Homemade Tractor Made From Snowblower Parts

Our Homemade Tractor Made from a Snowblower Project

I've always wanted a small garden tractor and there aren't many to be found around my town, so I thought I'd see if I could piece one together using a common and easy to find cousin, the snowblower.

Each spring there are multiple people looking to clean up their yard of their old snowblower that "ran when put away last winter" so I snagged one for free and started looking at what I had to work with.

Free MTD snowblower to build a tractor

It separated the motor and drive system from the snowblower and the handles/controls

Separating the blower from the engine/drive and handles/controls

Snowblowers are pretty simple. The engine has a double v-belt drive pulley. One v-belt drives the wheels by spinning a friction plate and when the operator squeezes the drive handle, the friction plate swings into a waiting rubber rimmed friction wheel. This disk then turns a few gears or chain sprockets to drive the wheels. The gearing or speed of the drive system is controlled by a separate lever that moves a wiper, sliding the rubber friction wheel left or right on the shaft. As the rubber wheel crosses the center-line of the friction disk, it changes from forward to reverse.
            The second belt drives the snowblower when the handle is squeezed.

The 5hp engine sitting on the drive section