FEL blower update

[metalbender]

Blower is great before the shear bolts break at my pto to chaincase joint. Seems I have an alignment problem. Something has shifted with use, the flanges are no longer aligned. Actual fix is pretty easy, another chain type coupler, same as on the bottom. Have to take the whole unit off though, in the great white shop. Need to wait for a little warmer weather. The fix is only a 1/2 itself. I'll see how my easy on/off the drive system really is. I get about an 1 1/2 hrs of heavy use and the bolts are done, easy to replace but a PIA. Did I say the lighting is good in that shop?

 

[metalbender]

The problem and the solution. The chain coupler has enough motion for small alignment faults. The joint doesn稚 move like the pto. Same as I have in the drive to the blower.

 

[PILOON]

Welcome to the 'white workshop club'.
Yesterday while plowing my hydraulics that control my front blade quit.
As a result I'm working in my outdoor workshop. Brrr!
I decide to disable the blade circuit and only use the rear blower as the front 'fix' will just be too taxing out in the cold.
Now I know exactly what went wrong, a simple bolt sheered that couples the front hydraulic pump to the engine.
Problem is the hood has to come off, battery and tray removed etc. and probably will still be a weak point.
Now I had to devise 'keepers' to hold my FEL arms up B4 they leaked down otherwise a disaster.
That's done now so I'll simply dump the plow and snow blow the rest of the winter.
Plow was nice for minor events and squeaky clean drive but 'what the hey', I have good snow tires.
\
On the upside I did a major OH on the blower so it is working A-1.

 

[Hilbilly]

I wondered about that connection when I first saw it. I did a similar thing with my homemade front mount rotary mower, with hydraulic drive (also homemade). I made a direct coupling adapter without the flanges but essentially the same concept as your connection and after a few uses I started to notice a moaning sound coming from the mower. I suspected it was an alignment issue and made a new double chain coupler to connect the 2 drive shafts but have yet to install it. I suspect the roller chain coupling will solve your problem (and mine) as long as the alignment of the 2 shafts is fairly close. I guess you will find out before I do. Good luck and please let us know how it works out.

 

[metalbender]

My greatest fear on this was damaging the pto on the tractor. Didn't want any side load on the shaft. The initial idea with the flanges was to have a shear bolt protection for chain case malfunction. A few hrs on the drive and it seems good to go. There was only about .030 or .040 space at the bottom of the flanges when the top made contact. Even with the pto adapter and the flange floating, when the bolts were tight, it would pull the bolts apart. Different than shearing. Leaving the bolts a tad loose, they wore down and elongated the holes. Guess that's why the Schulte blower has u joints upper and lower. Thought I was pretty darn smart, WRONG. The drive is still very close to the rear so I can still have the back blade on the three point. A fifteen minute test run yesterday isn't really a good test, but it works good so far.

 

[Hilbilly]

One of the drawbacks to the Schulte design is that is sits quite far back from the tractor, which would likely eliminate the use of the 3PTH at the same time the blower is mounted. I like your system better. Just a matter of working out the bugs without damaging the tractor. I seen another design somewhere where the guy used a chain drive with a sprocket mounted directly to the PTO shaft, which dropped vertically to the forward facing driveline. Not sure if that would cause too much side loading or not. Your system doesn't apply side loading and should eliminate that as a possible concern.

When I was looking into using a roller chain coupling for my mower setup, I found a website that listed the misalignment tolerances for the couplings. For a #60 chain and 18 tooth sprocket the longitudinal misalignment can be 0.38mm and the angular misalignment can be 1*. Unless the rotational speed exceeds 30% of the max rpm and then those tolerances are cut in half. It appears the max speed for that chain / sprocket setup is 2500 rpm.

Did you get any pics of the new coupling setup?

 

[metalbender]

The second pic is the coupler in place. Didn't take very long to do. My whole drive assembly is held on with two 1/2 inch bolts at the front, a one inch bolt at the rear and a pin to the upper link mount. Takes me a bit, getting old and slowing down. Half hr or so.

 

[Hilbilly]

Duh! I guess I should've gone back to the first post before asking for a pic.:duh:

 

[metalbender]

I was thinking of using a BMW rubber driveshaft joint, but fabbing up the spiders seemed to be a brickload of work.

 

[Hilbilly]

BMW's have rubber driveshafts? That's just weird.

I like your roller chain coupling. Simple and should work fine. I have a Farm King inverted snow blower and it uses a roller chain coupling between the input shaft and the fan. It's only #50 chain and the blower is rated for 90 HP. I guess time will tell if it is good enough for your use and mine.