I bought a rear 3 point PTO snowblower for my B7100 (non-HST)

[jas67]

I picked up an Inland SA48 PTO-driven 3-point snowblower (48") at an auction last night for $700 (good price)?

My B7100 is not an HST, so I only have two speeds in reverse, and of course, when I push the clutch to stop, the blower will stop too. I can definitely see that using rear blower with an HST would be much better, but I still haven't found an HST in my price range. Any advice on using this with my gear drive B7100? Low range reverse is good for about 1 MPH, high range, probably about 4 MPH.

Thanks,
jas67

 

[Ductape]

A few years back i had an 18hp Yanmar (14ish @ the PTO) that would be pretty comparable to your 7100. I ran a 54" rear blower on it with only minor issues. I feel you will be fine for 95% of your snowblowing. Even in low range, at rated PTO speed the ground speed was too high to back into deep snowbanks....... as it would bog the motor down. This was only going into deep snowbanks though... and the answer was to take smaller bites (only get half the width of the blower in the snowbank). If i could have slowed my ground speed (like you can with hydrostatic drive) it would have gone through the banks like a hot knife through butter !! Most of the time you'll find you have plenty of power and it will handle the blower no problem.


P.S. I had really hoped we could get through August before discussing snowblowers again!

 

[jas67]

Sorry to bring up Winterphobia

 

[charlz]

Basically the 7100 gear has two reverse: two slow and too fast. It will really depends on what kind of snow, how much and how far you need to go.

What part of the country are you in? I have a blower for mine but rarely use it as we just don't get enough snow... much easier to just use the rear blade.

 

[jas67]

I'm in South Central Pennsylvania. I plan on getting a 5 or 6 foot rear blade too, as most of the time we get 3" or less, but 6-8" isn't uncommon. We also get the occasional >12" snow. My driveway has some areas that are probably best cleared with a blower, because of the distance I would need to push the snow with a blade. We are on a corner with a loop form the side road to the front road, with a 30-foot wide "leg" off the loop to two-car attached garage, and then a 60x20-ft. dog-leg off the one side over to my pole-barn. This dog-leg is gravel (the rest is paved). I'll likely use the FEL, or a blade to do the gravel part so I'm not throwing stones.

 

[chrisinnh]

Basically the 7100 gear has two reverse: two slow and too fast. It will really depends on what kind of snow, how much and how far you need to go.

I also have a gear-drive B7100 4x4.

I cleared last winter's snow with a 5' (or so) grader blade. It was awful.

My driveway is long. There's too much snow to push straight ahead (behind), and the machine isn't heavy enough to go in a straight line with the blade angled. I have chains on all 4 tires.

So, I've been thinking about a 48" (or so) snowblower for this year.

I have no experience with snowblowers of any kind.

Charlz, please explain about "too slow". Is the problem just that you'd like to go faster? ...Or does a snowblower not work well if you're not delivering enough snow to the impeller?

If it's just a matter of time spent, then I can deal with backing up and down my driveway in low range. But I sure don't want to spend the money on a snowblower to discover that it doesn't work because I'm driving too slow!

Thanks!

 

[smfcpacfp]

I also have a gear-drive B7100 4x4.

I cleared last winter's snow with a 5' (or so) grader blade. It was awful.

My driveway is long. There's too much snow to push straight ahead (behind), and the machine isn't heavy enough to go in a straight line with the blade angled. I have chains on all 4 tires.

So, I've been thinking about a 48" (or so) snowblower for this year.

I have no experience with snowblowers of any kind.

Charlz, please explain about "too slow". Is the problem just that you'd like to go faster? ...Or does a snowblower not work well if you're not delivering enough snow to the impeller?

If it's just a matter of time spent, then I can deal with backing up and down my driveway in low range. But I sure don't want to spend the money on a snowblower to discover that it doesn't work because I'm driving too slow!

Thanks!

Driving your tractor too slow is never going to be a problem when snow blowing. It is what you must do when the snow is wet, heavy, or very deep.

If this also means that the blower runs slow, then yes it could be a problem. If you have a lot of snow which stays for a long time, the only to go is with a front blower.

 

[charlz]

We had pretty good snowfall last winter so I can see where you are coming from on the blade not working well. I had to resort to the loader a few times in the apron area just because it is so large and there was a lot of snow there. The tractor would just move sideways as it was not heavy enough to roll the snow on the blade.

As for too slow it really depends. We don't get very much snow and it seemed the blower would actually just push it until it got enough to blow. We also tend to thaw between snows so it ate a lot of gravel.

Take your tractor out, put it in low/reverse and run it PTO speed backwards down the driveway. It takes a long time to get anywhere. If you have a lot of snow it may not matter for me it is too slow.

It sounds like you get enough snow to justify a blower, I don't and will probably sell it this fall.

 

[Egon]

I have never been able to properly clear snow with the rear blade on the B7100. This applies to nice soft fluffy stuff as well as to heavy wet snow. I've always had to resort to using the loader. Someday maybe I'll be able to afford a blower.

For years I had a 16 HP. craftsman lawn tractor for which I had a snowblower. Fast was never an issue but slow was. Fortunately the v belt drive system let me ride the clutch to get the speed down low enough when required but that is not an option with a real clutch.

 

[charlz]

I have never been able to properly clear snow with the rear blade on the B7100. This applies to nice soft fluffy stuff as well as to heavy wet snow. I've always had to resort to using the loader. Someday maybe I'll be able to afford a blower.

We tend to get less than 6" per storm so the blade generally works pretty good. Where I was having problems was with the snow packing from me running over it with the tractor. My drive way comes into my garage as sort of a L with the pad being the short part. I have to scrape the pad 'out; and then go 'across' and roll it to the outside edge. The stuff I scrape 'out' gets packed for the 'across' part and hard to roll with the plow.

I might try splitting a piece of pipe and putting it on the bottom of the blower as I have seen others do here. That might help keep it from relocating my gravel If that works it would be much more useful than using it on the pad and then swapping to the blade for the rest of the driveway.

If you were just a little bit closer I'd let you have a go with this old blower I have