Homemade 3pt Snowblower

Hilbilly · Dec 19, 2019

Excellent work!!!

Love that gear box too. I can't tell from the pics but is there a way to adjust the gear lash? If not how did you figure out the distance required between centers to have the correct lash. I've been toying with the idea of running my rear mount snow blower on the front of the tractor, driven by the rear PTO. But that would require a reversing gear box like the one you made and I would like to know how to determine the correct gear spacing.

LFEngineering · Dec 19, 2019

I'm fortunate to have access to a visual measuring machine at work. I setup the gears gently pressed together (no lash) and had the tech measure the center to center distance and it was 4.80000 (yes to 5 decimal places). I added .010 for clearance and machining variation, ended with very little play. Will it last for 100,000 miles? Probably not, but it should outlast everything else on the blower.

Prior to the visual measuring machine, I had thought of grinding some close fit pins and using them to establish center lines. Then use the same process of measuring the gears gently pressed together.

Dave M7040 · Dec 20, 2019

Hilbilly said:
Excellent work!!!

Love that gear box too. I can't tell from the pics but is there a way to adjust the gear lash? If not how did you figure out the distance required between centers to have the correct lash. I've been toying with the idea of running my rear mount snow blower on the front of the tractor, driven by the rear PTO. But that would require a reversing gear box like the one you made and I would like to know how to determine the correct gear spacing.

This is an idea for reversing the pto direction for a front mounted blower I found years ago.

This might give you some ideas which do not need specialized machining skills.

Dave M7040

LFEngineering · Dec 20, 2019

Ooo I like that.

Hilbilly · Dec 20, 2019

Dave M7040 said:
This is an idea for reversing the pto direction for a front mounted blower I found years ago.

This might give you some ideas which do not need specialized machining skills.

Dave M7040

Thanks Dave. Funny thing is, I've already got that pic saved on my desktop from some previous research I had going on about a year ago, for the same topic.

John