3pt snowblower woes

Anonymous Poster · Dec 10, 2001

I have had quite a few years experience with tractor mounted snowblowers both single and two stage and have fought through just about every kind of scenerio. I have found that most of the time when a blower would plug up on me it was in wet snow 3" or less due to not enough snow being fed into the blower to maintain a steady velocity through the discharge chute. This became even worse under some conditions when the snow wanted to push ahead of the blower rather then feed in. The little loose bits going through don't move very fast and stick on to each other and eventually form a plug. What I do to counter this is to use my rear blade to windrow the snow into a pile in the center of my drive and then eat the pile with the blower which gives it a good steady feed rate. Also air temperatures just above freezing can aggrivate the problem. A lot of times I'll check the forcast after a wet snowfall and if it looks like it might freeze up good overnight I'll just wait til the next day to go at it. Frozen wet or granular snow flys through the blower really well. Hope these suggestions help.

Anonymous Poster · Dec 10, 2001

I forgot to mention for Emery my experience with a 3ph snowblower. I had a five foot on the rear of my old L245DT, one of the tricks I had to learn with this machine was to make sure to raise the unit and stop feeding snow in before disengaging the clutch to shift gears or else the unit would just plug when I started again. I got good at popping it out of gear first without the clutch to give the blower a chance to clear itself. Now if you have a tractor with a "live" pto or a hydrostatic transmission this would not be an issue as you could stop motion while the blower continued to turn. The other problem I had was the L245 had only two reverse gears, low was too fast for deep snow and high gear, well I won't even mention that. I finally gave up on the rear mount and adapted the unit to mount on the loader. I drove the unit with a hydralic drive using a large pump driving off the front of the engine crankshaft with it's own hydralic resevior and control valve. I took some figuring to get the volume of the pump and motor to get the proper blower speed at full throttle. This set up worked excellent as I now had two lower gears than low reverse to choose from and if the going really got tough I could hit the clutch intermittently and creep along. Not to mention I could keep the blower turning all the time.

MikePA · Dec 10, 2001

My experience is limited to a 9hp, track drive, walk behind snow blower, the chute on mine clogs in a heavy, wet snow. The first stage works fine in gathering the snow and sending it to the second stage, but it the snow is just too laden with water to make it up and out of the chute. Eventually, the entire blower fills with slush and acts like a plow. When I stop the snow blower to clean out the chute, the clogs are a grayish, heavy 'slush sausage'. Even if the snow is not heavy, if I let it sit too long and the weather warms up, or the sun comes out, and begins to melt the snow, I can get a layer of very wet snow right next to the driveway that affects the snowblower in the same manner.

snowman · Dec 10, 2001

Emery;

My new front mount snowblower clogged up tight probably the second time that I used it last winter; was in heavy wet snow.

Problem was the wire guard on the chute where the snow blows out. Presumably it's there to prevent rocks, etc. from being blown out - in other words, it's a part put on by the lawyers.

I bent mine way back (so that it wasn't in the chute at all). Worked perfect; never clogged again. During the summer, I cut them right off.

emery · Dec 10, 2001

Stephen,
You hit the nail right on the head. I think you described my snow conditions perfectly.
Next time I'll use PAM spray and I will drop the skids completely to lesson the tendency of pushing snow ahead of the auger.
But you are so right in saying that when small amounts are blown fromthe second stage they tend to plug. I was only thinking that too much feed would plug the shute and never gave your explanation a thought.
Thanks to everyone for the great feedback! I'll definitely post again after next try. HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL

Pks · Dec 10, 2001

I have also used automobile wax with good results. But that was before Pam cooking spray existed.

keeney · Dec 14, 2001

One thing that I have found that helps prevent plugging with wet snow is to only aim the output chute in the direction that is the same as the top of the 2nd stage is rotating. I don't exactly know why, but 2-stage snow blowers seem to blow one direction better than the other. Avoid the less-better direction with really wet snow.

Finally, I hope I don't need to remind everybody for safety sake to only clear a plugged snowblower with the machine completely shut down, right? There are several stories every winter here in MN of people losing fingers poking around at the exit chute of a running snow blower. Even when the machine is shut down, you should be careful.

- Rick

hayden · Dec 14, 2001

Did the RPM question get sorted out? I'm not familiar with your model tractor, but the snow blower will work much better running at full rated speed (PTO @ 540 RPM). This means running the engine at the designated PTO speed, which at least on my machine is around 2600 RPM. I know some tractors have multi-speed PTOs where full 540 RPM PTO speed can be attained at different engine RPMs depending on what PTO gear you've selected.

If by any chance your 2000 RPM engine speed is not fast enough to get you 540 RPM at the PTO, then crank it up. I think you will find it helps a lot.

Peter

emery · Dec 14, 2001

Peter, I will try to get a tach that I can use to measure my pto rpm at enging speed of 2000 and let you know in future post. I reallly don't like runing my b9200 at engine speeds over 2000.
I do have a second higher pto speed of around 760rpm and I plan on trying that setting using the engine at 2000.

Does anyone else run their snowblower using higher pto speed?

Anonymous Poster · Dec 15, 2001

emery
When I had my blower on the rear of the L245 I tried all three of the pto gears I had available on the tractor and found that the higher pto gears were only useful in light snow as they put heavier loads on the engine, the best for deep snow was full throttle in the 540 rpm gear. I wouldn't worry about running your b9200 at full rpms, these engines are governed to a speed which is quite conservative for their relative size and would not be detramental to the life of the engine in any way. I know if you are used to having it lumbering along at 1800 all the time when you first start pinning the throttle it sounds like it's really screaming but by the time winter is over you'll be used to it. I even turned up the governor and fuel rate on my L245 so it was turning 3500 with a good plume of black smoke when under full load and it never suffered. This was only under extreme conditions like eating through 3 or 4ft snow banks For the most part I was running it at 2200 to 2500rpm. By the way is your b9200 a hydrostatic? If so you have a real advantage by being able it constantly adjust your speed to keep the feed rate at optimum levels. I have a BX2200 now with a front mount blower and it really has good power for the size of the blower it is turning.