Chevy rear end brush cutter

[country2thesoul]

Is it possible? To turn a chevy rear end into a brush cutter/brush hog?

I've been thinking of turning a rear end axel differential into a drag style brush cutter. Turning the pinion and pointing it down and attaching a solid homemade blade to it, similar to a regular lawn mower blade except it would be 5 foot long. Basically the blade would turn when pulled and the wheels are turning. What are your thoughts and opinions? Do you think adding a grease zerk to the back of the differential housing to pump full of grease, instead of using oil would work?
What ratio should I use? Thanks for your input!

 

[MESSMAKER]

Would not be good for anything rough. Might work otherwise.

 

[Gary Fowler]

If you are talking of using the drive shaft to turn the blade and the wheels to turn the shaft, I don't think it will turn fast enough to cut anything.

 

[Ken]

My father used a mercury rear end with drive shaft pointing up to spin and spread chemical fertilizer. way to slow for a bush hog application.
Also the first stump or rock the pinion shaft or ring gear would be damaged not designed for this application.

ken

 

[pmsmechanic]

Years ago I read an article about farmers that would pull gangs of these in their corn fields to chop up the corn stover left over after combining. I tried to find it but I didn't have any luck. Basically it was a rear end turned pinion down with a blade setup very similar to present day rough cut mowers with the swinging blades. Whether this would work for grass and scrub I don't know. If you do try it please use a swinging blade type system vs solid one piece as something has to give if you hit a rock.

In our area with irrigation there is a unique pivot gear box oil used that would work great in this application. I use it wherever i have trouble with a gear oil leaking out. 403 Forbidden

It says forbidden but on my computer it goes to the right link.

 

[country2thesoul]

I'll just be cutting 10 acres of Bermuda grass. No stumps, No stick ups or rocks. Yall say it won't turn fast enough? Wouldn't that depend on your ground speed? The faster you go! The faster your blade would spin?

I've never seen a fertilizer spreader out of one, but that's a good idea! I saw a gentleman that made a post hole digger out of a differential. Which gave me the idea. Of course he was using pto power to the pinion to drive it. It worked exceptionally well. He was digging holes 12" in diameter and 3' deep. I watched him do 4 holes for corner posts in about an hour. Beats the heck out of a manual post hole digger.

 

[Ed of all trades]

The rear would be to light imo. I saw something in an old Farm Show Mag. and they used an old 2 speed rear with the inside tires removed and the outside ones filled for traction. It seamed to work but the pics. were in lite grass.

 

[The Fred]

Forget the grease though, use gear oil and make a new vent in the rear cover somehow, plug the old vent.

Fred

 

[country2thesoul]

Isn't the seal on a pinion similar to a dirt seal. From the outside it keeps dirt from getting in and from the inside it keeps the oil from splashing out? The reason for grease is it would leak out as fast or until it got hot and started turning into a liquid form.

I had a small Dozer once and knocked a whole in the final drive case. Couldn't find another case, so I drilled and tapped threads into the oil fill plug and inserted a grease zerk. Pumped about 10 lbs. of grease into the final drive. Covered the whole that I knocked into it with a piece of 11 gauge sheet metal welded to it. It ran good for another 3 years for me until I sold it.

 

[930ck]

The rear would be to light imo. I saw something in an old Farm Show Mag. and they used an old 2 speed rear with the inside tires removed and the outside ones filled for traction. It seamed to work but the pics. were in lite grass.

Remember the same article, thinking it was thin crp grass that wasn't to hard to cut.

 

[bcp]

It has been done, in a couple of ways:





Bruce

 

[country2thesoul]

Thanks for those pictures Bruce! The one with the 4 wheeler is exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[dieselcrawler]

The one behind the atv is super simple... but gosh darn it, take that pic down before the safety police or your insurance agent see it!

 

[bcp]

A deck over that blade would be welcome!

Bruce

 

[Sodo]

Notice the pulleys from the output from the BLACK one multiply the speed about 6:1. I bet it's difficult to get it going again if stalled. Agreed it's too light to get drive power from wheel traction. I'm a little surprised there's no heavy ballast. All the work that guy put into it looks like fun - but I bet he could cut a lot more grass setting a motor on it.

The one pulled by the ATV is probably so slow the blades need to be kept sharp but up high out of the rocks it's probably OK.

I like the projects and the challenge.

 

[bcp]

Notice the pulleys from the output from the BLACK one multiply the speed about 6:1. I bet it's difficult to get it going again if stalled. Agreed it's too light to get drive power from wheel traction. I'm a little surprised there's no heavy ballast. All the work that guy put into it looks like fun - but I bet he could cut a lot more grass setting a motor on it.

The one pulled by the ATV is probably so slow the blades need to be kept sharp but up high out of the rocks it's probably OK.

I like the projects and the challenge.

The black one was built by a member here, with description and video.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/311436-homemade-mower.html

Bruce

 

[bcp]

One problem with the long-bladed dangerous one is the curved blade (leaf spring?) will try to cut a weed stalk several times instead of only once.

Bruce

 

[plumbstraight]

with most rearends being a 4/1 or higher, I can't imagine it would cut well with just four revs per one tire rev. If you calculate tip speed from a pto system it is much faster.

 

[Sodo]

The black one was built by a member here, with description and video.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/311436-homemade-mower.html

Bruce

OK thx, OP was asking about a brush hog, seems not feasible to me.

 

[bcp]

The idea to take from the black one is that blade(s) can be belt driven and sped up, as opposed to the limitations of direct drive.

Ground drive is successful with reel mowers and sickle bar mowers, but not so much with rotary mowers, or we would see commercial ones to buy, especially for ATV's.

Bruce