Swiss Army Snowblower?
 

So, I need (want) a snowblower and a generator and a water pump. A dual stage snowblower has a couple of shafts that drive the impeller etc. I've never tore into one, but is there any way to use one of the shafts as a PTO of sorts to efficiently drive a generator head or water pump? It would save me the upkeep of separate engines but it could be lots of jacking around as well. Your thoughts?

I was going to make an adaptor for a generator head to run off of the pto of my riding mower. Then I found a used 10k/12k diesel generator with 6hrs on it very cheap because the guys wife hated the diesel smell which we don't even notice with it out next to the pole barn. For the generator I was going to get another quick detatch mower deck mule drive mount and mount the generator head hanging off of the front like the snow blower attachment. My suggestion would be to get a generator head large enough to run everything in your house. The 12k surge, 10k running generator will power everything in our house within reason. We have run it with the well and furnace going and the well and a/c without incident. I'm sure we could get the generator breaker to trip if we turned on everything, so it does take some common sense. I haven't tried running the welder off of the generator yet, but it's an option!

If you want to mow the grass too, look for and old Gravely Walk Behind Tractor.
It's a two wheeled thing with handle bar like controls at the rear, a rear mounted engine (7 to 16hp), and a PTO type drive unit at the front.
They also made a riding mower that had a rear engine and PTO but I never really looked into these.

They made three types of mowers for it, the most common are a brush hog style, a twin blade for lawns and a rare reel type.
They made snow blowers and plow blades, I think the blow is 4' across.
It wouldn't take mush to adapt or make a pulley setup to power a pump or generator.
Here's one with a snow blower
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The Mayor in my hometown has one of those rider style Gravelys. Really likes it.
The lawn tractors with any sort of existing PTO are much too large for my needs. I was hoping to get away with a simple 24" deck snow blower and somehow adapt from there. I'll just have to see how the shafts come apart at the joints and go from there. If they come out easily I may be in business otherwise separates may well be the answer.

In that case you'll have to check out some snow blowers and see if you can make it work, most of the ones I've seen have a vertical crank in the engine and a pulley setup in the sheet metal box it sets on.
Maybe you could set it up with an easy to remove panel or door to get to that main pulley on the engine?

Update,
This may be much easier than I thought. The main drive shaft of most dual stage blowers are horizontal out the front and have simple easy access drive belts to the shafts below. So I build a bracket on top to hold the generator head and it's new drive pulley.
Power goes out, add power head to snow blower, re-route belts and throttle engine to desired speed. I'm in business. I may even still be able to drive it around where I want it. :smoke: Wattage will of course be dependent on the engine specs, CC's. Havn't put pen to paper yet, but this may save 1/2 the price of buying a separate generator.

Yes HP is a factor, but with a generator you need the right shaft speeds too, even if you have a small engine a combination of stepped pulleys should get the RPMs needed without over working the engine too hard.
Just a thought

I don't own a generator yet so I'll appeal to the Gunco hivemind. How do I match a generator head to the engine so I don't need to gear up or down? The generators I've seen it's hard to see where the engine stops and the power head begins (sarcasm). From there I just set the throttle to optimize 60hz correct? Tks for replies.