Installed Studded Tire Chains on PT 1850

[SpringHollow]

I installed some studded tire chains on my PT 1850. Without good chains, the tractor is thrown around by the snow plow too much when the driveway is covered in ice. The link to the pictures, notes, and where i bought them is here:

PT1850 Chains

Below is a picture of the studded chains.

Ken
In the Southerntier of NY where it is currently a balmy 4 degrees F

 

[woodlandfarms]

I have to fly to LA tomorrow. They say it might be as cold as 55 at night...

brrr....

 

[MossRoad]

I have to fly to LA tomorrow. They say it might be as cold as 55 at night...

brrr....

It was 8 degrees when I went to take my youngest daughter sledding yesterday afternoon. The hill was closed due to lack of snow. No sledding.

So, we drove by the lake to see if anyone was ice fishing yet... the geese swimming in the lake indicate to me the ice is not yet thick enough to support our weight. No fishing.

We went home and drank hot chocolate and ate cookies.

 

[ponytug]

Ken,

Thanks for the information! The chains look great. How much play is left in them with the spring tensioners?

I can't really tell, but you might want to think about turning the turnbuckle over; from the photos, it looks like it is out in the breeze, where it might get chewed up by the road.

If the cheap chains were $100/ea, how much were the expensive ones?

All the best,

Peter

I installed some studded tire chains on my PT 1850. Without good chains, the tractor is thrown around by the snow plow too much when the driveway is covered in ice. The link to the pictures, notes, and where i bought them is here:

PT1850 Chains

Below is a picture of the studded chains.

Ken
In the Southerntier of NY where it is currently a balmy 4 degrees F

 

[SpringHollow]

None of the turnbuckles, etc. hit the ground. Just looks that way in the picture.

I saw chains that were very nice that varied from $220/chain all the way up to $435/chain.

Originally, i bought some light duty $45/chain chains - they work well for keeping from getting stuck in the woods (before adding them, the tires would fill up with muddy clay when driving in the muck) and they worked well for just driving on ice. But an angled plow just has too much sideways force when driving up a section of icy driveway that is realtively steep.

Ken

 

[ponytug]

Glad to hear that they aren't hitting the ground.

My problem is no traction on steep hillsides with loose sand/gravel, and I can't decide whether going wider, or chains would be better. The turf tires are ~2-3" wider at ground level, and duallies would be alot wider. Obviously, width has other advantages and issues.

Hmmm...

All the best,

Peter

None of the turnbuckles, etc. hit the ground. Just looks that way in the picture.

I saw chains that were very nice that varied from $220/chain all the way up to $435/chain.

Originally, i bought some light duty $45/chain chains - they work well for keeping from getting stuck in the woods (before adding them, the tires would fill up with muddy clay when driving in the muck) and they worked well for just driving on ice. But an angled plow just has too much sideways force when driving up a section of icy driveway that is realtively steep.

Ken

 

[Rip]

Peter, Regular chains are fairly inexpensive and may well turn out to be all you need.

A little while ago I saw (perhaps on this site) a link to a Swiss (?) outfit that had quick release adaptors for duals. Looked like a slick setup, but probably fairly pricey as Swiss things tend to be (even more so now with the Dollar as low as it is).

I would sure give chains a good try-out first unless side-hill stability is a big part of your situation.

 

[SpringHollow]

That quick change setup was quite expensive. With a battery imopact wrench, it takes me 5 minutes to pop on a set of duals, less to take them off.

The cheap chains worked nice on the steep trails in my woods. Helped keep from trashing the trails because the wheels did not spin and dig down. Duals worked better on preserving the trails because of the weight distribution. Never got stuck with the duals but the mud was not as deep as when i tried the single tires during the spring runoff (knew I was going to get stuck but HAD to try the newly arrived tractor in the woods). None of my other tractors could have made it through the mud either. Went through it with duals a week later but hard to say if it was as muddy or not. Plus I did not try to reverse my direction in the middle of it - big mistake reversing because the tires load up with slick clay instantly.

Ken

 

[pajoube]

It was 8 degrees when I went to take my youngest daughter sledding yesterday afternoon. The hill was closed due to lack of snow. No sledding.

So, we drove by the lake to see if anyone was ice fishing yet... the geese swimming in the lake indicate to me the ice is not yet thick enough to support our weight. No fishing.

We went home and drank hot chocolate and ate cookies.

David,
You live the good life. Family time is all to short.
Monday (holiday) went to Helena to check out one of the better hardware stores, what a ball. Temp was -23 and when we got home that afternoon the heater in the green house had gone out. Ok, two more for back up. At 8pm another one went out. The last one made it to 6am the next morning. Was getting really worried as no store would be open until 8am and now no heat.
Checked all stove systems and as I had many spare parts checked out all three stoves for selonied and pump. The final outcome was the fuel tank has a glass with filter which gelled up. Changed this and all are working.
Getting ready to go and see Blue Men group, tickets through PBS fund raiser.
PJ

 

[MossRoad]

David,
You live the good life. Family time is all to short.
Monday (holiday) went to Helena to check out one of the better hardware stores, what a ball. Temp was -23 and when we got home that afternoon the heater in the green house had gone out. Ok, two more for back up. At 8pm another one went out. The last one made it to 6am the next morning. Was getting really worried as no store would be open until 8am and now no heat.
Checked all stove systems and as I had many spare parts checked out all three stoves for selonied and pump. The final outcome was the fuel tank has a glass with filter which gelled up. Changed this and all are working.
Getting ready to go and see Blue Men group, tickets through PBS fund raiser.
PJ

You stay out in -23 too long and you'll be blue, man! Hee hee! Glad you got your heaters working.

 

[SpringHollow]

Plowed my driveway and 3 neighbours - not a lot of snow, only 6-7", probably about 3/4 of a mile of driveway. My is only 375' but two of the others are quite long and steep. The chain setup worked well. I easily plowed twice as fast without sliding around. I am very happy with how they are working.

Ken

 

[woodlandfarms]

Ken, what did you do with your old chains and I am sorry, you probably said this, but why did you buy new ones?

 

[SpringHollow]

Still have the old chains, never even installed 2 of them. They worked well in the woods, etc. where general traction was needed and even on ice where you just needed to be able to make the PT go. They even worked okay with a straight blade. However, they were not aggressive enough when trying to plow with an angled plow. The sideways forces would throw the front of the tractor to the side whenever there was any significant resistance to the plow. So I had to repeatedly reverse when plowing. With the new chains, I could just keep on going.

Ken

 

[SpringHollow]

I used the tractor to pull out some fire wood yesterday. 4" of snow. Chains worked well on 20° slopes. The chains have loosened some so i need to tighten the springs. Grapple bucket was great to grab 2' diameter chunks and take them to the splitter!

Ken

 

[ponytug]

Dear Ken,

That sounds great!

Was the ground frozen? You mentioned once that you had lots of springs, and I was curious how much is snow traction vs. soil traction.

All the best,

Peter

I used the tractor to pull out some fire wood yesterday. 4" of snow. Chains worked well on 20ｰ slopes. The chains have loosened some so i need to tighten the springs. Grapple bucket was great to grab 2' diameter chunks and take them to the splitter!

Ken

 

[SpringHollow]

Hi Peter,

The tracks never went completely through the snow but the ground was frozen because we have had a bunch of cold days. I was running singles, not duals. Strange winter - got into the 40's today with heavy rain so now I would need to put duals on if i wanted to go down the trails.

Ken

 

[SpringHollow]

Just an update. We had a warm spell then got cold so the driveway was sheet ice - even the 4WD pickup was sliding down the driveway and off to the edge. Well, we then got 12" of heavy snow on top of it. Plowed yesterday and the chains worked great. I plow all the snow off to only one side (down wind side) so as to not cause large drifts in the driveway. I was able to rapidly push multiple passes of snow off to the side with out the tractor being pushed to the side. It was nice to plow everyone out extremely quickly - much faster than even with my old Ford 2120 but that is partially because the PT is so manuverable. For my property, these have been a good investment.

Ken

 

[woodlandfarms]

Pictures of the snow please! 73 in LA today :-(

 

[SpringHollow]

It was -4° F this morning.

Ken

 

[SpringHollow]

Update on chains:

I need to usually use duals to go in the woods because of wet spots. So this year, i tried installing the chains on the outside tire of the dual wheel setup. We got 16" of snow and the chains worked great plowing myself and my 3 neighbors out. The chains are very secure and fit well.

I had welded an attachment plate onto a old $100 truck snow plow and used it for a couple of years. However, it is only i believe 7 1/2' wide so when the plow is fully angled it does not quite cover the track of the duals. When i got this plow, I patched it with some metal but found a better JD plow with a quick attach plate. I think I will just weld an attachment plate to that and add some rubber extensions or weld on some lengths from the better part of my current plow.

Ken