Mountain Roads, Toolcat 5600D w/ Bobcat 84" snow blade, float or not?

[HLHP]

I am using a 2009 Toolcat 5600 D-Series with a Bobcat 84" snow blade for plowing in lighter storms. I am plowing in the Sierra Nevada mountains for a small town with steep streets that are fairly rough pavement. For those of you in similar terrain, would you recommend float-ing the bobcat 84" blade or not? Or would you float only uphill or downhill? For heavier snow, I use an SB200 snow blower. All four wheels have chains.

 

[Rustyiron]

Welcome to TBN HLNP
On rough surfaces I like to let the plow float. "Floating" the boom is like floating an anchor and all those sudden shocks from plowing are imposed directly on your boom. It sound's like your BC plow does not have any "float" built into it similar to the simple mounting of a truck plow and that leave's you with a choice of a new plow or only boom float. You'll see here where a bunch of guy's build a simple & cheap plow from an older truck blade with a little searching.
Plowing up hill I'll only lift the plow if the weight transfer is needed for traction.

 

[HLHP]

Thanks Rustyiron. You are correct that this Bobcat blade does not have any "float" built into it. I haven’t used this blade before, so I'm mostly trying to figure out if the weight of the Toolcat front forks and the Bobcat Snowblade (620 lbs) will be too much for our poor quality pavement in a light snow storm. I do float the Bobcat SB200 snow blower (835 lbs), but that has skids on it and our streets often have ice on them in heavier storms. I appreciate you taking the time to share from your experience!

 

[DEWFPO]

I live at 7,100' in the Rockies and use a 84" BC SnowBlade and a 72" BC SB200 on my 2009 Series D Toolcat, also with chains. The driveways I plow around here are steep, canted, and irregular surfaces, even cracked asphalt. I find floating the blade and the SB helps me get a better scrape and have better traction then if I don't float. I float no matter what direction I move. The only time I don't is when I am scraping a gravel driveway. Then I pull the blade or SB up a couple of inches off the surface and don't let it float. Bouncing around will cause you to dig into the road surface anyway but I try to keep that to a minumum. It seems most of the cracks in the steep asphalt driveways are perpendicular to the direction of travel so it's brutal to plow without the blade canted to one side. I wish I could cant the SB200 a little so that it doesn't hit the cracks as abruptly. I can't believe I haven't cracked the boom arms yet. It try to go as slow as I can in these situations, then back up a few inches and roll the SB or blade up a bit to pass over the cracks.

DEWFPO

 

[HLHP]

Thanks DEWFPO! This is extremely helpful. We're at 5,500' in the Sierra Nevada mountains, same Toolcat and same attachments. That's really good to know regarding lifting the blade/blower over cracks! Great suggestion. I just learned that we may also have a street sweeper attachment. Would you ever use a street sweeper attachment for really low snow levels, if the snow was dry? Thanks so much!

 

[DEWFPO]

Thanks DEWFPO! This is extremely helpful. We're at 5,500' in the Sierra Nevada mountains, same Toolcat and same attachments. That's really good to know regarding lifting the blade/blower over cracks! Great suggestion. I just learned that we may also have a street sweeper attachment. Would you ever use a street sweeper attachment for really low snow levels, if the snow was dry? Thanks so much!

Yes, under the right conditions (dry, light snow) a sweeper is better (can clean sweep down to the road surface) and faster at snow removal for walkways and driveways. Large parking lots, not so much. You'd be surprised how many inches of light snow you can move quickly. And no worries about irregular surfaces or pavement cracks. You just have to make more passes depending on how wide the area your clearing.

DEWFPO