Hyd. Pump

Possible? Yes.

As long as the skidsteers hydraulics can supply a similar amount of fluid and at a high enough pressure most PTO type pumps will work just fine as hydraulic motors.

It is possible, as the other posters have suggested, but you are assuming a bunch of things that may or may not work for you. Gear and vane pumps and motors are optimized for the job they were designed to do and trying to convert a pump to a motor may not be very satisfactory.

The oil flow from your skidsteer is likely a fixed flow rate pump. What you want is a hydraulic motor correctly sized to take this oil flow and deliver 540 rpm to your flail input shaft.

Now, if you know the specs of the oil flow from the skidsteer and know the specs of the PTO hydraulic pump you have, you will be able to make an estimate if you are even close to making this work.

Comparing the output flows in GPM is what you want to look at. If your skidsteer delivers, say, 15GPM and your PTO pump delivers the same amount, you are at least in the ballpark. If the PTO pump will work as a motor then you should see it turn at about 540 rpm. If your skidsteer delivers more or less than the PTO pump does you will get speeds above or below the desired 540 rpm.

Hope this helps,

Jon.

The required flow rate for flail mowers is also dependent on the width of the mower.

You must have a John Deere "fail" mower! I would suggest you get a New Holland flail mower built for your skid steer. Do you have a dual pressure, high flow hydraulic on the skid steer? A high flow system will run augers, snowblowers, tillers, etc. The three point hitch would help keep from scalping on uneven ground. Skid steers with a short wheelbase don't float well, they are like driving a Jeep offroad.

Reply: I'm doing this kinda for a project, I have everything I need, I'm a Excavating for 45 years and have a lot of parts. the skid steer I will be using is a rubber track t650 bobcat, it does have the variable hyd. You can buy attachments that run on high flow or reg flow. The flail is a Ford which I have had setting in a storage trailer for years. The hyd motor I have, I used it to run a roller off a JD farm tractor and then I adapted that to run off my skid steer with a hyd motor, If the motor I have does not work I will get another, but since I have it I will give it a try. I really do not need this, I mow with a 32hp Grasshopper. and I also have a 7' brush hog and a 5' three point finish mower. I have all my equipment serviced and ready for spring, this is what we do it the winter months. Tried working in the winter, lost money and you can not do a good job when cond. are not right. Doing the flail to keep busy, my wife says that I always need a project.

Good for you!!! I say go for it.

You obviously have the equipment and skills to do this.

I can only offer encouragement, because I've never worked with hydraulic motors.

Assuming you don't have the high flow option your bobcat supplies 23gpm of oil at 3500psi otherwise its 30.5gpm. I would assume this varies with engine rpm but it doesn't go into it on Bobcat's website.

Do you know what size the pump you have might be? It will have to be a fairly large displacement pump to have the shaft spin at 540rpm with 23gpm flowing through it. Most mobile pumps output is based on them being spun at 1200rpm so you will need a pump with an output roughly twice the size of your flow. Say 50gpm.

Make sure it can handle 3500psi or you will blow the cartridge in the pump.

If you look in the Northern Tool Book it is the Prince 540 RPM - 21 GPM This is the Prince Hyd PTO Tractor Plump.In my book it is item A1050-2451 I have it setting on the gear box. The splines slides right on.

It looks like it is only rated to 2250psi. Your pump won't be able to take the bobcats system pressure of 3500psi.

Aside from that it would work just fine. If you can find a similar product with a higher pressure rating you would be in business.

2250 psi at 21 gpm is about 27hp. I doubt that a flail mower will require much more than that unless the OP is cutting trees down! A pressure relief valve could be plumbed in at the motor to protect it if the pressure relief on the bobcat is not easily adjusted.

Jon.

This is what I plan to do, I have the third line on both of my bobcats to handle the return. I had to do this with a flow divider on my roller.

True it'll work I would just be concerned about heat. Bypassing that amount of oil continuously will warm things up especially with the long duty cycle of a flail in operation. I don't know how big the tank is but keep an eye on the temperature or better yet add an active oil cooler.

The T650 has great Hyd. cooling. This mower will not be used for a long period of time and I will watch the temp. If the Hyd temp gets to high the machine shuts down.

The first destination of enquiries of this type always needs to be the equipment manufacturer's Technical Helpline.