Snow moving. Not as easy as I thought

[zzvyb6]

8' Western truck plow underslung from tractor frame. Loader hydraulics for up/down, swing left/right. Float or down pressure. 2 bolts and a cylinder pin + 4 hoses is all it takes for on and off. Truck 1 way cylinders don't mind the 2000 psi from the tractor. I use car brake hoses to slow down the swing angle. Mushroom slippers set the blade 3/4 inch above the gravel. Never looked back. I can run in high gear down the county road if I have to. I've been using this setup for almost 20 years. Takes me 10 minutes to install (usually while the weather forecasters are spewing about our first storm. 2 minutes to remove. Best to have plow as close to front wheels as you can get it. Sometimes I still use L and R brake to spin it around for a U-turn.

 

[LouNY]

8' Western truck plow underslung from tractor frame. Loader hydraulics for up/down, swing left/right. Float or down pressure. 2 bolts and a cylinder pin + 4 hoses is all it takes for on and off. Truck 1 way cylinders don't mind the 2000 psi from the tractor. I use car brake hoses to slow down the swing angle. Mushroom slippers set the blade 3/4 inch above the gravel. Never looked back. I can run in high gear down the county road if I have to. I've been using this setup for almost 20 years. Takes me 10 minutes to install (usually while the weather forecasters are spewing about our first storm. 2 minutes to remove. Best to have plow as close to front wheels as you can get it. Sometimes I still use L and R brake to spin it around for a U-turn.View attachment 531533

Nice setup, with that blade tucked in like that it would work very good, I had considered a similar setup but I need the loader when I'm plowing also.
I contemplated putting a truck blade on my IH 574 2wd but with no cab, at my age I'm going to stay comfortable in my cab.

 

[zzvyb6]

The downside to a plow is the berm you form early in the season. Once it freezes, you need some grunt to shove it over. I've been attracted to watching videos of rear mounted front facing snowblowers which are run forward direction. Who cares if you run over the snow and ice first. Best part seems to be when clearing near a garage door. Back up, drop the blower and go throttle up. I just bought a used JD 47 snow blower and am in the process of framing it onto my F-935 mower. Waiting for the PTO reverser to come in the mail. More on that later. It might be possible to insert an idler gear in the snowblower drive gearbox to make it a parallel drive system. But, when it's done, it will never snow more than an inch all season here forever !

 

[Hammy75]

^ Yes! We ended up with around 6" of brutal wet snow. Ugh

All my plans for using the plow to start the winter off went out the window. Got about 5 feet and it was so wet and heavy the blade dug in and stopped the Ranger dead in its tracks!

After reading all the horror stories about using the blower at the start of the season had me petrified, but I was out of options. It was either that, or the walk behind blower (for the 1000' driveway lol)

To my surprise, with the skids all the way down, and liftin/lowering as needed to not spray gravel everywhere, I managed to do it. No shear pins were broken either. Just took it really slow and easy.

Thanks for the welcome, this winter will definitely be a learning curve for me. No matter how long I've been on this earth, I'm still learning new stuff every day. LOL. Haven't made it to Fredericton yet, although our realtor is from there. We absolutely LOVE it here, and have not looked back even once!View attachment 531428View attachment 531429

Glad plan B worked well for you. It must have been a lot wetter where you are. We got 6-8 but handled it easily with the rear blade on the tractor and the little blade on the quad.

 

[mykleh]

the other thing to remember with the rear snowblower is shorten the top link will change the angle of the blower.. I used to be able to go short enough it would ride on the backside of the blower instead of the front digging in..

 

[patrick_g]

Y'all have my sympathy regarding snow removal. Here in south central Oklahoma we can't count on snow any given year nor rule out a blizzard. Remains to be seen what the future holds as any variables make themselves felt. A few winters back we got enough snow to warrant my attacking it with the FEL bucket. We have limestone gravel and shale driveway so it doesn't pay to try to clear all the snow as you will "mess" up and disturb the surface. I also have a rear blade with manual pinning to adjust the angle in several presets. Coupled with top and tilt hydraulics on the 3PH this is quite versatile but if your driveway is not very smooth you will find it easy to hit the gravel.

We were threatened with a White Christmas but no such luck. Haven't seen a single snow flake as of yet. My sympathy for all you folks getting clobbered with heavy snowfall, especially those without heated cabs on their tractors like I have.

Patrick

 

[Dr_Zinj]

First snowfall of the year, the driveway is usually still not frozen yet. So I have to feather the blade and bucket when moving the white stuff. And yes, you have to pay close attention to the angle of attack on the bucket to keep from digging into the dirt and gravel. If you have a paved drive, then half the work has been done already. But paving isn't economical with a thousand+ drive that has several spots that heave like a bronco every year.

Anything less than 6 inches I can back blade off just running the tractor over it. Usually I'll drop the bucket in float mode for the first pass up the center of the drive, and roll the snow off with the blade going up and down.

Deeper than 6 inches I have to start with the bucket, and push off the sides once it piles up and I start losing traction. 12 or more inches, and I have to herringbone the entire drive with the bucket, which means about 4 or 5 hours of work.

Note that I've had to do a lot of work on the sides of the drive over the past few years chopping back trees and saplings, and grading the banks, to have room to put the snow. Stone walls 12 to 15 feet off the drive are also an obstacle later in the season; which is why I've been looking for a possible front end blower for my Bobcat CT230 (really just a rebranded Kioti.)

 

[Topesrule]

^ Yes! We ended up with around 6" of brutal wet snow. Ugh

All my plans for using the plow to start the winter off went out the window. Got about 5 feet and it was so wet and heavy the blade dug in and stopped the Ranger dead in its tracks!

After reading all the horror stories about using the blower at the start of the season had me petrified, but I was out of options. It was either that, or the walk behind blower (for the 1000' driveway lol)

To my surprise, with the skids all the way down, and liftin/lowering as needed to not spray gravel everywhere, I managed to do it. No shear pins were broken either. Just took it really slow and easy.

Thanks for the welcome, this winter will definitely be a learning curve for me. No matter how long I've been on this earth, I'm still learning new stuff every day. LOL. Haven't made it to Fredericton yet, although our realtor is from there. We absolutely LOVE it here, and have not looked back even once!View attachment 531428View attachment 531429

Until the ground freezes I keep my top link shortened up so the blower is tilted so as not to dig so bad. Seems to help I think. It becomes enjoyable once the ground freezes.

 

[NBKubota]

Until the ground freezes I keep my top link shortened up so the blower is tilted so as not to dig so bad. Seems to help I think. It becomes enjoyable once the ground freezes.

That's a good idea too!

This last storm we had on Thursday was another weird one. Not sure where you are, we're just west of Moncton, and we ended up with around 6 to 8 inches of white stuff, which got immediately soaked with the rain that followed.

The next morning, it was just mush. I waited till it got below freezing again before hitting it with the blower. Surprisingly, it went quite well. I was worried about blowing it then freezing to a nice skating rink finish, but the skiff of snow left on top did it's job, and just ended up with a few icy patches.

I see we're due again tomorrow for a little bit more!

 

[Oaktree]

First snowfall of the year, the driveway is usually still not frozen yet. So I have to feather the blade and bucket when moving the white stuff. And yes, you have to pay close attention to the angle of attack on the bucket to keep from digging into the dirt and gravel.

What I (and a lot of others I know) do is skip plowing for the first couple storms, and let it form a base an inch or two thick which makes plowing the rest of the winter a lot easier. This of course assumes that the first couple storms are 3-4" or less...a heavy wet snow early on throws a wrench in that. Here in the north country the ground is almost always frozen by first snowfall.

My sympathy for all you folks getting clobbered with heavy snowfall, especially those without heated cabs on their tractors like I have.

No cab on mine, but it's not really that big a deal most of the time. Generally it's in the 20s when we get significant snowstorms, and at least to this old yankee, that isn't "cold".