snow thrower questions
 

We finished modifying the QA36 to fit a wide frame. Before anyone has a panic attack, this modification was started 15 years ago, just needed some more tweaking. If we had it to do over it would never have been modified, but that is besides the point now.

I've got some general questions about snow throwers, as there just aren't any around here. We made a lift rod to raise it with and determined the length by getting the discharge chute as close to the hood whith the thrower lifted as possible. To me it doesn't have enough ground clearance when raised, how much should it have? Also, if you are using it and the front end should drop in a hole, what keeps the the blower from pivoting so far back it would get into the hood? All of my "problems" may be the result of the thrower being mounted on the wrong mower.

John check out Roland' guide to double check your lifting rod to see if it's to short.

http://www.onlycubcadets.net/forum/s...ead.php?t=4616

Any shorter and it will hit the hood, any longer and I'll lose what little clearance I've got.

As you said, that is a result of using the wrong attachment.

I have a QA42 that was mod'd to fit a WF also...It's a PITA to get mounted and the chute hits the grill if it's lifted more that 3-4". It works great, but I will be getting a 42A front mount and making a longer (and wider) lift bracket for it. As far as the chute, I took the top off on the original chute, but now have a QAXXA chute on it and lifts higher complete than the orig did..

After looking on you-tube the hood clearance problem is evident. The wide frames have the grill and hood leaning forward while the narrow's lean back. Probably makes 5-6" difference right there. To remedy this I'd have to advance the blower forward and make a new input shaft for the gearbox so the pulley would line up.

So how high should one of these lift anyway, 6", 12" ???

I think mine lifts about 4.5" on my 782.

If you move the whole thing forward and extend the input shaft in the gearbox, it will probably increase the load on the bearings enough to cause a lot of problems. I would not do that.

Two more feasible options: Sell it and buy the correct one before you cut it up any further, or do what JayBrd is doing and get a QA-42A mount and parallel links and use that instead.

Thanks for checking the lift height, I was thinking it would have quite a bit, guess not.
I agree about the longer shaft causing bearing problems. It would probably need another bearing added for support. Stretching the mounts out wouldn't be a big deal but making the shaft a durable setup would be. Basically more trouble than its worth.
I've got a couple guys interested in it. Both want to mount it back on a narrow frame. One wants it for show (did I mention we don't get much snow here) and the other fellow wants to take it a couple hours north to put it back to work.

John, I bought one already modified from NF to WF. Put it on a 1200 & hit the hood as well. I modified it back & put it on my 126. Works a whole lot nicer now! You could hardly move the 1200 without the bottom hitting the ground.