No, the main shaft is a piece of steel tubing. I purchased some 1" keyed shaft from Surplus center, which was slid inside the tube. I used an adapter (also from Surplus Center) to go from 1" keyed to 6-spline PTO. This layout also gave me a nice surface to use with the pillow block bearing...
Yes, you are correct. It was tricky sizing the sprockets so that they would clear the drawbar and still fit with the guard between the 3 point lift arms.
My house has a 1000' driveway and clearing snow with the FEL and back blade just wasn't cutting it. Being that the driveway is that long, I really didn't want a 3-point snowblower. I kept my eye out last year for snowblower attachments but the right one never turned up. I'm an engineer by day...
Here's my setup. It's a Kubota B2920 with a loader-mounted JD 47" snowblower. I made a front PTO kit that runs off of the rear PTO to power it. I added 4 auxiliary hydraulic circuits to the tractor and added a hydraulic tilt to the snowblower. The rear has a King Kutter 84" blade that I...