Halftrack
Platinum Member
Bought this mixer from an older gentleman in the neighborhood last fall. He had bought it new, but never used it, due to a heart issue, so it sat. I tried it on my TC33D, but found I would have to cut to pto shaft down to nothing to make it work (?) and then it would not work on another tractor. I also found that the dump cylinder was defective with a burr against the cylinder rod, which scarred the rod. Had it been used when new, it should have been returned as a factory defect. My neighbor offered up a couple of hydraulic motors he had laying around with the intent for a conversion. Neither motor had a data plate, of course, but the one with 3/4 inch ports was an easy reject. Both were relatively clean, but I hooked up the one with 1/2 inch ports to the tractor with one hose and flushed a couple gallons of fluid through it into a bucket. The next step was to add the second hose and determine the speed (rpm) of this motor. I tried a number of different engine speeds but the one I used was 60 rpm at an engine speed of 1000 rpm, just above idle. The driven gear on the drum is 114 teeth and I was looking for a drum speed of about 20 rpm so the ideal drive sprocket would have been 38 teeth. I settled for a sprocket with 42 teeth, on sale and the right shaft size. Mounting the motor was straight forward using 1/4" steel in the position of the of the pto drive gear using the same holes. I had to add about 4" on #40 chain to accommodate the larger sprocket and although the pictures show a slotted adjustment possible on the motor, I added the nylon idler to keep the chain tensioned. That slotted bracket was later replace with another 1/4" strap. Replacing the top (dump) cylinder was next and a search on Surplus Center's website resulted in a 1.5x16x1 DA with 3/4" swivel eyes. The cylinder along with hoses, fittings and the sprocket came from there. This cylinder has more reach than the supplied defective cylinder and gives a full dump motion, to the point of the barrel hitting the ground. I put a restrictor fitting in the line for the cylinder and it provides a smooth controllable dump motion. Now for the initial test. A co-worker had a 6x12" slab to pour next to a shed and had 50 bags of 80 pound mix on hand. The problem arose with the bags being damp and it took both of us to baby them to the mouth of the mixer. We were stopping the mixer to place 3 bags in at a time and then restarting. The torque required to restart the mixer bent the motor brackets and they have since been beefed up. Typically slitting the top of a bag and dumping it in while the mixer was running would never have over-torqued the motor but we did find the weak spot in the machine. Sorry, no video at this time as it was just him and me. The mixer held 4 bags of mix and possibly may have held 5. Dumping for a slab worked well, but into a wheelbarrow or wall forms would be difficult if not impossible. I agree with the other posters that the interior paddles of this mixer are of poor design and could be improved but otherwise it worked as expected. With a bolt on/off motor, it can easily be changed back to the pto drive, but I think the pto shaft will find another home somewhere.
but you should get rid of those malleable fittings and go with hydraulic, could be messy if they let go .....Mike
