First snow managed

[atitus74]

Spent an hour snow blowing driveways (partially), shoveling porches and walks and sweeping off cars this morning just to get out of driveway. More will be required tonight.
....but first I had to spend 1/2 an hour putting on the tire chains and weights, lubricate
....but first I had to spend 1-1/2 hours last night putting on the snowblower subframe, handles, attaching the snowblower and getting the belts to turn in the right direction....
....but first I had to spend 1 hour rearranging the garage so I could even get to the snowblower!!

So yeah, 4 hours invested just for 2" of snow :banghead:

Wow Coby it sounds like you were busy! Fortunately with the kubota is much faster to get the front snow blower on. 1 minute to take the bucket off, 1 minute to put the hydraulic lift on (though **** that thing is heavy) then just drive up and pick up the blower. To be fair though I had already taken off the mower deck last week. That does take a bit longer. What is funny is that I almost tried to use it without installing the pto shaft from the mid pto to the front lift. Would not have got very far that way!

I dunno. Before I got the Kioti I had a JD750, which I think was 18hp, and I didn't notice a big difference between the two when it came to clearing snow other than the bucket is 1' wider on the Kioti (and has a float function).

Using the loader, it makes little difference I think all three kubota models have same hydraulic lift capacity. Its the PTO which makes a big difference at least that is what I have heard.

 

[Thomas]

Glad you got good feel of the BX before old fashion nor'easter comes a knocking.

 

[atitus74]

OH and buy a spray can or two of Fluid Film to spray everything that contacts snow as it will slick up the chute, spout, impeller etc. and you can blow the crap across the road or down the block as long as you do not drive too fast. Keep the fluid film warm in the house and it will mix faster and coat better.

Leonz thanks for the tips. I got the same advice on spraying lubricant from the dealer when they dropped it off this summer. I do have some fluid film, I wanted to see what it was like without it, I plan to spray before the next storm and see how much of an improvement it makes.

What made you decide to purchase a front mount instead of rear mount that would have been less expensive and required less power?

I've read through a few threads where this comes up a lot. I know personally there is no way I could drive backwards that long. I'd break my neck. I certainly see the advantage in the lower cost -- not sure I understand on the power though. As I understand it you get pretty much the same power on both PTO (though faster RPM on the mid) . Now if you are saying a bigger than 50" blower in the back -- I get that. [/QUOTE]

 

[tiktock]

I live just north of you in Plaistow, NH and coincidentally also used my brand new BX 1880 with a front mount blower for the very first time last night moving about 7" of absurdly heavy, wet snow and I was blowing in a full rain this morning.

My first course of action was to rip off that stupid safety cage on the chute. Its there to prevent a person from putting their hand into a moving impeller but I dont see how that would be possible since you cant get out of the seat with the PTO engaged. The moment I removed that, my clogging issues ceased.

I also need to experiment with using 'float" with the blower. It took me a bit to find the sweet pot of downward pressure to get a nice clean pass while not sacrificing front tire traction.

I'm surprised you seemed to feel the HP. How did you determine that? Even running at about 3/4 full RPM I was able to take a full 50" wide pass through the snowbank at the end of my driveway without a hint of power loss or bogging and the reality is we rarely get quite this level of water content.

I'm 100% with you. There is no alternative reality in which I would even remotely consider spending hours on a tractor snowblowing in reverse. I'm still young and my neck hurts just thinking about it.

One big help was the work I did to install LED spots and a lightbar on the ROPS. Stock headlights nicely illuminate the back of the snowblower but I felt much better lighting up half my neighborhood with ~150W of LEDs and didnt worry once about the bleary-eyed plow guys hitting me.

 

[atitus74]

I live just north of you in Plaistow, NH and coincidentally also used my brand new BX 1880 with a front mount blower for the very first time last night moving about 7" of absurdly heavy, wet snow and I was blowing in a full rain this morning.

My first course of action was to rip off that stupid safety cage on the chute. Its there to prevent a person from putting their hand into a moving impeller but I dont see how that would be possible since you cant get out of the seat with the PTO engaged. The moment I removed that, my clogging issues ceased.

I also need to experiment with using 'float" with the blower. It took me a bit to find the sweet pot of downward pressure to get a nice clean pass while not sacrificing front tire traction.

I'm surprised you seemed to feel the HP. How did you determine that? Even running at about 3/4 full RPM I was able to take a full 50" wide pass through the snowbank at the end of my driveway without a hint of power loss or bogging and the reality is we rarely get quite this level of water content.

I'm 100% with you. There is no alternative reality in which I would even remotely consider spending hours on a tractor snowblowing in reverse. I'm still young and my neck hurts just thinking about it.

One big help was the work I did to install LED spots and a lightbar on the ROPS. Stock headlights nicely illuminate the back of the snowblower but I felt much better lighting up half my neighborhood with ~150W of LEDs and didnt worry once about the bleary-eyed plow guys hitting me.

Wow tiktock we have very similar setup! I have added LED light bar to my ROPS and it works great. I left the "cage" on mine. Maybe that is what might be robbing the power a bit. In my case I could hear a change in the engine sound and see the rpm dropping at which point I would just slow down a bit and the rpm would go right back up. It could be as much of a function of me being impatient and driving too fast vs anything else. I went as high as about 2800 maybe 2900 rpm, which is actually below the 'optimal' operating range for PTO but I was a little nervous didn't want to break pins. Now that I am more comfortable with it I might try to put the RPM up to optimal next time.

 

[atitus74]

I also need to experiment with using 'float" with the blower. It took me a bit to find the sweet pot of downward pressure to get a nice clean pass while not sacrificing front tire traction.

I forgot to add in my previous post -- I used float the entire time, and I was very happy got nice clean passes. The metal shoes scrape the pavement a bit, however you can cut down on that by raising it up when going in reverse or swinging it around. Push the loader control all the way forward in a swift motion (you'll feel a click when it opens the valve up) and you won't get any lift on the tires. If it started riding up and over hard pack snow usually I just back up and then go forward again and I'd be right back on the ground with a clean scrape. Good Luck !

 

[ultrarunner]

Just read of massive traffic jams and kids spending the night in school because roads were closed. It really hit New York and region hard.

The kicker was the snow plow operators were not able to work straight through as they have in the past because of mandatory meal breaks, rest periods and limit on hours worked???

 

[tiktock]

I forgot to add in my previous post -- I used float the entire time, and I was very happy got nice clean passes. The metal shoes scrape the pavement a bit, however you can cut down on that by raising it up when going in reverse or swinging it around. Push the loader control all the way forward in a swift motion (you'll feel a click when it opens the valve up) and you won't get any lift on the tires. If it started riding up and over hard pack snow usually I just back up and then go forward again and I'd be right back on the ground with a clean scrape. Good Luck !

Good to know. I've used float quite a bit with the loader and it just didnt even occur to me to use it with the snowblower for some reason. It being 5:00am might have had a lot to do with it! I have another 250' to blow tonight if there's anything left so I'll experiment.

The only thing I've considered was getting a back blade just wider than my tires but after today, I dont think I'll ever need it.

 

[cabover4us]

Just read of massive traffic jams and kids spending the night in school because roads were closed. It really hit New York and region hard.

The kicker was the snow plow operators were not able to work straight through as they have in the past because of mandatory meal breaks, rest periods and limit on hours worked???

I remember in the 70s and 80s in the am hours city and state plows would be running through the night to keep roads clear for morning commute. But, if you were unlucky enough to work over in Bennington, Vermont, you knew as soon as you hit the border you would be in snow, normally Vermont waits for snow to end except for the truck route across Woodford, Searsburg Mountains on route 9, been stuck a few times myself on that road.
Flabbergasted, that in 2018 we cant seem to get full funding on what I consider safety subjects, like snow plowing, now the news media is teaching and coaching us on how to drive in snow.

 

[Jstpssng]

It seems the more hyped the storm, the bigger the bust it is here in northern N.H. Portland tv meteorologist's map was showing 5-8" for here, we got maybe 2.
On the contrary, Tuesday's storm, which was supposed to be mostly sleet and rain dumped 10+" of heart attack cement on us. My driveway isn't so long that the loader doesn't work just fine, but it was such joy laying in that putting on the chains. Didn't think I'd need 'em for another couple weeks. R4's are pretty useless in snow.



I dunno. Before I got the Kioti I had a JD750, which I think was 18hp, and I didn't notice a big difference between the two when it came to clearing snow other than the bucket is 1' wider on the Kioti (and has a float function).

I don't think that the tire style has anything to do with it. That wet heavy crap that you just described renders pretty much anything useless.