I Built a Giant DIESEL POWERED Leaf Blower!!! 

Try trimming 2 inches off the tip of each metal blade, then bolt on rubber blade tips cut out from an old mud flap. This will seal better and not throw sparks. After running it the first 5 minutes the rubber tips will wear to the shape of the housing giving you a great seal. I did this with my snowblower, works great!

Rotate the outlet to other side, it'll blow at a slight downward angle. would make it easier to go from leaf to straw blowing mode and you'll get the volume back

Rather than cutting open more holes on the back of the fan, keep the opening where it is, rotate the chute to the top pointing directly sideways like you'd planned to have it for throwing straw, and then just build an attachment pipe that can bolt on to the existing bolt pattern on the chute for leaf blowing. Saves the structure that's existing, and saves having to rotate the chute around any time you want to change what you're using it for.

The way a centrifugal fan works requires the intake to be central (close to the axle). Pressure is developed in the entire periphery of the housing, so to maximise efficiency you should close up the original intake and cut a 12" hole as close to the centre as possible, leaving the bearing support framework in place. I made a similar version, but mine was mounted horizontally with its own vertical mower engine, and it sucks the leaves up before discharging out the side with some bleed air used to lift the leaves as it passed, works amazingly well as it partially mulches them at the same time. Cheers.

This is like the adult versions of Saturday morning cartoons!

From messing with centrifugal blowers I'd recommend elevating the air nozzle and angling downward. You don't need/want a high velocity concentration for your application but a more even 'wind'. By rotating the chute 270 degrees or so and blowing from the other side I think you'll get good results without any modification to the unit. Worth a shot given how easy it would be to try. Then you can tell me I'm wrong. :)

Matt, That blower would make a fantastic addition to a burn pit. The forced air would allow you to burn practically anything!

We had one of these silage blowers on my family farm growing up. One day blowing corn fodder into a barn. Had a Super C tractor on the blower and blower got plugged up. Detached the blower pipe off the top of blower, backed of the blower paddles on PTO with a crow bar. I reached in to grab a last handful of green, tough corn stalk/fodder and my brother through the PTO on with tractor wide open. The paddle caught about an inch above my left wrist. The Super C stalled as my arm was another "plugged" situation. Busted my arm good. Lucky was not sharp blade type paddles as some of these blowers have/had. No bleeding. Damn lucky. I was 13. Brother probably 18. In hospital for a week to insure circulation to fingers. 57 now and glad I still have my hand!

I'm waiting for the turbocharged big block hair dryer for the wife :)

Matt good stuff! Have you considered running the outlet on the other side of the unit? Two reasons. First you'd be able to achieve the downward angle just with the spout, without having to adjust the 3 point. The other would be you'd put the air inlet much further away and increase the pressure. Something to think about.

What a great invention! the sparks start the leaves on fire then the fan adds oxygen for a complete burn!

Thar She Blows! That's going to be a fearsome piece of equipment when you're done! 😊👍

I would try a reducer from 8" tip of the blower to 6"or 5", that would make the air go further, faster and stronger. Nice Frankenstein love the thinking out of the box...👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Hey Matt, I think that for centrifugal blowers like this, the hole should be in the center around the shaft, so that low pressure air is drawn in in the middle and high pressure air is pushed out at the edges. I also think you should consider using a smaller nozzle so that you get more airspeed for your given pressure. Just my two cents, loved the video! Always looking forward to your Saturday morning cartoons.

Morning Matt, with a little tweeking, I think your contraption will work, as some of your subscribers suggested, rotate the chute, cover that huge hole, maybe even shorten the blades a couple inches, bolt some rubber flaps on.....be safe, God Bless!!!!

As several other has commented, i would also suggest that you rotate the outlet to the right side to get a slight downwards angle. One thing that came to my mind was that you can rotate the housing to the point where you get the best airflow and then use for example duct pipe to make the "shooter", this gives you the best airflow and the air exactly where you want it. This will also benefit you later as it's easier to keep the original inlet opening. That's just my two cents.

Tim the tool man taylor would be Grunting over this one!

Its not only the "arm remover 5000", its also the "forest fire 5000".

WOW!!! That was a lot of fun Thank you. A magnum leaf blower quite original

I love that international tractor... My dad would love it sooo much...

Hell, leave it in "silage blowing mode" and just blow the leaves off the trees before they even fall on the driveway. Also, a slider door on that intake seems like it could be convenient.

For maximum efficiency you would need a hole in the center, around the fan axis. Your fan blade has diagonal or taper cuts, originating from axis. The size of the hole should not be more than the taper cut on the fan.

Great idea, only put the intake hole at the center 8" dia and outtake blowing as rectangle 5"x1"

I made one of those when I was 15 in 1975! lol. Dad bought a new silage blower, so I used the old one to make a leaf blower. Yours is quite similar but I indexed the chute to the other side because that's the way you turn when operating equipment normally. I had it on a downward angle because it seems to blow damper foliage better. My air intake was 2X the volume of the outlet pipe, with a swing flap to adjust the air volume. And I took some old stacker/conveyor belt pieces of equal size and screwed them to the blades to reduce the gap between the fan and the housing. Good video. This brought back sooo many memories. Thank you, I hope this helps. cheers🇨🇦 👍

Man I need one of those! *45 mph sustained winds for the last 2 weeks* OK, maybe not...

The auger and related housing covered up the outside portion of the intake which helped keep up the air flow by drawing in air closer to the center as others have suggested. The fix may be as easy as covering the outer 8" to 10" of the inlet.. A friend and I built a wind tunnel for for testing aircraft instruments and we used a blower from a grain elevator. It is capable of 500+ mph air flow in the venturi test section. As others have mentioned a nozzle on the outlet would help.

Yes Put the wheel on and also add a nozzle shaped to spread air across the ground. I have a hand push unit and I modified the discharge to go from 12" wide flat nozzle to 18'' wide by 1'' nozzle. My unit has a 5hp B&S motor and does that shift the dirt off concrete driveways. Also can be set up as vacumm cleaner. With the size of that unit, and the improvement to air intake a 24"x 1 1/2" nozzle should work a treat. Out and in along your drivewayonce and all done. Also make the air intake with an adjustable gate to set the air flow. I find this useful when blowing carparks. Keeps the crap from hitting vehicles. Would allow you to set up and not blow the stones away.

" Hi guys. What's up, my name is MAD.... and so am i !" That should be your intro, when building such machinery😂😂😂

Make a great bellows when burning brush piles, but put an extension on the end.🇨🇦

I really like the suggestion of cutting blades back 2” and adding rubber tips. Not just for increased air flow but to reduce the fire hazard

Fantastic. No blueprints; just a plan in your head. Congratulations!

That "SOB" comment at 29:52 spoke to my soul

Name it “Sparky”. Nice build. You need to eliminate rub before it throws bearings out. Enjoyed

love your dedication..... 2 thoughts on the blower. 1 just loosen the sliding housing bolts up and spin the blower chute to the other side it will naturally be pointed downward and you can remove the cant from the hitch. Or 2 since the chute looks like a giant hose clamp take the bolts out spread it and pop it off, then mirror image rotate it so the chute is still on the bottom but on the other side. Spread it and pop it back on, tighten the bolts up and you're done. Both option 1 and 2 get you back to full air power with no cutting grinding or welding required!

Nothing signafies the equipment sound of the engine as a water cap on the pipe. I vote water cap on all of diesel Creek equipment. Then we can buy our diesel Creek water cap for our equipment. Thank you Matt and to Mrs. Diesel Creek for allowing us to have so much fun watching Diesel Creek. George Netroe. Deltaville, Va

When drilling or cutting, use old engine oil for lube, it is thicker than new oil so stays around longer and of course it costs nothing.

Rather than move the air inlet, how about spinning the outlet round to the other side and if needed put a outlet fan nozzle on it to give better direction, that way you don't butcher the main body and you would now get about 270 degrees of sweep from the air inlet to outlet, just a thought.

I'm really impressed by the results. I do have one suggestion: maybe you can turn the blower around to the other side, pointed (a bit more) downwards, use a small extension tube? This way you have more ground clearance, more compression and a better downwards pointed airflow. Nonetheless well done! ;-)

I'd recommend making a nozzle to bolt on to the outlet with a smaller diameter, maybe rectangular in shape for more velocity.

Awesome idea, not only can you blow leaves you can set them on fire as you go!

I like Jon Trudell`s thought - Matt you need to stencil BINFORD BLOWER on this. The cover you put on needs to be made as an adjustable shutter to vary the air flow.

"Why do we need a giant diesel powered leaf blower???" B/C leaves that's why.

The "almost" King of the Hill music is perfect for this build!

Yes move the intake a bit but also concentrate the outlet by funnelling it slightly.

I'd try rolling the exhaust all the way back around to the other side and have it point down at an angle. You would get the extra pressure and if you needed to could make a small nozzle to direct it better.

Make a solid cover for the current intake. Then make another intake hole at 180 degrees from the current one. The cover might be made to fit both openings. Hold the cover on with a few bolts or other quick fasteners. You can move the Intake cover and Exhaust to make an ideal Hay dispenser OR Leaf Blower... Just a thought

You could put it in strawblower mode and make an tube to lower the end. so you have your leafblower mode with the power that you want.

The blower is a centrifugal air pump. It needs the air intake closer to the spindle - like the wife's hair dryer. Suggest you block off the current air intake except for a hole close the the spindle. This should be the shape of a curved sausage. Another intake on the opposite side of the fan housing will double the intake area. This arrangement will allow the fan to accelerate the airflow radially. You will get a huge increase in output. Cheers mate from New Zealand... Also trim 10mm off the end of each fan blade to get good clearance

This is some Mad-Max shenanigans. I love it! I'd try just rotating the outlet to the other side for a downward angle. Shouldn't need to move the intake then, and can put both wheels back on. Could also make it to where you can mount the auger section for when you want to use it as a straw blower.

Operations at our airport uses very big versions of this to blow snow off the runway. When you get fluffy snow in PA you can do the same thing. Much faster than plowing. Build a 12 to 18 inch nozzle that necks the discharge down by about 25% will increase the velocity of the air. Cover over most of the intake opening so that its about 24 inches in diameter and right around the center axis of the impeller.

Make it a leaf vacuum by building a shroud for the current intake area that comes down to a rectangle opening about 3' by 6" about 4" from the ground when it's lowered, then use rubber to bring the lowest point on the shroud to 1.5 to 2" above the surface. You can then rotate the exhaust to the right side and put a rubber chute about 180 deg. around the top edge that's "floppy" at the outer edge to prevent rocks and sticks from shooting upward. That should provide plenty of air movement. Doing the rubber tips on the impellers would help even more, like others have said.

To close off the large opening, attach a plate with a hinge at the top and a bolt at the bottom using a wing nut. It can be closed for leaf blowing and opened for straw blowing. For leaf blowing, install a similar door 180° from the existing door.

I suspect that the big hole air intake is reducing the draft output from this machine by 90%. If you block that and make a new hole closer to the centre of the shaft, make sure it is fairly big and adjustable. You may need to increase the size of the intake to reduce the air output even at fairly low PTO speed. Without an adjustable intake you could find that you have invented a rock thrower. Good video.

Auction prices of old silage blowers just went up tenfold. Love the band’s take on Mike Judge.

Ushally when the fan hits like that loosening the band a bit solves the problem

Hi Matt, Not an engineer here but a fan of yours. Lots of great comments/ideas here. My two cents are that the fan blades are just straight pieces of angle iron which are great for slinging stuff. However, in your case, you need to move air. Of course, closing that gaping intake hole and leaving 6-8 inches towards the center is a great idea. However, all fans have curvature to move air forward or sideways. In your case, maybe tilt them to push air out. Kind of like on the 90's wheels, where the blades were slicing or cutting. Same concept. Also, I think attaching a swooping 90 degree conduit can point the blower tip from center of road. Very little blowing power will be lost. Hope this helps in your decisions.

What a wonderful leaf blower you made Matt! It's so efficient. It can blow leaves _and_ light them on fire at the same time! Superb. :D Cheers,

Makes it hard to get a video out every week when it gets dark so early in these months. Great job on the leaf blower!

The inlet should be centered around the centre, it's way off centre to feed thein silage which is great for blowing silage but not for best blower action. Also, you want a jet tube, all leaf blowers have them. A gentle reduction in diameter - this converts pressure to velocity and you want velocity to move the leaves. Amazing project, I love the sparks!

Killer logo, killer video again, support from the other side of the world, Hungary, Central-Europe. ROCKNROLL!

The farm I used to work at had a grain lifter like that. The 120hp Fendt would run it flat out, but we often needed that tractor for carting. Put on the Case 844 (80hp tractor with the pump turned up quite a bit) the exhaust manifold would glow red for hours.

When you aren't blowing leaves, you can run a hose from the outlet of the fan to the intake on the tractor. Make the world's largest tractor supercharger 🤣

My wife was watching this video over my shoulder as I watched it on my iPad ( other tablets available) she said you reminded her of me and my brother back in the day, we used to have ideas that we made things out of bits and pieces, i never thought about it but it’s right, we got something done using non standard items which upsets me as I’m no longer in a fit place to do it, but nevertheless I can watch and enjoy the things you do. Great stuff Matt 👍

The Florida pool pump motor bearing repair guy When Service Calls Longwood approved ! that was good info ! Diesel Creek good work.

Great job Matt. Maybe put a single, swivel wheel out back of your blower housing instead of two wheels. Kinda like on a brushhog deck.

i’d make a detachable nozzle that goes on the output and goes from round to a more long rectangular shape so you get a wider effective area rather then the air just coming straight out all in one spot

Going to be a beastly leaf blower when your done Matt Heck yeah 20:03 @Diesel Creek

Try installing a "reducer" tip on the discharge to increase air velocity.

That thing would be perfect for starting brush fires. Make a cone shaped spout of sheet metal to focus the blower that will increase the airspeed (Bernoulli’s principle). Leave the intake the way it is just build a hopper over that spot so you can feed straw in, then use a removable expanded metal shield over the hopper.

It has been said already, the best place for the intake is on or as close to the center as possible. If you were able to watch in slow motion with smoke, you would see the air travel from center to outer on the blade. With the opening that close to the outer circumference, there is no time to pick up speed. You are sort of just hitting the air. You already mentioned not moving the gravel. Adjustable inlet and rotate 180 degrees.

Just spin the opening around to the other side where it's pointing kinda down, you solve all your problems. Blow leaves move spout up blow hay.

Make a nozzle and block off the big hole. Make smaller holes near the center of the rotation. Great video ! You’re a great handyman !!

Matt, I was a design engineer for a fan company. A fan is a centrifugal pump. Look at any centrifugal pump and you will see the inlet is at the center. The centrifugal force causes the air moving to the outside away from the center. The forward side of the blades push the air, a fan doesn't suck, it pushes, then atmospheric pressure fills in behind. The lowest pressure is at the center, the further from the center the higher the pressure. If you have openings near the outside diameter, they will just be more outlets. I would close off and seal most of the inlet opening that is not close to the center of the shaft. The current opening is way too large. It was used for solids which in reality clogged up most of the opening. You are not using solids, so your application is a little different. The inlet opening should be maybe one and a half as large in cross section as the outlet, at only at the shaft location. A circular cutout around the shaft would be best, the closest to the center would be best. I hope this helps, and thank you.

I'd personally flip the output tinware around so the output spout was facing down ....and make the input vent 180 % opposite the output ...I'm sure there is a magic number for the actual degrees but 180 should work fine ..it won't be full chootch but I don't think it will be far off ..Best of luck with the rest of the build dude and can't wait for the future video's Peace n love from Cumbria UK 🇬🇧 ❤

Would love to see a follow up on this where the original air intake is modified, and your getting a ton more pressure. Cool idea. Thanks

I repurposed an orchard and vineyard pull behind tank sprayer to blow out our orchards during winter work, and convert it back in the spring when we start spraying. Cool idea you have there, once the intake gets relocated it'll be more than enough.

Air intake needs to be basically central, I'd make the surface area of the intake about twice the area of the outlet and you'll be golden. If you can make the hole central and still provid bearing support, that would be perfect.

Interesting. That’s crazy how that hole location effected the pressure That much. You’ll figure it out

weld on post (bolts) so you can build flaps to cover the 8 in holes, add a wedge to hold them in place for when not using it in leaf/snow blowing and make them so you can just take them off when you are using as leaf/snow blower. thinking that gravity should do most of the work for you, dont want them to be too easy to come off but not hard either. I tried the snow blowing with a backpack.. not sure you are going to like it.

Hi: what an innovative design. You remind me of my guardian who was good at innovation, for example we needed a big forklift to move big pieces of machinery around the farm, he also collected classic and antique cars that needed to be moved from time to time. So we took and old combine from the junk yard, converting it to a forklift. Counterbalanced the rear end. there was nothing we couldn't lift with it. He had a 1909 case steam tractor, we'd load it on a low boy, taking it to shows. That was one heck of a forklift.

I had a large leaf vac mounted on a 20 yard container truck . To increase the suction I reduce the hose. I think if you put a pipe on the end that can reduced and concentrated the flow Added with the smaller intake hole you would get more blowing pressure. It worked for me just in reverse of what you’re doing. Great video great build

As this is a basic centripetal fan, close up that hole near the outer edge, and cut your new holes close to the hub.This will give you the best possible static pressure. When combined with the other guy's suggestion of rubber tipped blades will make a huge difference. Even better if you have the sides of the blades somewhat sealed too. You could even go overboard and build curved blades a-la your normal radial fan arrangement.

Pumping grain and pumping air are two different things. Find a leaf-sucking vacuum trailer and examine the fan assembly. It’s an offset volute. The air intake is in the center and the centrifugal force imparted by the fan compresses the air like a turbocharger does. So, centrally located air intake and the housing needs to increase in size as it nears the outlet. Then you’ll move some leaves.

If your nearest neighbor is far enough away that they can't see or hear you ,,,, your good. What you have is golden. I appreciate you Matt . ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Jeremy in Alabama.

Hey Matt, I agree with the previous comment about a central intake around the main drive shaft. Also if you reduce reduce the nozzle it will create a venturi and you'll get more velocity than just open CFM. Rubber tire flaps on the blades will also seal inside the housing, which is where you are loosing cfm. Just my 2 cents

Matt, you could do with having the inlets as close to the center of the impeller is possible and like 45 degrees after the outlet. I think you are going to make a HUGE jumping castle, and use that to keep it inflated, or use it to evacuate a spray booth😁

Matt, this is Kev in Maine. I believe you can increase the performance of that blower by putting a wide-flat nozzle on it. So the opening would be about fifteen inches wide but only about 3 or 4 inches tall.

make sure to add a FAN attachment on the round nozzle, you could use something like a register vent as the restriction will generate a higher outflow and the fan shape will allow you to cover more area per pass

Nozzle and inlet position have been mentioned, so I want to mention one other thing: Rubber (mud flaps of converyor belt) bolted onto the fan could give better sealing towards the housing. If you cut off the tips of the rotor a bit for that, it even creates clearance (also dry leaves and sparks are probably not a good combination). I did a similar modification to my snowblower, and it really makes a difference.

You’re truly an artist with rusty old metal. Love how you’re able to breathe new life into old parts.

Matt went proper A-Team on that project, love it 👍🏻

I used Kroil 20 years ago. Great stuff !!

I'm blown away by your work Matt 😲🍻

“We’re going to work a little clearancing on that and then hopefully it will be good!” *feverish hammering commences* 😂

If this leaf blower works well, I suggest sandblasting it and give it a good powder coating

Don't start a fire with sparks while blowing leaves! Nice job. Nice build. Reminds me of my ranch days. However, what I remember was that something was always breaking. I finally got tired of fixing old stuff all the time. Sold the place in 2016.

Great Channel! You're a genius! You have a gift! God bless you!

I just about spit my coffee out when you fired that thing up for the first time at night! 🤣 With all the sparks coming out, what leaves didn't blow away would burn! Great job at repurposing another piece of old equipment Matt. When a local golf course switched to the new style turbo leave blowers I was fortunate enough to score an old Toro unit about the size of what you have. It has a row of rollers along the back of it that keeps the main body from hitting the ground.

Looks like you made a custom diesel tractor driven Spark Thrower There Matt You should be good in the cold needing to start a camp fire 😂 32:10 @Diesel Creek

Just for poops and giggles Matt, rotate the chute to blow down from the most velocity point from the right side of the tractor. But by all means please cover the intake with expanded mesh covering.