog gears to provide you with 540+rpm at the gearbox as the cogs would have to be the same size to provide 540 RPM to the gearbox. I have only dealt with Cog belts and gears that were matched sets for Gardner Denver 2 piston air compressors that were driven by Duetz inline 4 and 6 cylinder air cooled engines.

Your going to need a very large pair of cog gears to do this but it could be done with a Wisconsin engine that would be just loafing along.

I will have to check what size cog gears you would need for this.

Changing worn out cog belts is a breeze with an open end wrench to remove the side plates, all you would need to do is fabricate a box to cover the cog belt to keep it out of the weather and secure it with spring pins and cotter pins so you can just lift it out of the way to change the cog belt.

Lots of rotary lobe blowers depend on smaller cog belts and cog gears to drive them. I will post what I find out.

 

[Lowrider2120]

Sorry..sould have mentioned that 5K rpm is engine speed, not what comes out of the transmission depending upon what gear is chosen. I don't know the ratios but I would guess that 4th gear would come close to 540 so it could be maybe close to 1 to 1 on the belt drive. Do you think amotorcycle transmission would hold up to snow throwing?

 

[leonz]

I can not help you much until much until the engine is mounted and properly lined up on the snow caster or a plate welded to the top of the quick hitch to mount the engine. Sprockets-if used need to be installed and lined up before the chain length can be measured. The roller chain drive method with an idler sprocket witha rubber shock mount on the top section of roller chain would be be the all weather choice for a snow blower.

Once the engine speed is known for the 540 rpm PTO shaft snow blower speed the sprocket size needed can be quickly determined.

 

[Lowrider2120]

I was looking at sprockets today at a farm store...must be dozens of combinations to get to the right input RPM. I think I'd like to run engine at about 80% to get to somewhere around 540.

Started welding mounts today...won't take long once I get the time to spend on it.

 

[leonz]

I was looking at sprockets today at a farm store...must be dozens of combinations to get to the right input RPM. I think I'd like to run engine at about 80% to get to somewhere around 540.

Started welding mounts today...won't take long once I get the time to spend on it.

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Once you have the engine mounted all we have to do is some math to get the correct diameter sprockets and the chain size you want to use.


It would be easy enough to use a ribbed timing belt drive as a final drive where the chain drive would only have to connect to the first timing belt pulley and the timing belt sprockets
would be sized for 540-600 rpm from the driven sprockets speed.