3-Point Hitch 3PT Operation Question

[rScotty]

I didn't read the post as manually lifting the arms until later. Yes, they do get harder to manhandle.
The OEM shoes for my blower were ridiculously small. I ordered the larger ones based on a marginal parts picture for a much larger blower size and brand. If I were more of a welder I would have made them slightly longer and 4" wide. I should really get better at welding.

The best way I know to get better at welding is with an old-fashioned oxy-acetylene torch. The kind with a bottle of oxygen, one of acetylene, and a "torch" handle with interchangeable tips for heating, cutting, welding, and brazing.

For shoes you would use the cutting tip to cut a flat shoes shape out of handy scrap metal, then heat it red hot to bend it to shape. Quench to make the sliding surface half-hard and clamp it into position. Now fit the cutting tip back onto the torch handle so as to pierce some holes for bolting or riviting the shoe into place. It's pure fun, and takes only a little longer to do it as to type it out.

The advantage of a torch is the way one quick source of heat handles everything from heat treatment, hot bending, cutting, and all types of welding and brazing.
As a young man I traveled through the jungle in central America for half a year in an old truck with a torch rig strapped to the back doing "tinkering" in the little indian villages there. Fixing everything from busted gears to truck leaf springs, made new bushings, repaired holes in cast iron pots and pans, and the ever popular machete & .22 rifle repairs. Lifelong friendships, too.
It was a wonderful adventure and the torch made it all possible.
rScotty

 

[FrankJG]

Not sure what you checked in your second post, but in the first post you mention that when raising the blower it binds and stops.
If the blower is in fact driving into the ground, shortening the toplink may help level the blower out.
Be absolutely sure your PTO is not too long, as had been mentioned. It can cause significant damage to the tractor , PTO, or implement.

+1 on shortening the top link. I'm snowblowing only gravel driveways and at the start of the season when ground isn't frozen yet, a shorter top link will make the snowblower edge ride on snow rather than cutting into it. When ground is frozen I want it longer for a clean scrape.

 

[hube2]

Thanks all for the replies, after my last post during the past hectic week and an half, one of the things I did was to take a grinder to my blower so that I could mount the new skids and this has improved the problem on digging in greatly, I don't dig in at all.

As far as the top link, because of the way my blower is configured, to get the blade of the blower higher I would actually need to lengthen my top link. The blade is behind the skids and shortening the top link puts the blade closer to the ground. So I can't really shorten it or I would blow a lot of stone and making it longer would have made the skids dig in worse because they would be angled down.

Not that any of this did me any good in the last storm, 3 inches of slush, the only way to get it moved was the bucket. Still have over an inch of ice is some places and glad I got aggressive chains. Hoping we get a couple of warm days to reset the situation.

 

[LouNY]

One thing I have not seen mentioned has a major effect on how a pushed 3 point implement acts;
the top link can adjust the attack angle of the implement but what is going to control how well it lifts on the shoes is the angle of the lower lift arms.
The closer the ends of the lift arms are to the ground, the more the angle of the arms to the mounting point of the tractor the more the implement will try to bury it's self.
Some implements will have different attaching points built in the higher the attaching point the less the angle of the lift arms below the tractor pivot point the less it will dig in.
If the implement is attached at point level with of about the tractor mounting point the implement will try to push and lift the arms easily.
A pulled implement is effected by this much less.

 

[Reb954]

To help keep my snowblower from digging into the grass, I put a protective edge over the cutter bar as shown. Just knotch out a piece of pipe, weld on some tabs to bolt it to the blower.