Hi all, this is for anyone mounting up a cyclone rake to a wheel horse. The standard hitch equipped with the cyclone rake to fit wheel horse "c" series relies on the drawbar hitch tab to transmit the sideways turning motion to the cyclone rake frame. Not the greatest design, it puts alot of stress on the pivot which is cast into the uni-drive trans. They give you the option of drilling a second hole through the hitch tab, which I thought was a bad idea. Hauling regular trailers and using the sleeve/slot hitch, the hitch works fine, but the cyclone rake is a heavy extension of the tractor hanging out back. When you turn right, the rake goes immediately left and if heavily loaded, is transmitting forces through the 5" pin through the hitch and trans housing in a way it was never designed to. After using the rake a few times, the uprights on my hitch began to bend and I figured if I wanted to keep everything together (and not break off the cast ears on the trans housing), I'd better come up with something more robust.
Pic of the cyclone rake hitch:
From this you can see the cyclone rake hitch bracket and the adapter to mount to the hitch tab (harder to see but underneath, the back part is so you can continue to hook up a standard trailer). The hitch bracket would work fine with tractors that have a flat vertical steel frame plate at the back that the rake hitch plate would bolt to. You can also see how the sideways turning forces would be transmitted directly to the hitch tab and on through to the pin through the ears on the trans housing.
Using steel 3/4" rod, 1.5" x 1.5" x 1/4" angle iron, and a length of scrap bed frame angle iron for the top piece, I fabbed up a bracket that bolts to the back flange of the rake hitch plate down to the axle mount quik tach for the snowplow.
Top view:
Side view (top angle is 28 deg):
Bracket bolted to rake hitch and hooked into axle quik-tach:
Rake attached:
Total job cost was about $15 and took me about 3 hrs. I'm not too experienced at welding, but this job was fairly easy. Removal is just the bolt through the hitch tab hole and unlocking the quick-tach arms.
