Uses for belt pulleys,,,,

here is my '28 Allis 20-35 running a threshing machine last fall.

Edited by Jacob (WI,ND) - 09 Apr 2017 at 10:49am

B254 cuttin a bit.



Edited by CTuckerNWIL - 10 Apr 2017 at 9:02am

Long belts were used to aid in alingment and to keep from having to pull tight and pull machine over!!---Long belt don't slip as much either!! thanks; ac fleet

   Hey AC,, that makes sense on the longer belts for letting the weight keepin em snug and reducing slippage,.
  Mr Phil,,thet is a beautiful picture of a fall day at work,,, with winter on the way,,,,you ought to submit it for a calendar contest,,,,, My caption would be,," Heavy clouds promising an early winter",,,
   Hey Jacob,,,where is Kenmare from Bismark,,?? I've heard of it lots of times when headed to Belcourt,,but never knew where it was,,,,most of our "used to" trips up there were thru Black Hills, to Bismark, up to Minot, over to Rugby and north to Belcourt,,,I was always on the lookout for AC orange but never seen any,,,!! We drove right by ole Darrel's place lots of times before I knew where he lived,,,but,,next time,,I'm gonna stop in for coffee,,,,,
   I spent lots of time ridin up and down them country roads all the way to Langdon and Devil's Lake but never found anything,,course with all them trees,,,,,,,

Long belt has a flywheel effect. Saw mills used them around here. With a long belt the weight of the belt traveling between  the pulleys acts like a flywheel. this helped the engine maintain speed when the log went into the saw.

d.j. those clouds were more than threatinin'!  We had to quit about an hour later as it started to rain and then snowed.  We had an early winter and there are still close to a million acres of crops still in the fields according to the farm papers.  And, Shameless must still have thet dang machine goin' , cause it's snowin here again!!

Dad had a small corn grinder to grind hog feed mounted in a small building with a door that you would open up to run the belt out of to the tractor. Wish I had a picture of it.

The twist was done to reverse the direction of the driven pulley. We used the pulley on the WD to drive a front-mounted buzz saw, silo filler and hammer mill. We twisted the belt on the hammer mill and that was all.

My Grandad tole me the longer the belt,, made more power, so I guess the flywheel effect has some truth to it. I also thought the long belt was to get sparking engines away from the straw pile...

The twist I know reverses rotation,,, but steam engines have power both ways, what gives here? I can better understand that perfect alignment not needed with a twist

way back when,
If we had a power outage (as would happen on occasion) our WC was used to run the vacuum pump for the Surge milkers.  Had to milk them darn cows every morning and night, ya know.
Dad had made a small access door on the barn, which allowed running a belt to the side pulley of the pump.


We had a "buzz" saw too.  It was mounted on the front of an F20.  Every fall, we'd cut up short pieces of scrap wood for the kitchen stove.
IIRC, it was direct, not twisted.
The F20's belt pulley was rather large and could be mounted on either side.

If you left the pulley on, get ready for some slow gear shifting.....always took a while to slow down. 
I always thought it strange that tractor mfgs never designed 'synchros into their transmissions.....until much later (60's ?)  Guess it wasn't considered cost-effective.
Was it JD that first had a synchronized transmission in the 3020 ?



Edited by Gatz in NE - 10 Apr 2017 at 5:59pm

Joe...I have 2 drive on wagon hoists that are belt driven

Power shift was an new option on 3020 and 4020 that came out in 1963 simultaneously. 3020 and 4020 are different sizes, not ages. 3020 65 hp and 4020 93 or 95 hp. 4 cylinder vs 6 cylinder engines. Virtually identical hydraulics including steering by hydraulics, power brakes, and hydraulic operated differential lock. 3010 and 4020 used a poorer scheme for switching the PTO speed and splined shaft that caused more broken parts deep inside the transmission. The spline shaft bolts on and selects the speed according to a center rod in the mating flange. When the bolts work loose and it gets forced it breaks stuff inside. The 1969 model year of the 3020 and 4020 introduced a very different hydraulic system and moved the controls for the hydraulic remotes from the dash to a side console, hence they are often called "side console". There were so many differences that the two eras of 4020 don't share shop manuals or parts books, while the 4010 and 4020 do share both. Between the 4010, early 4020, and side console 4020 there are three different hydraulic remote connections and hardware.

Gerald J.

This was before my day, but the family used a belt on the 1936 WC to run the elevator to get ear corn and soybeans into the crib.  Used tumbling rods and a speed jack to get the power to the elevator.  Wish I had pictures, but I don't.

The Amish in our area still use belt powered ensilage cutters to fill their silo(s). I have an Amish friend (he built my garage in 2011) who borrowed one of my WD-45's a couple years ago.

I took my grandkids over to watch. They had 7 teams drawing corn with 2 men on each wagon. Each team brought in 5 loads before dinner and 6 loads after, for a total of 77 loads! They completely filled the silo that day. They put almost 30 gallons of gas through the WD-45.

One of the Amish boys told me that they really liked using my tractor, because it had a lot of power. (They all seem to have old Case tractors.) They kept trying to plug the blower and cut the shear pins off in the table twice, but no plugs!