bitseeker
Silver Member
Last year, I could not find a good way to use the BX23 and snow blower on my gravel driveway. Our winter temperature varies, so the driveway does not freeze hard everywhere or all the time. When I floated the blower on its standard skids, they dug into the surface in an unpredictable way, and the blower picked up lots of gravel. Also, it would take way too long to change from gravel height to pavement height. It was hard to find and repeat a just-right position to hold the snow blower above the gravel surface with the hydraulics, and when I did find that magic position, I had to advance slowly or the whole rig would get to bouncing. That bouncing also picked up gravel and left too much snow on the up-swings. The standard skids worked great on the paved places.
To solve the problems, I made up the caster assemblies shown in the attached photos.
http://www.cosner.com/snowblower
My original plan was to have the sub-assembly slide up and down with two positions and some sort of quick change mechanism:
Casters up so the skids controlled height for pavement
Casters down so they controlled height for gravel
As I was fitting the parts, I realized I could just pull clevis pins in the lower mounting and have the subframe pivot on the upper subframe to mainframe mounting bolts. I drilled several sets of subframe-to-mainframe mounting holes to find the best gravel position.
We have only had one significant snowfall so far, and I inadvertently found that I don’t need to pivot the caster assembly up to go from gravel to pavement, which is really handy. If I put some down pressure on the snow blower with the hydraulics, the angle changes and the front of the skids touch down while the caster wheels lift off the snow. So I just float for gravel and push down a little for pavement. As you can see, it’s not a perfect setup, because to lift the casters, the front tractor wheels get a little light. Steering is not solid, but it works OK.
As to the assemblies, the plate that mounts the caster had to be added because I neglected the skid mounting bolts when I figured the offset, and the tire touched them when reversing. I added the plate to move the caster an inch further back from the blower housing.
On the snowfall we had, the setup worked very well, and there was no bouncing with the blower floating and supported by the casters. Forward speed was limited only by how fast the blower could manage the snow. The casters pivoted very smoothly and handled sharp turns and reverses with no problems. Altogether, it was well worth the time. Both the driveway and blower will benefit.
I hope this idea may be useful to others.
-bitseeker
To solve the problems, I made up the caster assemblies shown in the attached photos.
http://www.cosner.com/snowblower
My original plan was to have the sub-assembly slide up and down with two positions and some sort of quick change mechanism:
Casters up so the skids controlled height for pavement
Casters down so they controlled height for gravel
As I was fitting the parts, I realized I could just pull clevis pins in the lower mounting and have the subframe pivot on the upper subframe to mainframe mounting bolts. I drilled several sets of subframe-to-mainframe mounting holes to find the best gravel position.
We have only had one significant snowfall so far, and I inadvertently found that I don’t need to pivot the caster assembly up to go from gravel to pavement, which is really handy. If I put some down pressure on the snow blower with the hydraulics, the angle changes and the front of the skids touch down while the caster wheels lift off the snow. So I just float for gravel and push down a little for pavement. As you can see, it’s not a perfect setup, because to lift the casters, the front tractor wheels get a little light. Steering is not solid, but it works OK.
As to the assemblies, the plate that mounts the caster had to be added because I neglected the skid mounting bolts when I figured the offset, and the tire touched them when reversing. I added the plate to move the caster an inch further back from the blower housing.
On the snowfall we had, the setup worked very well, and there was no bouncing with the blower floating and supported by the casters. Forward speed was limited only by how fast the blower could manage the snow. The casters pivoted very smoothly and handled sharp turns and reverses with no problems. Altogether, it was well worth the time. Both the driveway and blower will benefit.
I hope this idea may be useful to others.
-bitseeker
