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Winch-Powered 3-Pt. Hitch
"I bought a used 48-in. mower cheap and was going to go out and buy a 3-pt. hitch tractor to use it on, but I didn't know if it was going to work," Gary Masyk of Edmonton, Alberta says. "Instead, my son Brett and I made a home-built hitch for my W4 McCormick, to try it out on."
The father-son project turned out
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Winch-Powered 3-Pt. Hitch TRACTORS Hitches 30-5-34 "I bought a used 48-in. mower cheap and was going to go out and buy a 3-pt. hitch tractor to use it on, but I didn't know if it was going to work," Gary Masyk of Edmonton, Alberta says. "Instead, my son Brett and I made a home-built hitch for my W4 McCormick, to try it out on."
The father-son project turned out to be a keeper, and Masyk never did end up buying another tractor because it worked so well.
They "threw it together" in a couple of hours and the project only cost about $125 thanks to a particularly helpful Princess Auto store manager in Edmonton.
A cheap, 12-volt, 1,000-lb. electric ATV winch provided all the electricity he could ever need, easily lifting the 250-lb. mower.
Using 3/8-in. angle iron, Masyk welded a sub-floor solidly to the tractor floor, so that it sticks out 4 in. past the tractor. On the flat side of this sub-floor, he drilled a hole on each end, and that's where the implement linkages are bolted on (they become hinges).
"I used scrap 3 by 3 by 3/8-in. angle iron under the tractor for reinforcement, and for the rods that go to the sides of the mower, I used 18-in. long pieces of 3/16 by 2-in. flatbar," Masyk says. "The top arm consists of two pieces of 1/4 by 2-in. flat iron, that come to a V at the tractor. I welded them to the angle iron base. There's a small 2 1/2-in. Chev. pulley bolted onto the point of the V. I bolted the winch to a piece of 1/4-in. plate, and then bolted the plate to the available holes on the top of the transmission. From there, the cable runs over the top of the pulley, and it goes down to two 1/4-in. chains (straddling the pto shaft) that are bolted to the base of the mower."
The winch control is strapped to the tractor's fender.
Masyk's invention is still going strong three years later, allowing him to mow grass at the family's acreage.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gary and Brett Masyk, 11635 û 94 St. NW, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5G 1H9 (ph 780 474-2364; gmasyk@hotmail.com).
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