Agri Metal Leaf Blower Conversion

[bunkydad]

I started on the conversion from a front mounted to a rear PTO powered blower. Here's a few pictures :

 

[bunkydad]

I am having a lot of trouble getting the front bearing off the fan assembly. I tried PB blaster. Any ideas?

 

[pmsmechanic]

Here is what I would do. I don't know if your trying to save the bearing or not but to me it's cheap so it's not worth my time to save it. Take the seals out and remove the cage around the balls. With a punch move all the balls so that they are touching each other. This should give you enough room to move the shaft to one side and remove the ball bearings. Once that is done then you can easily pull the shaft out of the bearing housing. Quick and dirty way to remove the bearing center from the shaft is to lay it on an anvil and beat on the bearing center with the largest hammer you have. (NB wear eye protection and for the same reason you don't want an audience) If you do it right the center will crack and then it's easy to remove. If that seems to be a bit to brutal then just take a grinder and grind a grove through the bearing center until it's weak enough to remove. If everything goes good I can have a bearing like this apart in less than 5 minutes. You could also use a cutting torch and cut the balls out with that but I like to save the torch to use as a last resort.

 

[bunkydad]

I'll try that. The other side took a little time but I finally got it loosened up. I plan on replacing both bearings during the reassembly. Is there a good place to buy them?

 

[pmsmechanic]

I know of a few good local suppliers but we live about 2400 miles apart so that's not going to do you much good. Take the number off the good bearing and start phoning local businesses out of the yellow pages. Try googling the number. I've found the cheapest prices for bearings on the internet.

 

[Raw Dodge]

i hope you have better luck with that agri metal blower than we've had with ours,its a piece of garbage..3 impellers in 10 yrs and it only works maybe 100 hrs a year...last one they finally upgraded with weak parts but failed to tell me id need to special order bearings from them because they have to mill 2 sides of the 4 bolts flange down in order to fit.So instead of being down 2 weeks during leaf season it was down over 3 due to customs,and shipping from canada to NY i have the model 300+ ,hopefully the upgraded impeller fixed it now.

 

[bunkydad]

I don't know much about the blower yet. I'm still trying to straighten out the metal housing and get the bearings replace. I hope to have it put back together this weekend. Then I have to figure out how to convert it to PTO powered.

I know someone on the forum has done it on an Olathe blower so I'll use his posts to point me in the right direction.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/185378-converting-front-mount-olathe-leaf.html

I got the blower for $50 and a two hour drive. Figured I couldn't go wrong for that kind of investment. I get too involved and forget to take pics as I go. Once I get it straightened out, my next step is making the 3 point hitch hookup.

 

[Raw Dodge]

Yours looks better than mine,and yes I'd bought it too for 50 bucks! Mine is a PTO drive and I'm sure you can fab a much better setup than the one on my agri metal..its terrible simple set screws on 2 pillow block bearings are inadequate for holding the shaft in place and it walks around as the blower runs up and down independent of the tractor under power..the slip yoke is perfect its just under a 30hp load constantly...if you need any pictures let me know.

 

[bunkydad]

Any pictures you could send would be greatly appreciated. I'm very interested in the PTO and belt setup as that seems like it might take the most work. Thank you

 

[Raw Dodge]

I'll go grab them now just keep in mind these pictures will show you how not to build it....this is a very poor design I do not recommend you build yours this way.i'll go grab some pictures and load them up in the next hour or two.