Blowing snow while the operator is twisted around on the tractor seat looking backward is painful and potentially dangerous. Every hour increases the odds of an accident. Plus, it’s hard to do a good job.
Derek Jenkins created a cure that rolled out of his shop two months ago. It’s a 27-year-old Case 4490 that he took apart and then reassembled backward. The engine is now at the back and the operator sits comfortably in the seat, looking straight ahead at what had previously been the rear of the tractor.
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With a brand new Schulte 1100 running directly off the power take-off, the 200 horsepower tractor throws snow 80 to 100 feet to the side.
Jenkins, who owns Lakesteel Industries in Shoal Lake, Man., says the turned-around tractor cab not only keeps the operator seated in a comfortable position, it also provides excellent visibility of the blower just in front of the driver’s feet.
“Last night (Feb. 27) I had to go out to the feed plant because a semi took the turn too wide and got stuck in a snow bank,” Jenkins said.
“So I went out and cleared the snow all around him. I could work that big blower within three inches of his fenders, no problem. You can’t do that when you’re twisted around backward. Sooner or later you hit something.”
The tractor model Jenkins sought to perform this modification was a 1980-era solid-frame Case with three separate steering modes.
In crabwalk mode, all four tires steer into the same
direction for better control pulling implements on sideslopes. In four-wheel steering, the four tires make a big arc as the rears follow the fronts.
In the normal mode on the original tractor, only the front tires steered. But now that the tractor is reversed, when Jenkins goes into the two-wheel steering mode for transit, it’s the two rear tires that do the steering, much like on a combine.
“There was always something about those old Case tractors,” Jenkins said.
“You look at them from the side and you can pretty well visualize turning the cab around so it faces the opposite direction. The cab is very symmetrical and it’s on a square mounting platform, so it can be picked up and turned around backward. When you’re done, it looks almost the same as before you started.”
Jenkins said the task was not too difficult. The controls were the biggest challenge.
The cab sits on two cross channels fastened to the frame. One channel is taller than the other, so for the cab to sit level in its new position, the channels need to be reversed end-for-end.
One little glitch was the overhang at the rear of the cab roof, which would have interfered with opening the hood. This was easily solved.
“The spacing for the cab mount bolts is an even 5 1/2 inches for all the bolts. So I just slid the cab 5 1/2 inches toward the pto and the holes lined up perfectly. That gives us about one inch clearance between the roof overhang and the hood.”
For the turned-around tractor to be practical, Jenkins needed to reverse the direction of travel.
“That’s the key to making this whole project work. If you can turn the diffs over in their housing, then the same driveshaft rotation will give you the opposite direction of travel.”
If the differentials cannot be flipped, then it’s necessary to perform major engineering modifications to reverse the driveshaft rotation before it reaches the differentials.
To accomplish the diff flip, he removed the final drive units at the steering knuckles so he could slide the axles out of their housings. He then removed the two differential units and flipped them over so they were upside down, thus reversing the direction they turned the axles.
“When you turn them upside down, the bolt patterns are not quite symmetrical. There are 12 bolts. The top four are equally spaced and the bottom four are equally spaced, so that’s no problem,” he said.
“But the two bolts holes on either side don’t match up. I think they did that on purpose so a person doesn’t accidentally install it upside down.”
But upside down is exactly what Jenkins wanted. The solution was to drill two new holes on each side of the housing. With that done, everything lined up and sealed.
There’s one part of the project Jenkins isn’t pleased about.
“The short driveshaft that goes under the engine now has a fair bit of angle to it. Your pinion is offset in the housing, so when you turn it over, it shifts to the other side about four inches. I measured it at about 11 degrees.
“Nothing interferes and it’s still in phase, but I wouldn’t want to see any more angle than it has now.”
The controls were the biggest challenge, but not insurmountable, Jenkins said. He only needed to buy one new cable and a couple of longer hydraulic hoses. Everything else worked with existing parts.
“I removed the range shift quadrant from the dash and mounted it next to the seat. That was easy, because that’s about the same relative position it was in when the tractor was built.”
He needed a longer cable, but as luck would have it, the hydraulic control cables were longer and had the same thread sizes, so that problem was easily solved.
“The hydraulic control cables originally went out the bottom right corner of the cab. So I just popped out the front window and blocked it off and ran the cables through there.”
The steering was also relatively simple. The control box is on the firewall, so all he bought were longer hoses to reach back to where they originally connected into the system. That move also required some planning, explained Jenkins.
“There’s a master axle and a slave axle for the steering system. In the original configuration, if you select front wheel steering, you’re steering the tires up near the engine, because that had been the front end.
“So when we turned the cab around and ran longer hoses, we had to reverse them because now it’s rear wheel steering. I have no controls on the steering console anymore. That’s the way I like it.”
The original 20.8 x 34 tires that came on the tractor were shot, and buying new ones to fit the original rims was expensive. Instead, he bought new rims and new 18.4 x 38 tires for the same amount as the 34 inchers would have cost.
“The diameter is a couple inches taller now, but it’s not a problem. The nice thing is the width. Total width now from outside tire to outside tire is 10 inches narrower than the blower. The blower is 110 inches. The tractor is 100 inches even.”
Jenkins said he was well aware of the capability of the Schulte 1100, but he realized it would take a lot of power for the big blower to perform up to its potential. That’s why he liked the idea of the 4490 rated at 180 horsepower at the pto.
The blower requires 1,000 rpm, which the Case tractor can supply. To mount it, he removed the original three-point hitch.
He then fabricated a new frame made of square steel, with a quick attach mechanism similar to that found on commercially built front-end loaders.
The upper cylinders on the lift linkage are positioned so he can disconnect the pto shaft and then retract those cylinders to tilt the blower back and raise it high enough to drive up on a trailer.
“I used the quick attach because I want the ability to drop the blower quickly and pick up a 12 foot blade. I want to make this machine as useful as possible.”
Once this basic modification has been made, it’s likely that he will find other uses for such a tractor.
Jenkins says his total cost is under $25,000, mainly because he got a good deal on the basic tractor. Most Case crabsteer tractors have been selling in the $12,000 to $20,000 range. Jenkins found one broken down in a field for just $5,000.
“The splines were stripped in the centre of the flywheel for the shaft that goes through the transmission to drive the pto and hydraulic pump. So we pulled the engine and found a good used flywheel. And we put a new disc in the torque limiter while we had it apart.”
Jenkins’ costs include $5,000 for the tractor, $5,000 for new wheels and tires, $9,000 for the snow blower and $1,500 for hydraulics.
“Plus a lot of time. It was a steep learning curve. But I’m sure that now I could do three of these in the time it took me to do this first one.”
For more information, contact Derek Jenkins at 204-759-2102.
