Couple of short Blowing Videos with an Inverted Blower

[sd455dan]

Thanks for that info on the Fan , yeah 27 inch by 10 deep does sound like it might load it pretty heavy.
That is important since my Rhino only has six gears forward, but has enough power for an 85 inch tiller in 1st gear, we used to run in 3rd for light snow same for running the brush hog in thick stuff. I like the specs for the price on this Wifo. Can get it delivered for under 8k with the 2 hydraulics angle and the shoot. The Erskine name is known better around here and it weighs the same in a 78inch as the Wifo does in an 84.
About afraid to call on price at the Kubota dealer. Have a feeling it will be at least 2k more and that is with me picking it up versus the 700 to have the 84" Wifo delivered.
I guess if I really needed to I could turn up the injector pump a bit. They sold the same engine for Marine use and rated it at 70 HP at 2800 RPM

I just noticed the Wifo spec for suggested minimum HP and they list 40 HP

Got the price for a 78" Erskine with PB hydraulic rotator, $7650 not as bad as I thought , but after talking to the sales person the width is actually a 72 and the wings make it 78.
The salesman said that the WIFO units were actually also very good quality like the Erskine. After checking inventory he said their site had overlooked selling the 78 that was in stock but they had ordered more in April and would honor the older price. Says should be in stock "soon."

So... Virtually the same price to get a larger unit delivered, and it would already have the hydraulic shoot adjuster included. Then again buying locally is a good thing to. Sure would be nice if there was a comparison in use test of the major pull behind blowers...

 

[chim]

Here's a short video taken a few years ago at a neighbor's place. It was the L3200 with a Pronovost Puma64:

 

[sd455dan]

Good video that ate some deep snow.

It is weird trying to find dealers of certain brands near me No Pronovost, Farm King, Lucknow, or Meteor near that I can find. The company in Utah that can ship the WIFO also sells Erskine and is making the local Kubota dealer look real good on pricing since they want over 2 k more than the local dealer.
I will probably just go with the Erskine. because it will definitely not be to much for my existing tractor and I could always extend the wings a bit. Eventually want a Cabbed hydro tractor.
Doubt I will want as large of machine as the Rhino is so likely a narrower track width and possibly less HP as well.
This puts the Erskine in the lead.
If I go for the WIFO 84 inch blower I am worried the 27 inch impeller and 10 inch deep impeller housing may be to much for a newer smaller machine.

Then again Wifo does say 40 HP is an acceptable lower HP limit.
Sure was hoping someone on TBN has either an Erskine or WIFO in the sizes I am looking at.

I want a blower that can really wing heavy wet snow- especially if running the PTO at slightly less than 540. Running the brush cutter or tiller we barely ever rev the RPM to full 540.

I would think a larger Impeller would do a better job throwing the heavy snow since as diameter increases so should tip speed and therefore force as long as you have the HP and reserve torque to maintain PTO speed..??

Anyone have suggestions on which of the two blowers they would choose, based on the 2 being considered and the ability to throw heavy wet snow being number 1??

Thanks

 

[chim]

That Pronovost is recommended for 18-25 HP. The L3200 HST had a spec of 25.2 HP. If the snow was heavy, it could have used more HP than that. It did plug up a few times when the snow was real heavy and the temps were just right (wrong?).

 

[Hilbilly]

I had a Massey 1547 (47 engine HP and 38 PTO HP) and used a rear facing 72" meteor blower on it. That blower has a 24" diameter fan and I think it is 9" deep. In heavy wet snow the tractor would run out of HP and I would have to use creeper gears to keep the RPMs up. A larger fan will require more HP.

 

[fishhead]

I live in the woods of MT, if I lived out on the prairie dealing with drifts I'd have a front mounted or deal with a rear facing. My old man told me this weekend, it snowed 40cm (15.7inches) while he took a nap in 1.5h

This is at 69 Deg North in Norway FYI.

View attachment 729799

I just got back from a couple of weeks bicycling the far Northern coast of Norway and far north Finland- I saw tons of 3 point blowers, TONS, not sure i saw a single push blower. What i also found interesting was the percentage of v- pull blowers which i had thought were going out of style but still seemed to be in the majority there and saw quite a few that looked new.

 

[fishhead]

I live in the woods of MT, if I lived out on the prairie dealing with drifts I'd have a front mounted or deal with a rear facing. My old man told me this weekend, it snowed 40cm (15.7inches) while he took a nap in 1.5h

This is at 69 Deg North in Norway FYI.

View attachment 729799

TT- Tromso area?

 

[Citydude]

Good video that ate some deep snow.

It is weird trying to find dealers of certain brands near me No Pronovost, Farm King, Lucknow, or Meteor near that I can find. The company in Utah that can ship the WIFO also sells Erskine and is making the local Kubota dealer look real good on pricing since they want over 2 k more than the local dealer.
I will probably just go with the Erskine. because it will definitely not be to much for my existing tractor and I could always extend the wings a bit. Eventually want a Cabbed hydro tractor.
Doubt I will want as large of machine as the Rhino is so likely a narrower track width and possibly less HP as well.
This puts the Erskine in the lead.
If I go for the WIFO 84 inch blower I am worried the 27 inch impeller and 10 inch deep impeller housing may be to much for a newer smaller machine.

Then again Wifo does say 40 HP is an acceptable lower HP limit.
Sure was hoping someone on TBN has either an Erskine or WIFO in the sizes I am looking at.

I want a blower that can really wing heavy wet snow- especially if running the PTO at slightly less than 540. Running the brush cutter or tiller we barely ever rev the RPM to full 540.

I would think a larger Impeller would do a better job throwing the heavy snow since as diameter increases so should tip speed and therefore force as long as you have the HP and reserve torque to maintain PTO speed..??

Anyone have suggestions on which of the two blowers they would choose, based on the 2 being considered and the ability to throw heavy wet snow being number 1??

Thanks

I have the Erskine 74". It does a good job but the gearing is noisy. I'm thinking it will quiet down after it breaks in. Probably only 5 hours on it.

I run it behind an L4060. I run it at 540 and it throws snow a good 30 feet. Heavy wet snow, I need to slow down but it still throws it a good 20 feet.

One thing I changed is the shoes. The unit weighs 1100 pounds and the puck style shoes just dug into frozen ground on my gravel road. I welded 5"x24" skids 3/8" thick to the pucks.

 

[sd455dan]

I have the Erskine 74". It does a good job but the gearing is noisy. I'm thinking it will quiet down after it breaks in. Probably only 5 hours on it.

I run it behind an L4060. I run it at 540 and it throws snow a good 30 feet. Heavy wet snow, I need to slow down but it still throws it a good 20 feet.

One thing I changed is the shoes. The unit weighs 1100 pounds and the puck style shoes just dug into frozen ground on my gravel road. I welded 5"x24" skids 3/8" thick to the pucks.

Thank You Citydude.
That is the kind of info i need. I would prefer to give the local guys the business but things could have gone better yesterday when I jumped on my motorcycle and drove 30 miles to look at the smaller Erskine to check out the build quality.
No one available to point me to the blower they said was still in stock 2 days prior.

It is haying season and most tractor shops are busy, but they were definitely understaffed, another customer about left he got so ticked off and literally said these guys don't care about customer service in front of 3 employees and they didn't even look up from what they were doing for about 5 minutes while we stood there.
Eventually was able to talk with two employees but they had no idea of their stock...They told me to and I did just walk their lot "twice" looking for the in stock blower, Never found it.
On the round puck shoes, thought the same thing when looking at them in the product description, had a Western plow that had that style and eventually built my own longer shoes to replace them with because of the same problem you mentioned.

I was able to get more definitive info on my tractor running an 84 inch in the past, I did some blowing with it way back, but my nephew did a "whole lot" and he thinks I should get the larger unit. The 84" Farm King/Bueller it had was a 24 inch impellor and 15 inch auger but he was able to run much of the time in high reverse gear.

So the L4060 is ~ 34 PTO HP? and the 74" Erskine is very similar to the 78"inch- same Impellor and auger, just 4 inches narrower? or different? The weight you quoted is within a few pounds of the 78"
Reason I ask is I can't find a 74" Erskine in anything but a hydraulic driven one for a skid steer Maybe it is the 78 with just the wings removed/shortened?
Guess I will mull this over some more, if just keeping the one tractor a bigger blower is the way to go, but A Hydro Cabbed tractor would sure be Nice if not this coming winter, the next one and don't want to buy a blower that is to much for a proposed new machine, Plus It needs to be able to use all of the other existing implements as well. Guess that is another reason to get a hydro tractor with infinite speed control a lot of the size/HP can be compensated for by just slowing down.
Sorry for the long winded post.

 

[fishhead]

SD,
Not sure exactly where in N idaho you are but RDO (Kalispell) is listed as a dealer on Pronovost's website. Not close but not horrible distance. The other alternative is to do what i did and buy from a canadian dealer and import it yourself (NAFTA) I got a great deal by buying from an eastern Canadian dealer and having it shipped to a business just across the border. No duty due to NAFTA.

 

[Citydude]

Thank You Citydude.
That is the kind of info i need. I would prefer to give the local guys the business but things could have gone better yesterday when I jumped on my motorcycle and drove 30 miles to look at the smaller Erskine to check out the build quality.
No one available to point me to the blower they said was still in stock 2 days prior.

It is haying season and most tractor shops are busy, but they were definitely understaffed, another customer about left he got so ticked off and literally said these guys don't care about customer service in front of 3 employees and they didn't even look up from what they were doing for about 5 minutes while we stood there.
Eventually was able to talk with two employees but they had no idea of their stock...They told me to and I did just walk their lot "twice" looking for the in stock blower, Never found it.
On the round puck shoes, thought the same thing when looking at them in the product description, had a Western plow that had that style and eventually built my own longer shoes to replace them with because of the same problem you mentioned.

I was able to get more definitive info on my tractor running an 84 inch in the past, I did some blowing with it way back, but my nephew did a "whole lot" and he thinks I should get the larger unit. The 84" Farm King/Bueller it had was a 24 inch impellor and 15 inch auger but he was able to run much of the time in high reverse gear.

So the L4060 is ~ 34 PTO HP? and the 74" Erskine is very similar to the 78"inch- same Impellor and auger, just 4 inches narrower? or different? The weight you quoted is within a few pounds of the 78"
Reason I ask is I can't find a 74" Erskine in anything but a hydraulic driven one for a skid steer Maybe it is the 78 with just the wings removed/shortened?
Guess I will mull this over some more, if just keeping the one tractor a bigger blower is the way to go, but A Hydro Cabbed tractor would sure be Nice if not this coming winter, the next one and don't want to buy a blower that is to much for a proposed new machine, Plus It needs to be able to use all of the other existing implements as well. Guess that is another reason to get a hydro tractor with infinite speed control a lot of the size/HP can be compensated for by just slowing down.
Sorry for the long winded post.

Well, your correct. I looked up my unit and its the 725RP. 78" cut width. Sorry for the confusion. It's very heavy duty built. 72" wide but with the wings, it cuts 78".

Yes, my tractor is 34hp at the PTO and a hydro.

Like I mentioned before, it's loud. I mean really loud. If I didn't have a cab, I would have to have ear muffs loud. I'm hoping the gearing that is roaring will wear it's self in and get quieter?

The operators manual said to wear hearing protection. I can understand that now.

If the dealer ever finds one, see if they could hook it up on a tractor and listen to it.

I wanted the Provinost but they ( the distribution center told my dealer) said my PTO wasn't sufficient to run one. Smh.....The dealer suggested the Erskine.

Anyway, good luck with your search. The Erskine does the job, is well built for sturdy and the paint on them is very heavy duty paint.

 

[sd455dan]

Well I decided to call Durattach which carries both lines and turns out the Dealer is even more local than the Kubota business. I asked if they had any complaints on the Wifo's they had sold and they said no. After thinking some more decided that I will probably wait for a year or two on looking into a cabbed tractor and that made it easier to decide on a bit larger blower.

I ordered the 84" Wifo UpShot Pull-Type WBPT84 with the hydraulic deflector (comes with hydraulic rotator) turns out they were also out of inventory. So a wait till it is delivered
It will be a quite a while before the snow flies anyway.
I will report back on how this turns out.

 

[sd455dan]

Well, your correct. I looked up my unit and its the 725RP. 78" cut width. Sorry for the confusion. It's very heavy duty built. 72" wide but with the wings, it cuts 78".

Yes, my tractor is 34hp at the PTO and a hydro.

Like I mentioned before, it's loud. I mean really loud. If I didn't have a cab, I would have to have ear muffs loud. I'm hoping the gearing that is roaring will wear it's self in and get quieter?

The operators manual said to wear hearing protection. I can understand that now.

If the dealer ever finds one, see if they could hook it up on a tractor and listen to it.

I wanted the Provinost but they ( the distribution center told my dealer) said my PTO wasn't sufficient to run one. Smh.....The dealer suggested the Erskine.

Anyway, good luck with your search. The Erskine does the job, is well built for sturdy and the paint on them is very heavy duty paint.

I think there may be a way to quiet down the auger drive.

Before I ordered the WIFO did a bit of research on how the mechanicals are set up and the Erskine is very simple and a strong design, but requires a good greasing session every year.

If the factory was skimping on grease during assembly, it could be making the gear drive quite a bit louder than it needs to be.

Maybe you have already done this but there is a cover over the 90 degree gear box and Just need to remove it to flood the gears with grease.
page 13 shows it.

https://erskineattachments.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EA%20620RP-725RP-825RP%20Manual.pdf

The WIFO uses a T 27D 55hp 90 degree box, but looks like it is a sealed unit that uses gear lube like a brush hog.

snow blower gearbox 40mm T27D

6 one 1/2 dozen the other.

 

[Citydude]

I think there may be a way to quiet down the auger drive.

Before I ordered the WIFO did a bit of research on how the mechanicals are set up and the Erskine is very simple and a strong design, but requires a good greasing session every year.

If the factory was skimping on grease during assembly, it could be making the gear drive quite a bit louder than it needs to be.

Maybe you have already done this but there is a cover over the 90 degree gear box and Just need to remove it to flood the gears with grease.
page 13 shows it.

https://erskineattachments.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EA%20620RP-725RP-825RP%20Manual.pdf

The WIFO uses a T 27D 55hp 90 degree box, but looks like it is a sealed unit that uses gear lube like a brush hog.

snow blower gearbox 40mm T27D

6 one 1/2 dozen the other.

I did grease the crap out of it. No change. I thought of plugging the holes in the bottom of the box the gears are in and putting cornhead grease in it.

I have a friend who is pretty sharp with gearing and said he thinks the lash is to tight. This fall, we will see if it could be adjusted before he heads south for the winter.

And congrats on the new blower!

 

[sd455dan]

Thanks! Excited to use it this winter for sure.

That sounds like a plan on adjusting the gear clearances. Maybe try a little looser and if that doesn't do it a a bit tighter.
I have a posi unit in a Car right now that is noisy but it is definitely to loose.
Have had starters on cars when replaced that were Really noisy until the clearance was increased. The tight ones made an ear splitting high pitched very irritating sound for sure. If that does not work, calling Erskine might have some info/ideas.? I hope the Wifo isn't to loud. My Brushbull Woods bush hog has a pretty noisy 90 degree box in it , so no guaranty it will be quiet on this Wifo.

 

[TractorTYMe]

TT- Tromso area?

Island of Senja just an eek south for Tromsø.

 

[Citydude]

Thanks! Excited to use it this winter for sure.

That sounds like a plan on adjusting the gear clearances. Maybe try a little looser and if that doesn't do it a a bit tighter.
I have a posi unit in a Car right now that is noisy but it is definitely to loose.
Have had starters on cars when replaced that were Really noisy until the clearance was increased. The tight ones made an ear splitting high pitched very irritating sound for sure. If that does not work, calling Erskine might have some info/ideas.? I hope the Wifo isn't to loud. My Brushbull Woods bush hog has a pretty noisy 90 degree box in it , so no guaranty it will be quiet on this Wifo.

The dealer did call Erskine with a video I took from the cab with the window open while the blower was in operation. He said they weren't concerned. Smh....This is the first Erskine rear pull the dealer had sold so his experience was 0.

Thanks for the information!

 

[fishhead]

Island of Senja just an eek south for Tromsø.

We rode across Senja from Gryllefjord to Silsand- very nice

 

[TractorTYMe]

We rode across Senja from Gryllefjord to Silsand- very nice

Small world really

 

[fishhead]

Small world really

Yes it is,
That's a nice part of the world that you are from