Folks, I've had this combination for more than six years now, and it's time the truth was told.
I'm happy with the tractor but pretty disappointed with the snowblower. Let's look at what I'm up against. I'm on the east side of one of the great lakes and we get a lot of lake effect snow. The dry air blows across the lake, picks up moisture and dumps it on shore. It can snow a foot an hour here, and we end up with snow piles that can be ten feet deep. Check this, you southerners. Any idea how miserable this is? It's zero F in the picture.
To combat this kind of stuff, I bought the MF2360 snowblower and tire chains. Here's a picture of my snow weapon this fall:
But here's my experience. This snowblower is way too fragile for what I'm up against. The augers are protected with two shear pins and the fan with one. Every single time I used this in snow I've broken one of the shear pins. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Mostly the fan pin but sometimes the auger pins too. When that happens, I have to dig the snow out, drive the broken pins out, align the holes and get a new one in. At zero F sometimes. I'm buying these pins by the bag full.
I would have thought that this tractor and a $4000 snowblower would be a bit more robust. I thought that I could almost stall the tractor with the blower, but that's not the case. If you have one of these, and you see the RPMs being dragged down even a tiny bit, ease off or you will be replacing pins.
This weekend something more severe happened. It seems the chain gear reduction sprocket is fastened to the drive shaft with a key and some set screws. The key has fallen out and the sprocket in the picture just spins on the drive shaft. Not sure what to do next. Anybody ever taken this apart.? I'm hours and hours from the nearest "dealer".
I'm happy with the tractor but pretty disappointed with the snowblower. Let's look at what I'm up against. I'm on the east side of one of the great lakes and we get a lot of lake effect snow. The dry air blows across the lake, picks up moisture and dumps it on shore. It can snow a foot an hour here, and we end up with snow piles that can be ten feet deep. Check this, you southerners. Any idea how miserable this is? It's zero F in the picture.
To combat this kind of stuff, I bought the MF2360 snowblower and tire chains. Here's a picture of my snow weapon this fall:
But here's my experience. This snowblower is way too fragile for what I'm up against. The augers are protected with two shear pins and the fan with one. Every single time I used this in snow I've broken one of the shear pins. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Mostly the fan pin but sometimes the auger pins too. When that happens, I have to dig the snow out, drive the broken pins out, align the holes and get a new one in. At zero F sometimes. I'm buying these pins by the bag full.
I would have thought that this tractor and a $4000 snowblower would be a bit more robust. I thought that I could almost stall the tractor with the blower, but that's not the case. If you have one of these, and you see the RPMs being dragged down even a tiny bit, ease off or you will be replacing pins.
This weekend something more severe happened. It seems the chain gear reduction sprocket is fastened to the drive shaft with a key and some set screws. The key has fallen out and the sprocket in the picture just spins on the drive shaft. Not sure what to do next. Anybody ever taken this apart.? I'm hours and hours from the nearest "dealer".