Boxing in snowblower chute.

[Canada_CT230]

I live about 1hr west of Winnipeg, MB, Canada and I have a 78" John Deere snowblower of unkown vintage.

Where I live can be very very cold and windy. I had a thought to box in the chute on the blower. I am not concerned with sticking snow as it is very dry and cold snow.

My aim would be to be able to better direct the snow minizing the blow back in my face. Now, I do aim downwind but there is always a fine dusting that I end up wearing it. My plan would be to use a piece of steel to box it in and make it removable if require for maintenance or if rarely required to clear the chute.

Attached is a picture of my chute.

 

[JohninCT]

Have you tried lowering the chute deflector? You won't throw as high or far, but you may get less blowback.

 

[Canada_CT230]

Yes, that still doesn't get rid of it all. I usually have it down pretty far (almost horizontal) but still up an little as I need to throw the snow...or otherwise it drifts back on to the driveway with the next great wind storm.

 

[devildog1]

Hey give it a try, my first thoughts are, you would be closing up the discharge area quite a bit. Second the snow would not beable to clear fan as fast so maybe bog your tractor down a bit. Could not hurt to try as long as it's removable.
DevilDog

 

[Canada_CT230]

We only get about 4-6 inches of cold fluffy snow at a time. I don't imagine it will clog up. I was doing some designing. I might try to make a wooden board and bungee it on to the chute. This way if it was ever clogging up it would be a 5 second fix to remove. A piece of 3/8 plywood cut to shape with side battons to keep it in place/straight on the outside. That way it would not impede the snow path.

 

[tcartwri]

Have you tried feeding the blower at a faster rate. That usually gets rid of most of the blowback.

 

[Canada_CT230]

I have my ROPS down due to the location where i park my tractor. Otherwise that might be an idea.

 

[Canada_CT230]

The ROPS is down and stays down. My barn door (for tractor storage) is too low.

 

[doxford jim]

I live about 1hr west of Winnipeg, MB, Canada and I have a 78" John Deere snowblower of unkown vintage.

Where I live can be very very cold and windy. I had a thought to box in the chute on the blower. I am not concerned with sticking snow as it is very dry and cold snow.

My aim would be to be able to better direct the snow minizing the blow back in my face. Now, I do aim downwind but there is always a fine dusting that I end up wearing it. My plan would be to use a piece of steel to box it in and make it removable if require for maintenance or if rarely required to clear the chute.

CT,

I have done just what you said, but once the snow was wet and heavy it plugged the chute in no time. When very cold and the snow dry, the piece of alumunium sheeting that I had fixed around the chute, made a difference.

I have decided that I will build a cab on my current open station tractor and that should deal with the errant flying snow and the bitterly cold winds.

By all means go ahead and put a piece of metal around the chute. Make it easy to remove - I used just six self tapping sheet metal screws and had the metal off inside a couple of minutes, when the chute plugged up.

Have attached a picture of my snow blower and the chute is quite open (with out metal) though not as much as your one.

Good luck - I hope it works for you.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Markcuda]

Enclose it in with duct tape first, a lot less work if it doesn't work.