Toolcat Snow Blowing Tires

[Kurtis22]

Hello,

I just joined the Toolcat Club. Just purchased a 2010 toolcat and a 2410 quick attach snow blower with high flow. I am in the snow removal business and I take care of a couple town home associations and hoping this is my answer to less headaches. I am excited to use this machine.

I have found TBN very helpful on making my decision on purchasing the piece of Equipment.

My question is what should I do for tires? I think you can put light truck Snow tires of the standard 29" toolcat rims. If so what size and what load rating would be good enough to get the job done. Any info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kurtis

[toy1]

I have a 2011 toolcat with snow blower and I use turf tires, First and formost with the toolcat turf tires I can park it in my Garage I had a demo toolcat and it had r4 and it would not make in into the garage. Second I mow with the toolcat and it is ok on the turf, you have alot of weight in the toolcat design and it would be difficult to stop it in a snow storm.

[Spudgunner]

If you'll try the search function, you'll get a boatload of discussions about tires on a TC. Like you, I use my TC for commercial snow removal. We have a lot of hills in our sub and I used chained LT235-15 tires on trailer (6-hole) wheels. There are other possibilities as well, but this has worked very well for me. I have both a Bobcat 72" SB-200 blower and a Q-A 85" blower that I'm slowly adapting to the TC communication bus. If you've not yet wrung out the electrical compatibility issues between your Q-A blower and the TC's comm bus, it'd be good to check that out. There are a number of answers to that issue.

Hello,

I just joined the Toolcat Club. Just purchased a 2010 toolcat and a 2410 quick attach snow blower with high flow. I am in the snow removal business and I take care of a couple town home associations and hoping this is my answer to less headaches. I am excited to use this machine.

I have found TBN very helpful on making my decision on purchasing the piece of Equipment.

My question is what should I do for tires? I think you can put light truck Snow tires of the standard 29" toolcat rims. If so what size and what load rating would be good enough to get the job done. Any info will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kurtis

[DEWFPO]

The standard tires are 27" with 29" optional. I don't find the R4 tires to be great in the snow on steep icy slopes. They may work in the flats but I wouldn't know that. I have a set of chains. I have also found that adding 500-800 lbs. of sand in the bed helps a lot with traction. The SB is very heavy.

DEWFPO

[Kurtis22]

Thanks Spudgunner, I did some more research and yes the 235 75r 15 are supposed to fit the standard rims. Didn't think of the trailer tire option and I might look into that before I put truck tires on the toolcat rims.

As for for your Q A blower -they sent my a 5 prong adapter wire that came with the blower- that runs into the cab, that controls the hand controller, which that controls the chute. I mounted the new controller right to the toolcats joystick with hose clamps. Drilled a hole in access plate on passenger side and ran the power wires right to starter. Is this the electrical compatibility issue your talking about? Thanks

[Spudgunner]

The electrical issue: Yes, that's what I'm referring to. Basically, bypassing the TC controls seems to be a common approach. On down the road, if the Q-A controller becomes a pain, you can mount a Bobcat blower controller(computer) out on your blower just like Bobcat does with theirs and use the stock chute control buttons on the console. The Q-A controller is nice in that it's very, very simple (at least if it's the same controller they've used for years).

Tires: I used six-hole trailers wheels...not tires. I snagged some LT235x15's off of craigs list. Trailer tires might work just great with chains. Seems to me the stock orange wheels are a bit too wide...but that's just my Mark III Eyeball Estimator and it is prone to error.

[Kurtis22]

Spud. Thanks for the info again. Very helpful! Tires-I am assuming you put the Light Truck tires on those trailer rims? hence the LT stands for Light Truck??? Right? Another question. Where did you get your tire chains and and what size would I need. I am defiantly going to use this approach over trying to put tires on the toolcat rims. Thanks again!

[Spudgunner]

Spud. Thanks for the info again. Very helpful! Tires-I am assuming you put the Light Truck tires on those trailer rims? hence the LT stands for Light Truck??? Right? Another question. Where did you get your tire chains and and what size would I need. I am defiantly going to use this approach over trying to put tires on the toolcat rims. Thanks again!

No problem..and yeah, the LT stands for Light Truck. Mine are six ply and they seem to do well. If I could find some 8 or 10 ply I'd be even more happy but it seems one has to go to 225x16 size before that happens. Since 16" trailer wheels are available this might be an option if you want a heavier sidewall. I've not tried the 16" tires...so I'm being a keyboard commando in that case rather than a real user. The 16" tires are also 29.5" tall, IIRC.

I got my tire chains from, believe it or don't, tirechain.com. I got the V-bar critters with the cam-locking tightener and they have done outstanding, IMO. I believe Timm9, a frequent poster to this forum, builds his own chains and really is a good chain resource. If you search on his name you'll find some stuff that might help you out. WRT to chains, I deflate my tires to around 10 PSI, apply the chains, tighten them up and then reflate to full rated pressure. Loose tire chains are a recipe for pain.

Edit to Add: With a Toolcat, make absolutely sure that any loose tire chain is very well secured so it won't fling around. Loose ends will spin around and tear the grease fittings off the upper control arms. Learned that one the hard way when I used plastic wire ties to secure the chain ends instead of metal lap links. Fortunately I only lost one zerk before stopping.

[Kurtis22]

No problem..and yeah, the LT stands for Light Truck. Mine are six ply and they seem to do well. If I could find some 8 or 10 ply I'd be even more happy but it seems one has to go to 225x16 size before that happens. Since 16" trailer wheels are available this might be an option if you want a heavier sidewall. I've not tried the 16" tires...so I'm being a keyboard commando in that case rather than a real user. The 16" tires are also 29.5" tall, IIRC.

I got my tire chains from, believe it or don't, tirechain.com. I got the V-bar critters with the cam-locking tightener and they have done outstanding, IMO. I believe Timm9, a frequent poster to this forum, builds his own chains and really is a good chain resource. If you search on his name you'll find some stuff that might help you out. WRT to chains, I deflate my tires to around 10 PSI, apply the chains, tighten them up and then reflate to full rated pressure. Loose tire chains are a recipe for pain.

Edit to Add: With a Toolcat, make absolutely sure that any loose tire chain is very well secured so it won't fling around. Loose ends will spin around and tear the grease fittings off the upper control arms. Learned that one the hard way when I used plastic wire ties to secure the chain ends instead of metal lap links. Fortunately I only lost one zerk before stopping.

More great info Spudgunner. I have another question for you about tires. I am learning, so please be kind. I have been shopping for rims.......Did you buy 15 X 6 inch rims or 15 X 7 inch rims. I know that the 225 tire size stands for Millimeter in width. But I am not a 100% sure that 225's will fit on a 6 inch rim. I think I need to go to tire school. Your response is greatly appreciated.

[Spudgunner]

Wheel width for my 235/75x15's is 6". The place I bought my wheels has a website...here's a link: Catalogs_trailer. If you go to the chapter on wheels you'll see what sort of selection exists. I got the white modulars for my TC and they've worked well.

Tirerack.com has quite a bit of tech info on tires such as this one about tire diameters:
Tire Tech Information - Diameter Comparison of Light Truck Tire Sizes. One nice thing about the 235/75x15's is that there seems to be a better selection of tires chains with better prices. It's a common size.