450 SnowBlower

[zilla24]

I picked up a 450 Snowblower this past weekend in what I would consider to be decent shape. It was partially repainted from the original white but is rust free and mechanically seems sound. I was hoping to run it on my 1987 2072 in the event we ever saw another snowfall in SE PA (seems unlikely).

I have some concerns about actually using it, I spun the main pulley and noticed it took approximately 2.5 turns to complete one revolution of the blower fan, this leads me to believe the gearbox was replaced at some point with one from a 451. I also observed the main pulley is about 5” in diameter and not 6" as the 450 should have.

Any thoughts on whether this will actually work? My thinking is that to compensate for the 451 gearbox swap a smaller pulley was installed to speed the blower back up to its original operating speed?

[darkminion_17]

This was taken from another website and I take no credit for its content. Courtesy of Cub Cadet Collectors dot com

Over the years this has been a repeated topic of conversation. With winter on the way yet again, I decided to make a sticky out of this information so it is easy to reference. I cut and pasted from posts I made over the years, as I am a bit lazy...

It is important to get the correct blower for pto size of the tractor you are using. Early tractors (GT and SGTs) had a 4.6" outer diameter (OD) front pto pulley. Later tractors (Ser. No. 821,060 and after) had a 6" OD front pto pulley. This change (and serial number) occurred several years into the Cyclops series. Although this was a design improvement, it has created an attachment nightmare for the unaware.

The belt speed produced by the larger 6" pto is much greater, so Cub changed the ratio of the attachments that went with those tractors. In the case of the snowblowers, the early blower that is correct for the earlier series (1811, 1772, 1872, etc. and early Cyclops) would be a model number 450. The later tractors with the 6" pulley used a number 451 snow blower (later upgraded to a 551). The 450 and 451 are essentially identical except for the gear ratio of the main gearbox. Later 451's had yellow paint and a plastic chute, but that is not a surefire way to identify them.

The gears to change the ratios are NLA, and a 451 won't work with the small (4.6") pto as the blower turns so slow it will barely push the snow out of the chute in some conditions.

With the equipment swapping that happens over the years I wouldn't even trust the model number on the tags; the gearboxes could have been swapped out. It is best to check ratio of the main gearbox to determine what blower you have.

Mark the impeller (fan) so that it can be seen from the top of the chute. Mark large 7" the input pulley. Count how many times around the input pulley needs to go for one turn of the fan.

For the 450 it will be 1.87 turns of the input pulley to make one complete turn of the fan.
For the 451 it will be 2.58 turns of the input pulley to make one complete turn of the fan.

No need to be super exact; the ratios are not very close to each other...So, if you come up with something less than 2, then it is a 450. If it is over 2.5 turns, it is a 451.

Unless...you have a 551. The dead giveaway for the 551 is a taller housing that the auger does not fill, but sits in the bottom half. The 450 and 451 have a housing that the auger fits evenly in top and bottom, with no extra room above the auger. Check out the diagrams of them on a parts site, and it will be obvious.Now to address using a 450 on a large pto (6" OD) later Cyclops (or an earlier tractor that has been retrofitted with the large pto)...

This too is an incorrect application. You are over-speeding the 450 by about 30% with this combination (as opposed to the under-speed condition I described in the first post). You can probably find posts I have made in the past advising against this due to the increased wear and stress on the components.

That being said, the tractor I wanted to use for blower duty last year has a large pto and my 551 was still torn apart for paint. I decided to try the 450 with it to see if it would have less auger packing at the higher speed provided by the large pto. (I have found that 450/451 blowers are miserable at packing the augers in any snow you can make a snowball out of.) This was a real heavy snow and it threw the snow well, but I did break the belt halfway through the job. So in this case as well, it is probably best to still use the right blower for the tractors pto size.

In summary:
Older 4.6" pto tractor should use a 450 blower.
Newer 6.0" pto tractor can use a 451 or 551 blower.

[zilla24]

Thanks, I had seen that as well! My apologies as this is somewhat confusing… my dilemma is according to the ratio described above I have a 451 gearbox on a 450 blower, the catch is it appears the blower pulley was also replaced, from what I could find a 450 should have a 6” pulley while I actually have a 5” pulley. The PTO on the tractor is about 4.25”.

If all else fails I can just give it a go and see how it performs, really just looking for suggestions on what the performance might be like.