Pictures: this moment

[DavidBarkey]

That is really kool stuff Eugen. How much does one of those blocks weigh ?
How are you holding up ? How are the and 's fairing with all of this .

[JSinMO]

Just a couple of fall pictures playing around this afternoon.

[MattA]

^^^Looks like fun

I upgraded my kids jeep from a single 12V 7AH junk lead acid battery to parallel lithium ion 12V 7AH batteries with built in BMS. After a half hour of cruising the neighborhood my youngest drove it up our driveway at speed. The jeeps speed controller was showing 12.4V while climbing the steepest part of the driveway. Performance seems good considering the batteries were $20 each, same cost as the lead acid type.

[Eugen]

Great pictures!

@DavidBarkey these aerated concrete blocks I used are 60x25x20 cm, which is pretty big. And I could handle them by hand easily, I'd say about 5kg maybe. Thanks for asking, is mostly busy with the kids and the home keeping and I work as much as possible on the house renos. We're all well thank God, but I must soon find a job for obvious reasons. Are you ready for winter?

[DavidBarkey]

Great pictures!

@DavidBarkey these aerated concrete blocks I used are 60x25x20 cm, which is pretty big. And I could handle them by hand easily, I'd say about 5kg maybe. Thanks for asking, is mostly busy with the kids and the home keeping and I work as much as possible on the house renos. We're all well thank God, but I must soon find a job for obvious reasons. Are you ready for winter?

Wow that's light . Must have good insulation rating . Hopefully you can find work that doesn't keep you from home too much . Glad everyone is well .

[Toolslinger]

Well, 5 minutes after taking this photo, I managed to send something in to the hose that the old EZ Rake blower didn't like.

It did clear it, but it sounded very unhappy. Thinking it was just the impellor again, I put it in the barn, and pulled the access panel off. Yea, the fan was bent, and a weld cracked, but far worse, the engine output shaft is now bent. So, after 54 years that unit is probably dead.

I had assumed this day would come... I picked up a Hydrovac in anticipation. I hadn't really planned anything, but I hoped I could just stick the whole unit on the extremely long tongue of the Trac-Vac like I did with the EZ Rake to get me through the leaves this year. Sadly that isn't going to work. I am going to have to do some modification to existing weldments, and since I had it accessible I looked at the trailer too. The front end of the trailer is barely hanging on. It's going to need some new steel, and welding too. And just like that, leaf vac work is done for the year. I'll have to finish up with a backpack blower, dump trailer, and rakes. Too many open projects currently, I'm not starting another.

I did take the blower out of the frame. It will mount something along these lines to get everything lined up nicely.

I really think I should be working up some sort of belt drive for a blower since I end up with lots of sticks, and rocks going through the units. I'd much rather smoke a belt than damage a direct drive engine, or hydraulic motor. That's not the next step, but it will be what happens if I kill the Case unit. (possibly the return of the EZ Rake housing and impellor)

[myerslawnandgarden]

Toolslinger,

Wondering why you wouldn't leave the hydravac as designed and mount on the tractor? If the overall length of the unit is too long for your application as I suspect, it seems that it would be a simpler modification to shorten up the tongue of the trailer as you don't need the extra space to mount the vac.

Bob

[Toolslinger]

Reasonable question.
This was a bagger unit. I don't want to take the 3 point off the 444.

I could very well shorten the trailer, and make a 3 point mount for the blower. That would simplify hose routing for sure. The blower doesn't weigh much so it wouldn't put much additional weight on the hitch. I'll have to look at that geometry a bit.

[myerslawnandgarden]

Reasonable question.
This was a bagger unit. I don't want to take the 3 point off the 444.

I could very well shorten the trailer, and make a 3 point mount for the blower. That would simplify hose routing for sure. The blower doesn't weigh much so it wouldn't put much additional weight on the hitch. I'll have to look at that geometry a bit.

I see, I misunderstood since you mentioned Hydravac and didn't realize that it was actually a hydrabagger. They did actually make a vac to be mounted on the 3 pt hitch, the model number was B98-3 rather than B98 or B98-B.

Good luck with your project,

Bob

[Toolslinger]

My bad on the terminology... Haven't even pulled paperwork down on it yet.

It may all be for nothing though now. I came across a 540 PTO blower today. It's a step up to 8" lines, and will hang on the back of one of the full size tractors. I had already tossed around the idea of rebuilding the EZ-Rake blower unit to run off a 540. My thinking is I could have some kind of either slip clutch, shear pin, of belts to let go if there's an impact. I haven't had a chance to study what I've got yet, but there are a couple belts at the very least.

No Case content at the moment. I think it will still be nice to put the bagger blower on my existing cart, but for this season at the least it'll be a 540 PTO conclusion.