Converted Mower Makes Manure Hauling Easier

Converted Mower Makes Manure Hauling Easier TRACTORS Made-It-Myself Damon Johnson of Erda Utah converted a 15-hp MTD riding mower into a dump truck to help his twin daughters with their chores “We have horses so my daughters are always busy cleaning up manure ” he says “They had to move it a long way using a wheelbarrow They say the job is a lot more agreeable now that they get to drive it there ” He extended the framework of the hydrostatic mower backward along with the axle “It was just a matter of extending the frame ” he recalled “I just cut out some pieces of scrap metal and welded it all together I have a lot of experience fabricating and the process of extending the frame and moving the axle didn’t take too long “The trickiest part was the measuring ” Johnson says “You really have to be precise to make sure everything is straight “I had to lengthen the belt that goes from the engine to the back axle ” he says “and I had to make sure the pulleys lined up ” He says the process was made even simpler by the fact that most riding mowers aren’t made with specialized parts “If you go to Home Depot and look at mowers and then head to another store to look at a different brand a lot of them have the same parts ” he adds The dump bed is 3 by 3 1/2 ft with 14-in sides It dumps using two 12-volt electric linear actuators One lifts the bed up to dump and one locks the tailgate shut “I haven’t seen anything quite like this on the market ” Johnson says which is another big reason he undertook the project “I was looking for something completely different ” He said the process was inexpensive for him because he has “a lot of extra lawmowers and metal laying around I couldn’t justify buying a $15 000 side-by-side for this job ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Damon Johnson 3658 North Arrowhead Lane Erda Utah 84074 ph 801 824-4834; damon_johnson2000@yahoo com