Skid steer snow blower on tractor loader?

[shooterdon]

It is good to see folks posting how much snow they get when offering advice. There is a gentleman on the forum with a long driveway who constantly talks up his monstrous rear blade....but gets 40” a year....some of us get that in a month...lol.

Another “mistake” people make is over estimating their needs. In 2014, we got a record snowfall of 30” in three days. I did not have a tractor. My 2001 half ton truck with a POS snow blade got the job done. I was plowing twice a day at times....so big deal for a 100 year event. It isn’t like it will be a surprise when that kind of storm hits. You can plan for it.

 

[lpakiz]

JWR,
I have a 1/2 of a 55 gallon barrel full of cement on the 3point that I cast a hitch into, so I can pull trailers or wagons easily. I do have a backblade, but it sticks out to the sides and rear and is clumsy and in the way, and doesn’t couple up to a wagon too well, so usually the barrel is on the 3 point.
I dont have a 3rd function, not that I wouldn’t like one. The 4 FEL ports work like a charm, except the re-hooking/pressure/oil leak issues. But the valve solved that.
There is something very satisfying to be able to raise and lower the blower as well as swivel the chute with one hand, simultaneously.
I would like to fish a couple hoses under the tractor to the front of the radiator area, and be able to plug them into my rear remotes for a FEL mounted hydraulic post hole digger or wood splitter. It’s pretty full under there, so that project is waiting for increased demand. But that would also give me a third function of sorts on the front for a grapple someday.

 

[ArlyA]

It is good to see folks posting how much snow they get when offering advice. There is a gentleman on the forum with a long driveway who constantly talks up his monstrous rear blade....but gets 40” a year....some of us get that in a month...lol.

And some of us average 230" per year. The view down our street. That truck has a permanently mounted blower on its front

 

[shooterdon]

And some of us average 230" per year. The view down our street. That truck has a permanently mounted blower on its front View attachment 710407

Yoopers know what snow is!!

I love snow...but not enough to deal with what you guys get. 120-140” a year is just fine for this old man.

 

[lpakiz]

Shooterdon,
Im in central Wisconsin, so we do get some snow, but not like in places like upstate NY or even north of us, by the Lake Superior snow belt.
In my situation, we get a LOT of drifting and I have very few places to put snow, so to use a blade or bucket, I’d need to shove or carry it all out of the area.
With the blower, I can shoot it into the brush, between trees, over the fence into the field, across the road into the ditch—-places I can’t push or carry it to. And I leave no banks to catch more drifts.
I have a guide under the full width of the blower that carries the weight of the blower over anything. I have blown out a 3/4 mile trail thru a swamp, all on “float” with nothing more than a hummock or two of swamp grass coming out the chute. Much bigger worry getting stuck, as it isn’t usually froze under the snow.
I can go across the unfrozen lawn or down the gravel driveway, on float, without picking up anything but snow. Saves a lot of rake work in the spring.
”I highly recommend this setup”

 

[JWR]

Seems they need to go to a different truck -- that one is full...

 

[Hoho223]

2012 Bobcat CT120 with front mount 54 inch blower. FEL comes off. No need for FEL in my case with the blower. Had looked at the skid steer mount adaptation from bobcat but 7 gpm from CT120 was not going to cut it.

 

[smiley]

If you're worried about efficiency, I did a similar project about 11 years ago and ran a pto shaft from the rear with a reverser. I did have an existing very heavy belly pan to attach a snowplow blade frame mount for the plow shown in photo on left. I made arms to extend the snowblower 3 pt arms to the plow mount and used a Jeep 4 way lift frame mounted on top of my existing bumper to raise either the plow or blower (also have 50 ton winch there but that's overkill). If you have front pto already you've got the battle half won and it would be less work with hydraulics.
link: Max the snow beast is finished
I put a vinyl cab on also and all worked good but we didn't get many heavy snowfalls afterward and the plow was much faster to clear the big parking area at the bottom of my drive, so I went back to rear mounted blower which I was very happy to have already on when I got home from Fla 2 years in a row, with 4 ft of snow in about 150 ft of the drive.

You also mention about having a loader on your tractor. I did another front mount blower conversion years ago on my Allis Chalmers B with loader. I just used a chain on the loader to raise the IH lowboy front mount blower. I made one huge mistake on that build. I discovered too late that although the IH blower was a factory made front mount ---------
IH lowboys PTO ------- run backward of everybody else -------- It was the best little snowsucker you ever saw.
If I can find which forum it was on I' post a link
Smiley

 

[grsthegreat]

I'm 89, and while I looked at snow blowers I figured that driving backwards would destroy my neck before the winter was over, so I spent about $3500 for a plow rig for my front-end loader. I'm not completely happy with it because it sticks out quite a bit and the FEL on Mahindra Baba does "float" awfully well, at least not until it's well warmed up. I should think a snow blower would be even less adaptable to hills and vales.

Another reason to be skeptical of a snow blower is the gravel driveway. I figured I'd spend much of time replacing shear pins.

my front hydraulic unit used hydraulic blowby if it gets jammed...no shear pins. my neck is the reason i went fith front blower and plow.

 

[beenthere]

I have a Kubota L5740 and for years have been clearing a 1/2 mile road plus parking areas with a rear mount PTO snow blower. It works well, but as I get older, being twisted around to see and work backwards is getting old. So I have started thinking about a front mount snow blower.

Kubota of course makes one, but it involves a substantial sub frame that doesn't look easy to install and remove, and as I understand it, the sub frame is incompatible with using the loader. So even if you remove the blower itself, you still can't use the loader unless you remove the whole sub frame. That just won't work for me.

So I've been thinking about using a skid steer snow blower. I have a SS mount on my loader, and I have front hydraulic remotes that could be used for chute rotation. But I don't have enough hydraulic power to drive the blower. I've seen specs in the 16-21 gpm, so I'm figuring on 20 gpm as a round number. I think my choices are a rear PTO pump, or a mid PTO pump. The mid PTO runs at about twice the RPM of the rear PTO, so a smaller pump will work, But somehow I'd have to mount and secure the pump. For a rear PTO there are a variety of commercially available kits, but on first check they seem a bit pricey.

Anyway, I'm interested in thoughts on this approach, and especially interested if anyone has done this before.

Thanks in advance

Switch to a blade.. much faster and less mechanical wear and tear.
Keep the rear mount blower for the few times you need to blow back a snow berm. There will not be many of those times.