Leaf Vac

[keeney]

RE:

"Is that some kind of PTO pump (gray) on the back of your tractor?"

Yes, its setup to use with hydraulic-powered mini-loader attachments on the FEL like a trencher or a tree-planting auger. I made an adapter plate for Toro Dingo attachments, and I know a guy who has almost every attachment ever made for the Dingo who has a nice reasonable 1-case rental fee.

- Rick

 

[keeney]

RE:

"I'm especially admiring of that neat SeaRay attachment off to the side "

A: Its not much fun to own during the winter here in MN. The payments are still due even if the lakes are frozen.

B: It has been attached to the tractor on occasion. Most recently to push it into the garage for the winter. I am thinking I would like to have a way to attach a hitch ball to the front bumper of the tractor for ease of positioning the trailer. The boat is 94 inches wide. The garage door opening is 95 inches wide. The garage and driveway are a side-loading design were you have to turn 90 degrees to enter the garage. There is 28 feet of pavement in front of the garage. The boat on the trailer is just under 24 feet long. The twin-axle trailer doesn't exactly turn on a dime. The rub rail of the boat is about eye-height. There are some scrape marks at eye height on one side of the garage door jam - I wonder how they got there?

C: Now that the house is built and the JD makes such quick work out of simple yard chores like mowing, cleaning up leaves, or plowing snow, I had to find another machine to spend my "seat time" on.

- Rick

 

[VA_Joe]

Check out the Dirtworks QA 2 inch receiver that Quality Welding sells. It is a nice unit. You will be amazed by the manuverability that you will have with it.


Joe

 

[jimgerken]

Great work! I will make sure to NOT show your photos to my wife, or I will have to have you build one for her too. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[MossRoad]

Very nice! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

If I may ask, how much did the parts from Agri-fab cost? I've been tempted to make one to be driven with a hydraulic motor instead of a gas engine.

 

[keeney]

MossRoad,

I was also considering a PTO-powered setup using a belt drive at about a 6:1 ratio. However by the time you add a drive shaft, a couple of sets of pillow blocks, shafts, the hubs, the pulleys, the belt, a belt gaurd, and the compexity of assembly, just using a seperate small gas engine was probably cheaper and easier.

The 7.5 HP engine was $250 including shipping. You could easily stay under $200 if you went with a 5HP engine which would be plenty for just leaf vac (no chipper).

The Agri-Fab part prices are on their web site www.speedepart.com. Download the PDF parts manual first for part numbers.

63894 Impeller Assy, Comp $89.62
63993 Housing Assy, Inner $41.46
24633 Housing Assy, Outer $28.56

If you want the parts for the chipping:
742-0544 Balde, Chipper $25.14 (2X)
681-0068A Assy, Chute (Painted) $44.32
63376 Assy, Upper Chipper Chute $50.32
731-1617 Tamper (Plug) $51.32

- Rick

 

[MossRoad]

Thank you, much! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[mrcaptainbob]

I know this is getting off topic, but as far as that front hitch goes...DO it! I had that on the front of my van for just the same thing. Makes life easy.

 

[CharlesP]

Keeney,
That is a great setup you have made for yourself. One thing I noticed when looking at the item list from Agrifab is that those are the same parts available on the MTD chipper/shredder (including the engine) sold at Lowes/HomeDepot. So if anyone is thinking about duplicating Keeney's ingenuity, you may want to compare the costs of the chipper unit at Lowes to the costs at Agrifab

 

[mgeight]

Very nice. It has me thinking about making my own. Just trying to figure out how to power it with PTO. My question is what guage metal did you use for output chute?