Tractor Leaf Pickup, Leaf Blower Assisted ( the ugly prototype )

[Ken M]

A pull behind trailer with a vacuum would be nice...but I don't have one of those. I do have a leaf blower...and a trailer...and a yard with a lot of leaves...hummmm.... I googled the web for ideas and couldn't find anything like this so I cobbled up a prototype to see if this would work. The basic idea was to connect a hose from the mower deck discharge back to a trailer. The deck on my old tractor really has a lot of wind but I suspected that it would not be enough to push a heavy load of leaves up and back to the trailer. I tried. It didn't. When I built the deck attachment I added a 3" coupling to the front to attach my blower. I rigged up a shelf attached to tractor body to isolate it from the deck movement. The blower just sits in a pocket on the shelf. No tie down was needed. The blower tube just slips into the flex hose so I can just lift off the blower and use it if needed. I had the discharge tube attached nicely to the trailer but there was too much swing when turning corners and not enough flex in aluminum flex pipe. It really needs plastic tubing but it's way too pricey. I finally made a bracket and attached most of it to the rear of tractor. It now needs a flexible cloth tube to accommodate the swing of the trailer. Trying to just prove the idea I taped together some empty cat litter bags to form a "flexible" discharge. I thought that was a nice touch. Actually, after the stiff bags got beat up a bit they worked ok... but only for an hour. For the trailer I thought I would need to build a box to hold more leaves. For a quick container I had an old roll of welded fencing. It just made a loop around in the trailer...good enough for a trial run.

So, what did I learn?

1) The leaf blower really pushes the leaves though the tube. I do find that if I mow over a thick pile (of pin oak) leaves the discharge opening of the deck will occasionally clog but not the discharge chamber. I'm not sure why that happens. A stick in the blower hole will clear easily so I will add a better clean-out opening. Possibly a smooth curved discharge chamber would help? That would be more complicated.

2) It would be more durable to have a plastic discharge tube but I think that appropiate hose is crazy expensive. My version may last a year or two. I will sew a cloth tube for the discharge end so it will be more flexible. The discharge tube is the hard part of this project.

3) The trailer "box" made of wire fence was rediculessly quick and easy and works well. Lift off the tailgate and pull the fence off the trailer and all the leaves slide out with it.

 

[flyerdan]

 

[zzvyb6]

Nice, brilliant, cool ! Same principle as a jet well pump. Two things to consider:

You may be using too much throttle on the blower. Any back flow may be due to over-pressure.

You may need a bigger diameter transfer hose to accomodate the material flow rate. I use a 12" hose on a 72" deck and sometimes that's not enough.

Since the mower chops up much of the leaves sucked up, the wire screen is too coarse. I'd recommend stretched metal sections, or just a wood box with a screen on top. The exhaust flow can be a limiting factor.

 

[roadhunter]

Sweet!. I love creative solutions that utilize what you have.

I have a PTO powered chipper shredder and I have had good luck using 6" PVC pipe for rigid piping as well as 6" corrugated poly pipe if I need something flexible. I suspect both would work for this application as well.

 

[MossRoad]

The kitty litter bags are purrrfect! :laughing:

What about flexible furnace ducting? Here's 25' of 10" duct for $29.00. I'm sure there's something out there that's usable in your situation...

Viagrow 25 ft. L x 1 in. D Non-Insulated Ducting-V1NID - The Home Depot

 

[Citydude]

Outstanding! I hate emptying the bags every 10 minutes. I see a real possibility here....

 

[MossRoad]

"Real" lawn vacuum hose is expensive, but its out there if you know exactly what you need.

Flexadux T-7W Leaf Vacuum Hose

 

[PhysAssist]

Hi Ken,

That was nicely done!

You could probably even just have cut the blower line into the outflow a foot or so below the outflow into the trailer, and the Venturi effect will pull the leaves out of the chute and push them into the trailer, but what you have looks awesome the way it sits.

 

[Citydude]

"Real" lawn vacuum hose is expensive, but its out there if you know exactly what you need.

Flexadux T-7W Leaf Vacuum Hose

Nice! I bookmarked the site. Thanks!

 

[prichard]

Nice. My mower has a grass collector but it clogs abs the bags fill quickly. I may use some of your ideas to modify mine.

 

[MossRoad]

Or, you could make the tube completely rigid like snapper used to do on their bag n wagon....

 

[MossRoad]

Here's a link to the PDF...
http://pdfstream.manualsonline.com/8/8e6c0279-cd37-fc74-8d45-7862b7ad0930.pdf

 

[MossRoad]

Here's another idea for routing hose. He used the hose off his woodshop dust collector.

 

[4570Man]

Having an impeller to provide suction greatly increased his chance of success with the small hose. I'm better it still clogged fairly often. My leaf bagger has an 8" hose and it still stops up occasionally. It does pretty good with leafs, but if a stick gets stuck in the hose it will clog up pretty quick.

 

[Ken M]

I'm glad that some of you found this useful...or at least amusing. Now that I know the idea basically works I will work on a better discharge tube setup. The light duty discharge that is attached to the deck is just thin sheet metal furnace duct so it will not support much weight, hence the 2x4 support behind the tractor. What I need to come up with at the trailer end is something that follows the trailer as I make a sharp turn. But not have it attached to the fence. I want the fence to just slide out. Can't work on it for a few days but will post a photo when I come up with a workable solution. -Ken

 

[MossRoad]

As that Snapper cart showed, they used a rigid tube and a fabric tent on the cart. The tent moves. The tube doesn't. That might be a cheaper alternative to flex tubing.

 

[roadhunter]

Flexible poly tubing is not expensive and can be bought in 10 ft pices at many box stores. Should be less than $20 for 6" or 8",

 

[zzvyb6]

My Woods lawn vac has caster wheels instead of a solid axle. The unit was originally intended to be latched to the tractor so it did not need a flex hose. I now use a flex hose and the trailer turns with steering action at a single hitch point, but your tractor may be just fine with two caster wheels if the trailer weight is low.

 

[TMGT]

I used casters on the vac I built 6yrs ago

The hose still has to flex but not as much and can be a lot shorter.

 

[Ken M]

Updated... This prototype did work ... eventually. A neighbor had thick maple leaves. I got tired of clearing the 8 x 6" reducer which tended to clog. I removed the 8 x 6 reducer. The 6" dia duct on the post was replaced with some heavy 8" dia cardboard tube. For flexible tubes I taped 4 mil plastic into 8" dia tubes and clamped them in place. The same idea as what I posted but with 8" dia on the discharge. Amazingly the plastic tubing held up remarkably well although it needed a few duct tape repairs. I picked up 12-15 trailer loads of partially shredded leaves. I will find some heavier plastic/cloth to make the flexible tubes over for next season. Sorry... I didn't take photos.