Anyone using a hydraulic front blade in areas with 120 or more of snow

[shooterdon]

Gauge wheels may be better than shoes, but not enough. We get a lot of freeze that cycles here & that means mud. Lots of soft ground & mud. Setting my shoes an inch below the blade is sometimes not enough to stop from plowing mud.

The extra weight of the whole loader driving the plow into the ground sinks the shoes & plow. My old plow on the old tractor had float on the mount. Because of that & the light weight of the plow it did a bit better at not plowing mud than my current plow, even without shoes. The light weight meant it wasnt nearly as good cutting drifts or scraping things clean though. It's all tradeoffs. It was also further out than my new plow so would push the machine sideways harder.

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I only have this to deal with in the early fall and late spring...but everyone with grass and/or gravel has it to greater or lesser degree.

What if under the QA plate we added a roller instead of gage wheels? It would be about 40" long and say 8" in diameter. I used a slit 3 1/2' pipe on my plow edge this year and it reduced gouging considerably but at the cost of reduced scraping. I can live with leaving an inch of snow during the beginning (need to build a base anyway) or end (it will melt soon) of the snow season.

Comments from anyone would be welcomed.

 

[grsthegreat]

The only time i have issues with my front plow are on long, narrow drives and paths where you cant physically push the snow over the top. it works great in open areas. My front blower is slower, but does a great job handling out heavy snows here. I use the [plow at beginning and at end of seasons only. Blower handles the rest of season.

 

[npalen]

Good picture!!!

If the casters are mounted on the QA plate, they are behind the angling cylinders. I think that addresses the point in npalen's post about angling the blade. Curling the blade to adjust cutting action is moot...cannot do that with a truck plow and it works...but if the blade is curled down, the casters will be higher than the blade anyway.

Curling the blade to adjust cutting action would be in reference to MossRoad's post where he mentions:

"The only suggestion I have, as it pertains to my experience with my setup, is that I have gauge wheels behind my plow blade. I can dump the plow forward to scrape right against the asphalt if I want, or I can curl the plow back a bit, so it rides on the wheels and doesn't touch the ground in areas with gravel, grass, dirt, etc... and not dig up the ground. It makes a world of difference, "

I agree that you wouldn't want to curl the blade down too much as the gauge wheels would no longer be effective. Angling the blade sideways and then adjusting the curl BACK would tend to cause the trailing edge of the blade to want to gouge. That's where I was wondering if there is enough slack in the pivot(s) to prevent gouging. Seems like the gauge wheels would help prevent that.

 

[MossRoad]

I only have this to deal with in the early fall and late spring...but everyone with grass and/or gravel has it to greater or lesser degree.

What if under the QA plate we added a roller instead of gage wheels? It would be about 40" long and say 8" in diameter. I used a slit 3 1/2' pipe on my plow edge this year and it reduced gouging considerably but at the cost of reduced scraping. I can live with leaving an inch of snow during the beginning (need to build a base anyway) or end (it will melt soon) of the snow season.

Comments from anyone would be welcomed.

The problem with rollers is when you turn, the sides slide and gouge into the surface, and, the inside turn wants to roll slower than the turn outside, so some part of it has to skid rather than roll. You can minimize this by using a multi-section roller. In essence, a bunch of wheels on a common axle.

 

[MossRoad]

Curling the blade to adjust cutting action would be in reference to MossRoad's post where he mentions:

"The only suggestion I have, as it pertains to my experience with my setup, is that I have gauge wheels behind my plow blade. I can dump the plow forward to scrape right against the asphalt if I want, or I can curl the plow back a bit, so it rides on the wheels and doesn't touch the ground in areas with gravel, grass, dirt, etc... and not dig up the ground. It makes a world of difference, "

I agree that you wouldn't want to curl the blade down too much as the gauge wheels would no longer be effective. Angling the blade sideways and then adjusting the curl BACK would tend to cause the trailing edge of the blade to want to gouge. That's where I was wondering if there is enough slack in the pivot(s) to prevent gouging. Seems like the gauge wheels would help prevent that.

My casters have 5 spacers for height adjustment. At the start of the year, I adjust it for the sweet spot, where the blade in the straight position, it is perpendicular to the driveway up and down, and the wheels are on the ground. Then I install the correct number of spacers above and below the caster pin. At that point, the blade will angle left and right on the wheels while maintaining the same level to the driveway. If I curl the plow back enough for the blade to come off the ground and inch, and then angle the plow left and right, the blade will still clear the ground by about 3/4" on either full angle stroke. From there, you just gotta play it by ear and adjust the spacers as needed until you find the best position for you that gives you the maximum angling without gouging. Once you get it set, the spacers stay in the same space all season.

 

[npalen]

Good picture!!!

If the casters are mounted on the QA plate, they are behind the angling cylinders. I think that addresses the point in npalen's post about angling the blade. Curling the blade to adjust cutting action is moot...cannot do that with a truck plow and it works...but if the blade is curled down, the casters will be higher than the blade anyway.

I too like the look of MossRoad's setup. Keeping the blade close to the front looks like it tends to minimize side draft when plowing with the blade angled. Is that a PowerTrac blade?

 

[Industrial Toys]

I use a blade for doing my parking lot. But beyond that, it's just a loosing battle as far as the 1000 foot lane goes. Aside from the frozen mounds and no place to push snow anymore, given some wind, the mounds just cause the roadway to get drifted in, to the level of the mound, sometimes almost immediately.

 

[MossRoad]

I too like the look of MossRoad's setup. Keeping the blade close to the front looks like it tends to minimize side draft when plowing with the blade angled. Is that a PowerTrac blade?

Yes. It cost a whopping $450 new back in 2001. :laughing:

It was well worth it. :thumbsup:

 

[MossRoad]

I use a blade for doing my parking lot. But beyond that, it's just a loosing battle as far as the 1000 foot lane goes. Aside from the frozen mounds and no place to push snow anymore, given some wind, the mounds just cause the roadway to get drifted in, to the level of the mound, sometimes almost immediately.

Yes, that is one of the drawbacks of plowed snow and drifting. You can easily make things worse by putting a long row of pile near your driveway, the wind shifts, and you've got 5' of snow in your lane instead of the 2' that was there yesterday.

I have a hydraulic machine, so I have decent Gallons Per Minute and pressure. PT's are designed to operate hydraulic equipment. They offer hydraulic snow blowers that go on the FEL arms. They too, have gauge wheels to take the weight while following the terrain with the FEL arms in float. Think about that... you could put a snow blower on your FEL arms and tackle snow as deep as the FEL can lift.

For a lot of conventional tractor owners, that might required the addition of a PTO operated hydraulic pump and reservoir, and that combined with the hydraulic blower starts to get expensive. But in some cases, it still beats the neck and back strain of looking backwards with a 3pt blower.

 

[Z-Michigan]

Lordy - I would consider nothing less than a blower if I had 120" of snow. Do we all understand how much that is - - TEN DAM FEET. ***
I see no way that you could possibly clear that much snow with either a front or rear blade.

We get 240" up here, double what OP deals with. Lots of people here manage with a plow on a pickup. The major issue is snow storage and early season plowing - generally you have to push snow about 40' off your parking area in early season to still have parking in February. This can be dealt with in suburban and rural areas. There is one business near me that pushes their snow a whopping 400 feet off their main parking area - I think that's excessive, but whatever. In town the banks get crazy high and the cities regularly send their Sno-Gos, either blowing roadside snow far off the road, or into dump trucks as needed.

Anyone who doesn't plan for storage or gets surprised by a snowier winter gets to call in the contractors with the big, BIG loaders around end of January. "Move banks and break up mat" is a standard ad copy here.

The parking lots for malls and big box stores are cleared with the XL loaders with 20' wide snow pushers like you see for box stores anywhere in the midwest. No other real option. The airport has mega snow blowers like you'd see USAF using.

I have a rear blower and use it for my driveway, but use the bucket half the time for my main parking area, either for light snows or when the wind is blowing too strong for the blower to be effective in the direction I want the snow to go (not right into my garage).