Gauge Wheels for JD 54 Inch Snowblower

[Johndeerex728]

I'm thinking something like this might work:

He'll yeah

 

[beenthere]

I like the idea of the guage wheels, my input is to wish they'd pivot rather than be rigid.

The Deere 51" broom has pivot wheels that likely could be adapted.

 

[Johndeerex728]

The Deere 51" broom has pivot wheels that likely could be adapted.

I never thought of that. Thanks

 

[techwrtr2]

The Deere 51" broom has pivot wheels that likely could be adapted.

At a $$$ premium; idea is right though. Having casters means less damage to the road which is the idea of this whole project.

Speaking of damage to the road, one can never expect to use a box blace on the drive with the ripping teeth down to break up ice without consequential damage to the road. Boy do I have grooves.

 

[JDGreenGrass]

I may be missing something here but, why not just use skid shoes.??

I have been snowblowing for 25 years on gravel and sheared very few bolts. I have roughly 16 hours on my 3pt. blower and I have sheared none.

I don't know why someone has to modify a blower with gauge wheels.??

Am I missing something.!!:confused2:

 

[KWentling]

I may be missing something here but, why not just use skid shoes.??

I have been snowblowing for 25 years on gravel and sheared very few bolts. I have roughly 16 hours on my 3pt. blower and I have sheared none.

I don't know why someone has to modify a blower with gauge wheels.??

Am I missing something.!!:confused2:

He said the shoes weren't working for him, so now he's trying wheels. The shoes on my Kubota didn't work very well either, so I made a set with about double the surface area. Those work good most of the time, sometimes too good, and it leaves too much as it rides up. Depends on the snow. I guess I need to make them adjustable.

Kim

 

[defed]

i made wider skids for my 3pt blower and gravel drive. works fine. i leave them high until i get some good hardpack, then i removed them. works great for me. even w/ any skids/wheels on the ends, you can still scalp the surface if you are riding over a high area where both skids/wheels are lower (crown of drive for example).

one thing mentioned earlier about running the front blower in 'float'...isn't this what you would want? i drop my 3pt to the max, and then it just rides up and down w/ the terrain...seems to me float on the front would do the same.

 

[Runner]

I can't figure out how you guys running blowers with skids on gravel keep from throwing your whole driveway into the yard. I tried it and didn't get 10 feet before it sounded like the world was coming to an end and the blower was sunk into the gravel. And, that was with wider skids, twice the size of the stock ones, set at about 2 inches off the ground.

Maybe the problem is that it doesn't get cold enough for the ground to freeze hard around here. We will have 50 degrees one day and 12 inches of snow the next, so the ground stays soft.

 

[beenthere]

I can't figure out how you guys running blowers with skids on gravel keep from throwing your whole driveway into the yard. I tried it and didn't get 10 feet before it sounded like the world was coming to an end and the blower was sunk into the gravel. And, that was with wider skids, twice the size of the stock ones, set at about 2 inches off the ground.

Maybe the problem is that it doesn't get cold enough for the ground to freeze hard around here. We will have 50 degrees one day and 12 inches of snow the next, so the ground stays soft.

That is the answer. In MO, you can just wait for it to melt.

 

[beenthere]

i made wider skids for my 3pt blower and gravel drive. works fine. i leave them high until i get some good hardpack, then i removed them. works great for me. even w/ any skids/wheels on the ends, you can still scalp the surface if you are riding over a high area where both skids/wheels are lower (crown of drive for example).

one thing mentioned earlier about running the front blower in 'float'...isn't this what you would want? i drop my 3pt to the max, and then it just rides up and down w/ the terrain...seems to me float on the front would do the same.

When Deere changed their model to the X series, through a design change they ended up with a "float" that wasn't really float. It still had some down pressure on the front mounted attachments. To the point that the front wheels wouldn't steer the tractor. I assume that has been corrected with later models (the initial Deere fix was to add wheel weights to the front wheels to give them better traction but it really raised havoc when using the blade, snowblower, or the broom in float). This may be the problem why the normal shoes don't do the job. On my X485, I modified the front hitch so the raise/lower ram could not put down pressure on the blade or snowblower. Solved the problem.