Is High gear useful at all for plowing?

[ray66v]

Your going to want to use 4wd, and get as much weight on the back as reasonably possible. After 4 years of using one to plow snow, I can assure you, this is your best bet.

 

[ray66v]

Don't really understanding the "logging" engine comments. Just trying to understand the best way.

"lugging" the engine is putting a heavy load on it, in such a way that it causes it to loose rpm. Such as trying to push the front bucket into a big pile of dirt with the trans. in high and the throttle set low enough that the engine starts to stall. This causes excessive heat in the engine, and according to you manual, can damage it.

 

[buckwheat]

The more weight you have on it, the better it will move snow. Only thing to watch is if you have too much weight hanging behind the rear axle, it takes weight off the front axle. When you angle the blade, it will try to push the front over to the side

 

[ray66v]

When you angle the blade, it will try to push the front over to the side

This is going to happen at some point, no matter what you do. sooner or later the snow will offer more resistance than the tractor can handle.

One thing that you can do to limit this is to use only as much angle as necessary. Keeping the blade flatter, will reduce front end drift.

 

[DEWFPO]

Isn't that right?

I assumed that in 2wd all available power is sent to the trasmission that sends this to the rear wheels. When I put it in 4wd, that power would be split by some ratio between front/rear.

My assumption is that some loss accurs when you do this, so to get the most power I should avoid that.

Or do I have it backwards? Don't really understanding the "logging" engine comments. Just trying to understand the best way.

When you put the GC2300 in 4WD, all the power that goes into the hydrostatic unit is now split (50/50) front and rear. It's essentially the same amount of power (except for a little loss) going to the ground. Technically, it does take more power to turn the bigger rear tires than the smaller fronts but you gain significantly more traction (in low traction situations) with virtually no loss of power to the ground. The fronts do rotate ever so slightly faster to assist in turning when 4WD is engaged.

Lugging the engine really has nothing to do with 4WD. You can tell when you are lugging the engine, it sounds strained, the rpm dips and it will smoke.

DEWFPO

 

[thing181]

I am using a 54" plow and I always use high gear with 4 wheel drive (turfs, no chains) while plowing. I plow all paved driveways and they are mostly level. If I get into a "slippery" situation I just use the diff lock. No difficulties to date....