bdhsfz6
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2015
- Messages
- 2,306
- Location
- Northeastern Pennsylvania
- Tractor
- Kubota MX5800 HST & L6060 HSTC Formerly L6060 HST B7100 HST, L2550, L3010 HST, L3430 HST
Back in 2004 when I bought my old Woods SS74 3 pt snowblower, the price for the hydraulic chute rotator option was almost $800. Since the manual crank was easily operated from the seat of my Kubota L3010, I decided to save the money. Now, on my newer L6060 and MX5800 Kubotas, the crank is more difficult to reach and often requires getting off the tractor to adjust.
For the last 3 years, I've been looking at tractor powered conversion kits. Since I have 3 rear remotes on my tractors, I decided on hydraulic over electric. The hydraulic kit for the SS74 was discontinued some time ago and the kit for the newer SB74 is around $675. The SB74 kit would require modification to fit the older SS74 and it only includes chute rotation, not deflector angle adjustment. Shopping around, I came across this Woodmax kit for $475 : Hydraulic Chute Rotator & Deflector Kit It includes almost everything required and for $200 less, it includes a hyd. cylinder for deflector angle adjustment.
Mounting the hyd. motor was simple. It required only a 16" piece of 5" channel and 2 U bolts.
To allow for minor shaft misalignment, I used a $17 3 jaw coupler to connect the motor to the pinion shaft. To prevent the high torque hydraulic motor from stripping the teeth off the pinion gear, I added a Prince dual crossover relief valve I had laying around.
I had to relocate the deflector adjustment mounting brackets to accommodate the 1 X 4 hyd. cylinder by grinding off the welds and re-welding about 4" farther down the chute.
The project took around 9 hours and cost just under $500. Yes, I'm sure there are cheaper ways to do this but I don't mind spending a few extra $$ to save time and have a quality finished product.
The motor, cylinder, hoses and fittings could have been ordered separately for around $350 but the mounting bracket that came with the kit made the project much simpler. To me, the labor saving was worth the extra $125. The versatility of this included bracket would make it easily adaptable to other make and model snowblowers.
For the last 3 years, I've been looking at tractor powered conversion kits. Since I have 3 rear remotes on my tractors, I decided on hydraulic over electric. The hydraulic kit for the SS74 was discontinued some time ago and the kit for the newer SB74 is around $675. The SB74 kit would require modification to fit the older SS74 and it only includes chute rotation, not deflector angle adjustment. Shopping around, I came across this Woodmax kit for $475 : Hydraulic Chute Rotator & Deflector Kit It includes almost everything required and for $200 less, it includes a hyd. cylinder for deflector angle adjustment.
Mounting the hyd. motor was simple. It required only a 16" piece of 5" channel and 2 U bolts.
To allow for minor shaft misalignment, I used a $17 3 jaw coupler to connect the motor to the pinion shaft. To prevent the high torque hydraulic motor from stripping the teeth off the pinion gear, I added a Prince dual crossover relief valve I had laying around.
I had to relocate the deflector adjustment mounting brackets to accommodate the 1 X 4 hyd. cylinder by grinding off the welds and re-welding about 4" farther down the chute.
The project took around 9 hours and cost just under $500. Yes, I'm sure there are cheaper ways to do this but I don't mind spending a few extra $$ to save time and have a quality finished product.
The motor, cylinder, hoses and fittings could have been ordered separately for around $350 but the mounting bracket that came with the kit made the project much simpler. To me, the labor saving was worth the extra $125. The versatility of this included bracket would make it easily adaptable to other make and model snowblowers.
