Thresher question

[goodcompanion]

I have a large thresher that I bought for $125 on ebay. I’ve been steadily working on it for a year and a half. Almost ready to run it–but I must be ready when the grain comes in.

One remaining concern is how to apply power to the sucker. It has an 8″ diameter laminated paper friction pulley meant to be powered by a belt. I don’t own a tractor with a belt take-off. I do however own a tractor with a pto. Your opinions–should I:

–Buy or fabricate a belt take-off for my tractor? Any suggestions as to where, how? I have never seen such a thing.

–Buy or annually borrow a tractor with a belt take-off?

–Perhaps somehow incorporate a stationary engine?

I really don’t know the input horsepower requirements but I would guess 15 to 20 horsepower.

[dominiquer60]

If you found someone to transport it, I know a guy that loves an excuse to run his 1917 Peerless steam tractor. I can’t remember if it is 10 ton or 10,000 pounds, I think it is the former and therefore expensive to haul.

Erika

[rdgfrm]

The quickest would be to borrow a tractor if you have a neighbor with one close by. It would also help give you an idea as to how much power you need if you decide to buy a tractor. I have an IHC 28 inch that we run with a 50hp tractor and we can work the tractor hard if we load the thresher up. As far as using pto you could build a metal frame and mount a shaft with a car wheel hub on one side and attatch the pto shaft to the other side. Then bolt on a car rim and tire and run the belt off of the tire. You would have do some math as to what size of wheel and tire to run the thresher the right speed with desired engine speed. It takes a little patience to line it up and stake it to the ground but one advantage to this is you can leave the belt attached to the thresher and just unhook the pto from the tractor if you need the tractor for something else. Another version would be to mount the frame on a 3 point hitch and keep everything on the tractor. rdgfrm

[near horse]

Didn’t the Ford N series tractors have some type of 3pt attahcment that just ran a drive pulley? If so, maybe one of those would work – could ask on “yesterdays tractor” website.

[Anthony]

belt take-offs surely exist, just poke around a bit. I have used both one that connects directly to the PTO as well as one that sits in a frame on the ground removed from the tractor by a PTO shaft with good success.

[Author]

Posts