dnw64
Veteran Member
Hi,
New member here and I thought rather than post an introduction on the New Member forum I'd just jump in here since this is the reason I discovered your site.
I have owned a 1972 Case 444 for almost 20 years. I got it with a 44" deck and 48" blower. Oh, and a front blade that wasn't set up right and I never bothered figuring it out. For the last few years I've been having someone cut my grass (I don't like doing it...) so all I've been using it for is blowing snow.
I started perusing this forum because I'm looking for an alternative. The tractor has been mostly good, with a few problems I've been able to work out. There are three primary reasons I'm looking to replace this as my snow remover.
Probably if the Case had a 2-stage blower I would make the effort to get it back to 100%. And while I know some people have fitted 2-stage blowers to the Case, it's not worth the time and money to me to try and do that. I even half considered doing that and upgrading to an 18hp twin, but spending that much money on a 45 year old tractor that may need a new hydro pump or who knows what the next week seems foolish to me. I'm not that attached to it.
So here's where I stand today. A year and a half ago I decided I wasn't going to fix the tractor and went through the same thing I'm going through now. In the end I decided since all I was using it for was snow removal I would just get a big walk behind and ended up buying an Ariens Professional 32.
I used it once that first winter (probably our lowest snowfall on record, and we were away the other two times is snowed and had it plowed). After using it 6-8 times so far this year I've decided that a walk behind is not for me. My biggest complaint is the lack of stability/momentum. Any little bump or left-over piece of ice and it jumps all over the place. I'm 6'2", 210#, in reasonably decent shape and after 45 minutes I feel like I've just finished a workout. OK, as my son would say, I'm an old man (53 this month) but while it doesn't have to be fun, I refuse to torture myself unnecessarily. I love how far the 2-stage blower throws snow, but that's about it.
A little more info about the driveway. As I mentioned, it's about 40' wide in front of the garage, which extends about 40' to the end of the house, and then has a 10' extension for a turnaround that goes another 30'. The actual driveway itself is 10' wide and is about 150'. Everything is paved and relatively level (yes, in VT!). Because of the layout of the driveway, and the fact that we have finished lawn adjacent to most of it, I do not want to use a conventional plow. You have to backdrag a good portion of it, and then there's no place to push the snow. Any time I've had it plowed I hate it.
So, back to my reason for finding/reading this forum. I've been looking at CUT/SCUTs with front mounted snowblowers and found one that seemed like it would do the job. In fact it seems almost ideal. But I'd never heard of it so I've been researching and found quite a few posts here.
The machine I've found is a Steiner 430 Max with 54" snowblower. From everything I've read it seems like it is a well built machine, and most people say that with the Kohler gas engine (25/27 or 30hp - I'm not sure which at this point) it has plenty of power.
I guess my question comes down to this. It seems that the primary use for this machine is mowing, and especially mowing side hills. If all I'm going to do with this is blow snow, should I consider a more conventional CUT/SCUT? Is this overkill?
I guess I should mention that while I don't have an actual budget, I'd like to spend less than $10k. And the less the better, but not to the point of compromising functionality.
Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to give as much relevant information as possible.
New member here and I thought rather than post an introduction on the New Member forum I'd just jump in here since this is the reason I discovered your site.
I have owned a 1972 Case 444 for almost 20 years. I got it with a 44" deck and 48" blower. Oh, and a front blade that wasn't set up right and I never bothered figuring it out. For the last few years I've been having someone cut my grass (I don't like doing it...) so all I've been using it for is blowing snow.
I started perusing this forum because I'm looking for an alternative. The tractor has been mostly good, with a few problems I've been able to work out. There are three primary reasons I'm looking to replace this as my snow remover.
- Lack of power. The old 14hp still runs pretty strong, but blowing 48" width of snow quickly becomes a challenge. You might note from my profile that I live in Vermont, so 1-2' is not uncommon. While it WILL blow up to the top of the (what is it, 16"?) snowgaurd, you end up having to go very slow. This, in combination with the next issue can make it very unpleasant to use.
- Lack of throwing distance. I have a 40' wide garage that sits next to and just behind our house, so all the snow from the parking area in front of the garage has to go to one side. This means that with the single stage blower, almost half of the space is getting doubled up on. Also, at the end of the drive where the road snow gets dumped it's hard to blow the snow far enough away from the road, so we end up with huge piles at the corners such that even in a 3/4 ton pickup you can have a hard time seeing oncoming traffic leaving the driveway before winter is over.
- Too many things to fix. It's 45 years old, and while I have replaced and fixed things as time has gone on, it needs probably $500 worth of parts to get it where I'd like it to be. Most of that is in new tire chains, but it also needs some blower bearings, a new chain and sprockets, the starter/generator needs to be either rebuilt or replaced and probably a handful of other small things.
Probably if the Case had a 2-stage blower I would make the effort to get it back to 100%. And while I know some people have fitted 2-stage blowers to the Case, it's not worth the time and money to me to try and do that. I even half considered doing that and upgrading to an 18hp twin, but spending that much money on a 45 year old tractor that may need a new hydro pump or who knows what the next week seems foolish to me. I'm not that attached to it.
So here's where I stand today. A year and a half ago I decided I wasn't going to fix the tractor and went through the same thing I'm going through now. In the end I decided since all I was using it for was snow removal I would just get a big walk behind and ended up buying an Ariens Professional 32.
I used it once that first winter (probably our lowest snowfall on record, and we were away the other two times is snowed and had it plowed). After using it 6-8 times so far this year I've decided that a walk behind is not for me. My biggest complaint is the lack of stability/momentum. Any little bump or left-over piece of ice and it jumps all over the place. I'm 6'2", 210#, in reasonably decent shape and after 45 minutes I feel like I've just finished a workout. OK, as my son would say, I'm an old man (53 this month) but while it doesn't have to be fun, I refuse to torture myself unnecessarily. I love how far the 2-stage blower throws snow, but that's about it.
A little more info about the driveway. As I mentioned, it's about 40' wide in front of the garage, which extends about 40' to the end of the house, and then has a 10' extension for a turnaround that goes another 30'. The actual driveway itself is 10' wide and is about 150'. Everything is paved and relatively level (yes, in VT!). Because of the layout of the driveway, and the fact that we have finished lawn adjacent to most of it, I do not want to use a conventional plow. You have to backdrag a good portion of it, and then there's no place to push the snow. Any time I've had it plowed I hate it.
So, back to my reason for finding/reading this forum. I've been looking at CUT/SCUTs with front mounted snowblowers and found one that seemed like it would do the job. In fact it seems almost ideal. But I'd never heard of it so I've been researching and found quite a few posts here.
The machine I've found is a Steiner 430 Max with 54" snowblower. From everything I've read it seems like it is a well built machine, and most people say that with the Kohler gas engine (25/27 or 30hp - I'm not sure which at this point) it has plenty of power.
I guess my question comes down to this. It seems that the primary use for this machine is mowing, and especially mowing side hills. If all I'm going to do with this is blow snow, should I consider a more conventional CUT/SCUT? Is this overkill?
I guess I should mention that while I don't have an actual budget, I'd like to spend less than $10k. And the less the better, but not to the point of compromising functionality.
Sorry for such a long post, but I wanted to give as much relevant information as possible.