Tow-Behind Lawn Vac

Tow-Behind Lawn Vac FARM HOME Miscellaneous 34-5-17 "It saves me a lot of time and was fun to build," says Gerald Auten, Cass City, Mich., about the tow-behind trailer he built to collect grass and leaves behind his Deere riding mower. Last spring Auten bought a new Deere Z445 54-in. zero turn riding mower equipped with a lawn vacuum and bagger. "I have a 3-acre lawn with a lot of maple trees, and the bagger was too slow. I couldn't even go a full round before the bag was full and I had to empty it out. It seemed like an endless job. My home-built trailer holds 5 times as many leaves, so now I can cover half the yard before I have to stop. And it takes a lot less time to dump the trailer than to dump the bags." The trailer measures 5 ft. long, 4 ft. wide and 4 ft. high and rides on a pair of 8-in. caster wheels. It's equipped with two hitches, one near each corner of the trailer, which allows the trailer to turn tight with the zero turn mower. The trailer's frame is made from thin wall conduit and sets on a subframe made from 2-in. sq., 1/8-in. thick tubing. The trailer floor is made from 1 1/4-in. conduit covered with 1/4-in. hard board, and the sides and front of the trailer are made from 3/4-in. conduit. The lower 2 ft. of the trailer is covered with hard board while the front top is made from plexiglass. The top 2 ft. of the sides, top and tailgate is made from 1/4-in. wire mesh door screen. The trailer's rear door swings to the side for dumping. To dump leaves Auten simply removes the fill tube from the Deere lawn vacuum, then steps on back of the box to tip it. "I bought the trailer's 8-in. wheels at Harbor Freight but already had much of the metal that I used. I spent a total of about $200 to build it. Commercial trailers smaller than mine sell for $1,000 and up," notes Auten. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gerald J. Auten, 4362 McAlpin Rd., Cass City, Mich. 48726 (ph 989 872-2778; gdauten@airadvantage.net).

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