Agri-fab mow-n-vac on a X500

hosspuller · Oct 19, 2019

About the fabric boot on the Agri-Fab. Mine wore through too. My solution was to extend the plastic chute with some sheet rubber into the enclosure. Now, the fabric boot only keeps the dust from blowing back out. Has worked for 10 years so far.

crazyal · Oct 21, 2019

This morning was the first time I had to mess with it. Not sure how long it was sitting there but my guess is for years. There's a clear protective sticker on the pull starter that's self destructed. The black paint on the engine is faded. It looks like the modified the design or maybe I miss understood the problem with the center of the rear door bowing out as there's hooks on the bottom and metal tabs you twist on the top to hold it on place but there's also clips on each side about 1/3 to 1/2 way up so unless the plastic breaks it can't bow out.

The biggest problem seams to be the hose. It has been in the back for so long it doesn't want to straighten out. It's sitting in the sun now but it's only 60 out so I don't know if that will help to soften it better than sitting inside the house at 70 for the last 6 hours. I might need to find one that handles the cold weather better as it may not last if I'm using it when it's 50 out, which isn't that unusual.

The Briggs is very quiet. Added oil and filled it up. I gave it one weak tug and it came to life. At less than half throttle it still seamed to have lots of suction.

I looked into why the chute moves around so much. Some is the tongue but it's mostly because the axle goes through the rear of the tongue and is a loose fit. Where the hopper latches down for tilting also is loose. I put a C-clamp on the latch to hold it much more securely and the chute is much better now. If I'm not going to tilt it I'll secure the two points better. It's only 36" wide so I'm going to make the axle wider to make it more stable. I have an old boat trailer with real bearings and wheels that I may swap over to and move the wheels so they are on the outside of the hopper, not under it to allow larger diameter. But for now I'm going to take it for a test spin as soon as I can get the hose to straighten out.

beenthere · Oct 21, 2019

czyal
A few pics of your rig would help understand what you are faced with.. sounds like a good project, if you can get it working good for you before getting loaded down with leaves to pick up. Good luck to you..

I was out yesterday with my MC519 cart and cleaned up a couple acres of lawn.. but this morning after wind and rain.. will have to do it again soon.
If you can rig up a hydraulic dump on your Agri-fab, makes dumping a lot more fun.

crazyal · Oct 21, 2019

I'll try to get a picture the next time I use it.

The hose is too short. I can make sharp right turns and slight left turns but anything more than that and the hose pulls off the blower. Next year I'll pick up a new one. It looks like both the blower and the adapter can connect to a larger diameter hose (maybe 7" or 8") but I haven't measured it yet. I couldn't use the support rod that mounts near the engine as it made the hose too short to even go straight.

It's far more stable than I expected so I think I'll leave it the way it is. The motor is quiet but the hum of the blower is kind of annoying. I've always wore hearing protection but because it's a low frequency and not loud the ear muffs don't do much to silence it. After a bit of time you get use to it. My yard didn't have a ton of leaves on it but I still filled it up 3 times. Once it get's close to being full leaves start to blow warm air at the back of your neck from around the rubber boot on the chute.

I had to put extra pop rivets along the top. I'm not sure if it was from sitting for years in the sun or just the way it was made but the plastic top had plenty of gaps between it and the steel side panels that leaves would blow out of. I had lots of left over large head rivets used on race car panels that worked perfectly. The top is going to need to be modified though. The way it's designed the air from the blower escapes out the rear of the top but the top defects it straight down the back. The problem is that it blows the leaves off to the side all around. I'm not sure the reason behind this design, maybe to deflect dust down? Either way I'll cut the part that defects the air so it'll blow straight back.

Richard001 · Oct 24, 2019

crazyal said:
I'll try to get a picture the next time I use it.

I had to put extra pop rivets along the top. I'm not sure if it was from sitting for years in the sun or just the way it was made but the plastic top had plenty of gaps between it and the steel side panels that leaves would blow out of. I had lots of left over large head rivets used on race car panels that worked perfectly. The top is going to need to be modified though. The way it's designed the air from the blower escapes out the rear of the top but the top defects it straight down the back. The problem is that it blows the leaves off to the side all around. I'm not sure the reason behind this design, maybe to deflect dust down? Either way I'll cut the part that defects the air so it'll blow straight back.

I suspect that the idea of blowing the air down was to keep it from blowing dust at the operator when going down-wind. After a day of dust being blown on your back, you may change your mind.

OFF TOPIC,
What type or race car did you drive? I have raced in SCCA F500 class.

Richard