Adapted snowblower and future expandability

[4x4_Welder]

I have a YM135D, and a 46" Craftsman snowblower that were not designed to get along together. This winter was forecast to be pretty rough, so I needed some heavy duty snow removal equipment up and running. There was a lot of adapting required, but that's what I do.
First was the mid mount plates. I initially designed these with one hole only for the snowblower pivot, but I decided to add three more. This gives me more mounting options, as well as the possibility of mounting a midmount grader blade with parallelogram linkage for proper vertical lift.

I do have a pattern if anyone else would like to do a similar mod.
I managed to break the light duty box blade and damage my emergency scrap sourced sleeve hitch as well:


For the drive system I used an H bushing pulley on the PTO shaft, and made a driveshaft from telescoping square tubing with a 3/4" round bar stub on each end to run through a pillow block and another pulley. I also rebuilt the box blade and hitch to withstand harder use. I also have all my measurements from the sleeve hitch if anyone wants one.

I still have not sorted the front lift, but for the time being a pair of turnbuckles keep it aligned.

Here it is all set up. I do have to admit the thing works ok, but doesn't spin quite fast enough, so it doesn't throw very far. I have a new sprocket on order for the drive head, if it ever shows up that'll increase the speed by 1/3. The tractor doesn't even know it's there now, so it should have enough power to drive it properly at the higher speed.

I also plan on notching the auger so it chews the snow chunks a bit better than it does currently.

[winston]

Looking good.

[4x4_Welder]

45 tooth worn out driven sprocket to a 30tooth new one:

15tooth drive sprocket, so if my math is somewhat correct:
3.95" drive pulley and 2.95" driven, at 800rpm gives me about 1070 rpm at the drive sprocket.
A 15 tooth drive and 45tooth driven turns that into about 357rpm at the impeller.
Going to a 30tooth driven sprocket gives 535rpm at the impeller, so a fair bit faster. Now I expected it to throw the snow maybe 12-15', and the tractor to bog a little in the process. Well, the tractor still doesn't know the thing is there, and it throws about 20' easily. I notched the auger a bit with my grinder and it's much more enthusiastic about chewing up big icy chunks now.

[winston]

looks like a success story all the way.

[Aaron]

I like it!

[4x4_Welder]

Better pic of the belt drive to the prop shaft.

I think I'll rework this eventually, with a better tensioner system to take the load off the PTO shaft, and transmit power a bit more reliably. Maybe an actual chaincase with a PTO stub of it's own so I can use a regular shaft for the front power.
I want to build a sweeper, flail mower and a different style of snowblower that can better handle heavy wet snow. I may even go as far as to make some sort of quick change mount for this stuff.

[petersinc]

looks like a success story all the way.

Yes, 15 to 20 feet is enough to get it over to the neighbours anyway, problem solved ! great job, you give me ideas !

[Chainsaw]

Very cool. I've thought of doing the same kind of thing.

[Chainsaw]

Hey 4x4Welder, where did you find the splined bushing that goes on the PTO shaft? H bushing? Split bushing? What ever its called.

[winston]

https://www.globalindustrial.com/p/brow ... -8-6-spl-b

[Chainsaw]

Yup, I found lots of those. I was hoping to find one cut specifically to fit the PTO splines. That, or could a guy just use a 1 3/8" smooth bore and use key stock in the spline(s)?