Aftermarket bagging system for riding mower?

[Charles Wiggins]

I have been wanting to get a riding mower or better, a lawn tractor for some time. More than any other reason I want it to pick up the bushels of oak leaves that drop on my lawn every fall. I can get a great deal on a Honda H4013 (http://www.tractordata.com/lawn-tractors/000/6/7/675-honda-h4013.html) from a friend but it has no bagging unit. I've poked around on Honda's website, but as far as I can tell, if I want OEM I have to figure out all of the replacement parts needed and order them piecemeal.

Does anyone manufacture aftermarket systems?

I know you can get lawn vac systems, but the ones I have priced so far are a lot more than I have to spend and take up more space than the mower itself. Storage space is an issue right now too.

Thanks

[David Weaver]

Personally, I would get a pull-behind yard rake before I'd get anything that doesn't have an impeller.

Here's my suggestion, based on what we did when I was a kid. You can get the fittings for the end of your tractor's mower deck, but the 6 inch or 8 inch corrugated tube to fit the fittings, and use a cart you have already by making a plywood box that fits in it with a heavy gauge screen on top.

Basically, it's an EZ Vac setup where you use a wagon you already have and make the box yourself. We picked our leaves up with a setup like that for about 15 years, an acre of heavily wooded yard. When the impeller started to give up, my dad, who was older with more money and I was moved away, bought the entire ez vac system.

I don't know if ez vac is in business any longer, but I'm sure someone else makes a similar setup. When you're done at the end of the year, you can take the whole setup off of the tractor and collapse the ply box (we held ours together with angle iron and screws) and set the impeller and hose aside with it.

I believe we already had a cart at the time we got the first one, and locating a used impeller, hoses, and getting the fitting that goes on the end of the mower deck cost us about what would be $500 in today's dollars. When my dad bought again, and got the whole system with wagon, it was more like $2500 or so, but it was bigger everything (bigger wagon, bigger impeller motor, etc).

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Look on Cyclone Rake. Nice system, good company with very helpful people. I have it for more then 5 years.
Ed.

[Matt Meiser]

Even the OEM system for my Husqvarna ZTR adds a blower driven by a pulley that goes on top of the right spindle's drive pulley.

[Charles Wiggins]

Personally, I would get a pull-behind yard rake before I'd get anything that doesn't have an impeller.

Here's my suggestion, based on what we did when I was a kid. You can get the fittings for the end of your tractor's mower deck, but the 6 inch or 8 inch corrugated tube to fit the fittings, and use a cart you have already by making a plywood box that fits in it with a heavy gauge screen on top.

Basically, it's an EZ Vac setup where you use a wagon you already have and make the box yourself. We picked our leaves up with a setup like that for about 15 years, an acre of heavily wooded yard. When the impeller started to give up, my dad, who was older with more money and I was moved away, bought the entire ez vac system.

I don't know if ez vac is in business any longer, but I'm sure someone else makes a similar setup. When you're done at the end of the year, you can take the whole setup off of the tractor and collapse the ply box (we held ours together with angle iron and screws) and set the impeller and hose aside with it.

I believe we already had a cart at the time we got the first one, and locating a used impeller, hoses, and getting the fitting that goes on the end of the mower deck cost us about what would be $500 in today's dollars. When my dad bought again, and got the whole system with wagon, it was more like $2500 or so, but it was bigger everything (bigger wagon, bigger impeller motor, etc).

Thanks for the idea, but I have nothing like that to start with, so it sounds like I'd be better off just shopping for an existing system.