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49 Snow Thrower Hydraulic Chute Upgrade

25K views 35 replies 16 participants last post by  army 
#1 ·
I finally found the time to change the manual chute rotation to hydraulic on my 49 thrower. I had been studying other options for some time, but went hydraulic and finished it up today.

Here are some articles I bookmarked as I was researching which might be useful to others:

http://www.simpletractors.com/club2/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=11522&SearchTerms=spout,rotator
http://www.wfmachines.com/forums/sh...chute-control/page2?highlight=hydraulic+chute
http://www.wfmachines.com/forums/sh...on-49/page3?highlight=hydraulic+chute+control
http://www.wfmachines.com/forums/showthread.php/3058-49-blower-chute-control?highlight=double+pulley

I'l post parts and pictures in follow up posts to this thread.
 
Discussion starter · #2 · (Edited)
Major parts needed:

$80 - Hydraulic Motor - http://www.surpluscenter.com/Hydrau...E-255040F3DD22AAAA-HYDRAULIC-MOTOR-9-8287.axd

$20 - 1/4 Inch valve - https://www.surpluscenter.com/Hydra...-GPM-PRINCE-WNV-400-NEEDLE-VALVE-9-7961-4.axd

$13 - Double pulley - https://www.surpluscenter.com/Power...3-15-O-D-1-BORE-2-GROOVE-PULLEY-1-2BK30-E.axd

$4 - 2 double gang electric box covers

$8 - 1/8 inch? braided wire - 6ft but 7ft would have been better for adjusting

$??? - Hydraulic hose of your choice. I had two I picked up on eBay some time ago.

$7 each - 2 male hydraulic connectors - http://auxhyd.com/Male-Quick-Coupler-For-Hose-MQC.htm
 
Discussion starter · #3 ·
Step 1: Remove existing manual setup.

Step 2: Make the bracket to hold the hydraulic motor. I would have preferred to have made a new bracket, but haven't bought a welder yet I chose to reuse the existing bracket. So I had to remove the stub shafts from both sides. Grinder and big hammer did the trick. The hole also needed to be enlarged to accommodate the motor shaft. Finally, some paint makes it pretty.




 

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Discussion starter · #4 ·
Step 3: Since the motor I bought was just a little larger than would accommodate the bracket, I had to make a connection plate. I grabbed two double gang electrical box covers from Lowes to make sure it was thick enough metal. A better option would have been a single thicker metal piece, but it would have been much harder for me to have made without metal cutting capability. The picture shows the original plates I started with and the black plates are what I made. I had to tweak the holes a little to get it all to fit right, but turned out really well. The big aha was that I could not make the holes 90 degrees. You notice a set of holes at 6 and 12 o'clock. This caused the hoses to interfere with the chute itself, so I turned it slightly with new holes at 1 and 7 o'clock. That fixed the issue.

 

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Discussion starter · #7 ·
Step 6: Prepare the pulley by drilling a hole through outside and center where the wire will be fed through. I basically eyeballed how close I wanted it to the center hole. Then, I made the outer hole a little larger so It might make it a little easier when I fed the wire through.

Step 7: Feed the wire through. I actually bought 6 foot of new wire which was longer than the original. I would been better off with 7ft to have a little extra for adjustments.




 

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Discussion starter · #9 ·
Step 9: Mount the whole assembly to the blower.

Step 10: Route the cables to the chute. Remember, the cables wrap the opposite way on the double spool. Or you'll remember quickly when it rips the entire chute off!

Step 11: Adjust the cables. This was much more tedious than I thought. I bet I tweaked the lengths and connection points for an hour before I got it where I wanted.
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
Step 12: Try it out! WARNING: Turn the valve almost closed so it moves very slowly and watch when it turns to the farthest positions. That's where I had to keep tweaking to find a place for maximum rotation and least likely to over stress the cables.

I also tried to take all the slack out the cables. Turns out, you must have some slack or it will cause binding. It worked fine with a little slack.


 

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Discussion starter · #12 ·
Many thanks to all who have posted on WFM in the past on the topic and in particular Jay Smith who provided a wealth of info. And thanks to the WFM site admins for the new site, posting pics was so much easier!
 
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