Spiromix!

[Brad_Blazer]

I have some concrete work coming up where the truck can't get to and I saw an ad on Craigslist for a 3-point cement mixer for $250. The owner hadn't run it in 20 years but he said it was in working condition. I asked if it had a hydraulic toplink and he said no, it reverses gears and pushes the mix out like a cement truck! Well, I had to go take a look and went over that evening. Of course a hard cold rain set in just as I got there. It was pretty rusty and had a spot rusted through the drum near the edge but the mechanicals looked okay so I went ahead and bought it. He had had lots of calls after mine and wouldn't come off the price.

Did some searching online and it's a Teagle Spiromix 100 with a batch capacity of 5 ft^3. I even contacted Teagle in the UK and they emailed me a pdf manual for free. The current models are all powered by a hydraulic motor instead of the PTO but they look the same.

http://www.teagle.co.uk/images/pdfs/leaflet/spiromix.pdf

Anyhow, I got it home and it was even a little rustier than I thought. I cut out about a 10x24" rectangle that was rust perforated and welded in a patch. The drum material was about 0.10" thick and I found a piece of similar stuff in my junk. I cleaned everything up mostly with a cup brush on the angle grinder and painted with Rustoleum Rust Reformer(R) before giving it an oil-based topcoat. Got it back together yesterday evening and it's looking pretty good!

 

[creekbend]

Nice job. Have you tried it out yet? Keep us posted.

 

[kebo]

Yep, nice find, and nice job on the resto! If you get a chance, a video of it in operation would be helpful. I guess you have to disengage the PTO before you can reverse the gear on the mixer to dump out the contents?

 

[Baby Grand]

From the cogwheel gearing and the teeter totter mount, I'd guess it can shift from forward to reverse and back to forward on the fly.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Thanks for the comments guys.

There is one sticker that was still intact on the PTO guard that says you must stop the PTO before reversing. I'm thinking the momentum of the drum may cause damage if it's reversed on the fly.

I tried it out to the extent that I threw a few shovelfulls of gravel in it and let it mix, then reversed it to dump it out.

The spring overengages the drive cog and the assembly rattles a lot. You may notice I put some o-rings around a shaft cap to limit the travel a little which helped. I'll probably attach a little piece of flat belting there as a bumper to limit that engagement. The drive cog gears consist of a set of greased rollers which I like in terms of longevity of the bull gear. I'll probably also grease the whole bull gear. There are 4 bolts at the ends of the angle iron pieces holding the gear assembly in place. The frame holes where they attach are slotted to allow for adjustment. Removing those bolts allows the removal and complete dissambly of the gears.

Here's a video someone posted of a pretty decrepit looking example running that shows a pretty severe rattling. Apparently there is imperfect centering of the bull gear making the rattle periodic and mine has a similar behavior. The gears on the one in the video are really jumping around and that may be a misalignment of the assembly. If you look at my picture of the drum painted black you can see telltale marks on the bull gear where the gear that drives the reverse shaft was eating into the gear face. THAT would probably cause the jumping you see in the video.
PTO Cement Mixer - YouTube
The fact that it's still working after what appears to be lots of heavy use makes me confident that mine should be pretty robust. Even the PTO shaft is holding up. It's the lightedst duty PTO shaft I think I've ever seen. The u-joints are an aluminum looking cross casting with an 8mm bolt going through a greased hole as the removable pivot. The opposite pivots appear to be similar but with welded pins coming from the yoke with a space in the middle for the aforementioned bolt to pass.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

I took some more pictures and a couple of videos tonight. I added the little rubber pad to limit the cog gear engagement. I need to order some sand and gravel and do the prep work so I can actually mix up some concrete now! One other thing I forgot to mention was the PTO coupling was really rusted and I had to make a new locking pin for it. I used a piece of W1 drill rod but didn't harden it. I also fixed up that end of the guard where it was cracked by wrapping it with some cloth using hot melt glue. The other end of the guard was missing the tube and I added an aluminum tube. I didn't fix that end of the bell guard because I was worried about clearance with the stationary guard. The shaft flopped around some while I was putting everything together and dinged up the edge of the stationary guard so it's probably good that I held off on fixing that end of the plastic.

 

[Brad_Blazer]

Teagle Spiromix PTO Cement Mixer Reversing Gear - YouTube

Teagle Spiromix 100 Cement Mixer - YouTube

 

[Baby Grand]

That looks great! You should get lots of pours out of that machine.
Back when I was into bicycle riding, I was experiencing a lot of chain and chainwheel wear. Read an article by a guy who stopped using grease or oil on his chain. Instead, he'd take the chain off the bike and put it in a pot filled with parafin, which he heated on the stove in a double boiler. Said the grit no longer clinged to the chain, making it much less abrasive, but the parafin provided enough lube. It also made a lot less mess when he had to put the bike in his car. I started doing this and continued the practice for several years and stopped having the wear issues with the bike. Wonder if the same trick might help with the bullgear?

 

[DJ54]

Nice mixer..!! You'll use it more than you realize. I've got an old Cherokee, hydraulic dump type, and have mixed a bunch with it..!! With the 3 yd. minimum, plus fuel surcharge outside a 10 mile radius around here anymore, it just makes sense to have mine. Last summer I poured the anchors for the uprights on my I-beam in the new shop, and feed room floor in the new horse barn. The next day after I poured the floor, my neighbor stopped hinting he was going to pour a pad for his new emergency generator, looking at the mixer still on the tractor. Took it up, and poured it that evening, saving him a lot of work mixing it by hand.

Put new rollers on it, as the old ones were done wore out... Had a machinist buddy make some bushings, to bush it to the shaft size. Still works great..!!

Got two more jobs planned for it this summer, when the time comes.