Snowblower Snowblower

   / Snowblower #1  

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I have someone who wants to sell a used 3 pt hitch 60" 2-stage Kubota snowblower. Model #B/L 2563. Asking $1000.00.

He claims it is in good shape but has been sitting outside and could use a paint job.

I have a B2150. Does anyone know anything about this Kubota model number? Are the Kubota Snowblowers good? How much New and is this a good price assuming it works.

Thanks for the feedback....

Tim
 
   / Snowblower #2  
The snowblower should work with your tractor as long as it is for the same category 3ph - you probably have a category I 3ph.

Kubota doesn't make its own snowblowers - they are made by third parties, but they are usually quite good. The main thing to check is the clearance between the impeller and the drum. If the impeller will not pick up a quarter and carry it from BDC to the point of discharge 90 degrees later, the impeller is worn and needs to be rebuilt.

I think these units are about $US2000 new so $US1000 is a fairly good price if it is in good condition.
 
   / Snowblower #3  
I bought a new Kubota orange Woods SS60 (60" rear mount) for a little under $2,000 last year. My impeller has considerably more clearance than HWP suggests, but it's been that way since new. I've had the opportunity to test it out in a couple of snowstorms this year and so far it's worked GREAT!

I think more important than the clearance is the diameter and rotation speed of the impeller. A rear mount has the impeller spinning at 540 rpm. The diameter of mine is 23". The larger the impeller, the faster the impeller tip is moving so the better it can throw the snow.

But anything beats shoveling, and I didn't want to lose my front loader with a front mount snowblower.

For $1,000, if it's in good working order, it sounds like a good price, especially this time of year. If you want to gamble, come the end of March or April, they might wish to move it for less, if someone else hasn't bought it already.

Good Luck,

~Rick
 
   / Snowblower #4  
Rick, I agree with you but I was assuming the rotation velocity and drum diameter were not variables in this situation. This may have been a poor assumption as there is always the option of buying a different machine. Anyway, the fellow that designed and built the snowblower for my tractor (its was originally owned by a municipality and the snowblower was specifically designed for it for use with my tractor) told me that to get a 100 foot throw (his design goal) the tip velocity needs to be at least 5000 ft/min. If you work through the calculations assuming a chute exit velocity of 70% of impeller tip velocity (accounts for losses from the leakage between the tip and the drum and friction in the chute), this will give about a 100 ft. throw at a 45 degree discharge trajectory. The greater the gap between the impeller and the drum the lower the efficiency. Not everyone wants or can accomodate a 100 foot throw so lower tip speeds and larger gaps may be acceptable and desirable for some applications.

I run my engine at 2000 rpm and use the low pto range for snowblowing which means the impeller turns at about 1000 rpm. My snowblower has a 20" diameter impeller which at 1000 rpm gives a tip velocity of about 5200 feet/min. I have the space so I want the most throw I can get as this results in less drifitng. In your case a 23" impeller turning at 540 rpm will give a tip speed of 3250 feet/min. which may be fine for your situation.

A couple of years ago I noticed that I was not getting the throw that I thought I should and found that the tips of the impeller blade were worn and the drum was misshapen (bulged out in the middle from stones, etc.) so that the gap was as much a 1/4" in places. I welded a 1/8" steel liner on the inside of the drum and then ground the impeller tips to fit the drum with a 0.020" gap. I then rebalanced the impeller. This brought the throw back to about 100 feet as expected. My guess is that I will get another couple of seasons out of it before I have to rebuild the impeller tips. In the meantime, I can detect that the throw is slowly decreasing as the tips wear.

Anyway, back to your point, both tip velocity and gap are important aspects of snowblower performance.
 
   / Snowblower #5  
Hi Howard,

You and I went through this discussion before and I agree with what you say. It's just that the Woods snowblowers are not designed that way and I don't think an extra 1/4" or so of length on the impeller blades will improve the throwing distance that much.

Now, yours has the advantage of operating on a 1000 rpm PTO. For a 540 PTO impeller to reach 5,000 ft/min, the impeller would have to be 35" in diameter, and I've never seen that on a snowblower in this category.

For my use, I usually have to direct the flume mostly downwards so I don't send it toward the neighbors, toward our house, or out in the street...or it's so windy and I'm trying to minimize my snow consumption /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif.

I'm sure your snow blower works superbly and probably better than mine. I'm happy with the way mine works and you're happy with the way yours works. I just don't think people should be applying the "pick up a dime" test, or whatever, and not buying a unit 'cause it didn't pass. Some units apparently aren't designed with those close tolerances.

Even if the gap was 1", it still beats shovelling! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Now...I hope this storm that's now entering the mid-Atlantic states takes a northward swing and I'll get some more seat time. Yeah! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Take care...and bring on the snow!

~Rick
 
   / Snowblower
  • Thread Starter
#6  
I'm used to tractor 3-point snow blowers, some that are 36" or bigger propeller & 150 hp, so I'm glad I got the detailed explination of all this - it wasn't making sense the first time I read about the dime & all! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Never actually saw one that would pick up a dime.

-->Paul
 
   / Snowblower #7  
HWP,

What was your procedure for balancing the impeller when you rebuilt it?
 
   / Snowblower #8  
I just put the impeller on a proper sized axle and rotated it - i.e. a static balance. I fiddled with it until it would stay in any position. A dynamic balance would have been better but I didn't have the equipment to do that. The impellers on most tractor mounted snow blowers are small enough that they don't need to be precision balanced. On the other hand, some of the big tractor mounted snowblowers with 8 foot impellers need to be very well balanced otherwise they would shake everything to pieces.
 
   / Snowblower #9  
Hi All,

I'm just posting a few "follow-up" observations after getting some more snowblower seat time this morning on about 15" of snow.

As I stated before, my 3 pt. Woods snowblower is designed with a sizeable gap...I'll have to actually measure it some day, but it's at least 3/4" between the impeller tips and the shroud. What I noticed is that the snow packed between the impleller tips and the shroud forming a "seal" of sorts.

It had no problem throwing the snow today. I don't usually have the deflector pointing too far upward, but it easily launced some snow 50+ feet when I did. (If I tried for maximum distance, my neighbors might start getting upset. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif That was for the light powdery stuff. Some of the ice chunks went much further, may 100+ feet?)

I think one advantage of the "built in gap" is that small stones don't get wedged between the impeller and the shroud. After several uses, there's still no signs of wear whatsoever on the impeller shroud. I have a paved driveway, but there's always little pebbles and chunks of asphalt laying around somewhere that get launched.

Anyway, it worked great! I did my drive and a couple of neighbors and about 350' of sidewalk. The sidewalk was a real workout: over 3' deep in some spots, very heavy stuff from the snow plows... but the mighty Kubota made slow and steady progress. It even cut through some snow banks that have been there for over a month, hard and ice encrusted.


Another comment: I strongly suggest that anyone planning to put a snowblower on a tractor get a tractor with either hydro or creeper gears. For deep, compacted drifts, it had to slow down to a crawl. When the going got easier, I could speed up substantially. Seems like I was always adjusting the speed of the tractor. Hydro allows those changes effortlessly.

Blowing snow has by far been the heaviest load I've placed on my tractor. Most of my uses don't require PTO speed. Blowing snow does, and when the snow is heavily packed, it has to work. Hard.

Being a 3 pt. hitch mount I don't really have too much trouble "driving backwards". My back condition, fortunately, allows me enough painfree flexible twisting to watch what I'm doing. However, I still get a bit confused when backing. I keep thinking of the snowblower as being a "trailer" and steering it as such, only to find "it's going the wrong way" and I have to correct. I'm not as bad as I was the first time, but it still takes some getting used to.

Oh, I envy all of you that have a snowblower AND a cab. You're lucky. One of these days I'll have to rig up something temporary that will work with the folding ROPS. In the mean time, I just use my trusty safety glasses and try to be aware of which way the wind blows.

Just passing on some of my experiences. I'm glad I had another opportunity to blow some more snow. If I had a cab around me, I don't think I'd ever want to come back in the house.

~Rick
 
   / Snowblower
  • Thread Starter
#10  
Sounds like fun Rick!

Don't think Ill ever get a snow blower...no sidewalks here and the neighbor has one and would not want me messin' with his snow... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Guess I'll have to make do with the back blade and loader...which works surprisingly well, even on that rough chunk of the planet we call our driveway /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
 
 
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