Antonio Carraro for snowblowing

[Cycledude]

It’s really to bad there aren’t hardly any Antonio Carraro dealers located in the USA , none here in Wisconsin.

 

[MarkFromWA]

Sportsman, the summer tires were for my truck. I have just the single set of tires for the tractor, so I don't want to do studs. Modern snow tires are quite good and we haven't had any scary moments on ice. The usual of culprit of poor traction is wet snow. It is very easy to reverse the operator station, even with the tractor running. The lengthiest part of it is walking around the tractor to get in on the other side (it's much easier to get in from the non-joystick side).

leonz, we're a couple hours north of Wenatchee. I haven't looked at steel tracks for winter use on my BSC (I assume you meant BCS instead of Carraro). With my Antonio Carraro doing the mowing and having recently bought a dedicated Honda snowblower, I don't have a lot of use for the BSC except as a backup. I bought it broken down for a song and put some time into making it functional, but I don't want to pour a bunch more money into it. I'll look into lining the chute. I've picked up some gravel (especially when learning the adjustments to deal with soft ground) and the first time if took the paint off the inside of the cute, so whatever goes in there would need to be durable to gravel (and retain low-friction properties even when abraded).

Cycledude, I agree that it's unfortunate. Their usage in the US is concentrated in specialty crops (orchards, vineyards, berries), and so distribution mostly follows that.

 

[leonz]

Hello and good morning MarkfromWA,

What I was referring to was using wide rear Agrizeta Metal cletracks on the
Carraro tractor in the winter season with your snow blower.

I do not know who makes the track systems for the newest Carraro models.

Is the seating platform on that beautiful tractor designed to be rotated and locked
30 degrees to allow an easier line of sight while watching an implement and advancing
forward?

www.agrizeta.it

You can buy aftermarket snow blower impeller kits to improve your
snow blowers discharge distance and reduce any chance of clogging
to near zero or make your own with round hay baler belts.

Lining the impeller housing and the chute will also increase the speed
of discharge and the distance the snow is thrown and you will never
lose a snowball fight with the local sasquatches.

Leon

 

[MarkFromWA]

I haven't looked at tracks. I'm happy with tires in the summer and adding chains in the winter. Last week I was widening the driveway a bit, taking a bite out of the snowbank on the side. A downside of reverse steer and the box-style snowblower is that engaging on the outside of a turn will cause the snowblower to engage further and further into the snowbank. If you continue taking too much of a bite, then the back end and steering tires will have to go all the into the snowbank to get the snowblower back onto the road (this is exacerbated if the sway turnbuckles aren't tight). In any case, I was going uphill on the steepest part of my driveway, with a layer of densely packed snow (nearly ice) underneath, scraping into the hard-packed driving surface and taking a bigger bite out of the snowbank than I intended. The outside rear (steer) tire is churning up the side of the snowbank and I started losing traction. Instead of lifting up the snowblower or backing out and resetting, I turned on the differential locks and kept going. I eventually lost forward motion only when the corner of the snowblower hung up on the frozen ground on the uphill embankment, and my chained tires were digging holes. The biggest traction issue with the unchained tires is actually side-to-side, and I don't think metal tracks will be much better. The chained tires provide plenty of traction in the forward-back direction.

The operator's station will only face forward or reverse, nothing in between. The pedals fold down to the side of the transmission tunnel, and anything in between wouldn't give space for the pedals. This video shows the process. It's a different tractor, but the operator's station and reverse process is very similar.

 

[manac]

@MarkFromWA how long does it take to R&R the Bonatti loader? My dealer is saying it can lift 1500-2000# (not 700). I like being able to work both ends of the tractor but the dealer says AC won’t warrantee the tractor if I put on a front loader.

 

[MarkFromWA]

Removing and reinstalling the loader can be pretty variable. Sometimes I'm lucky and it's under 5 minutes, sometimes it's more than 10. If I had a flat concrete surface to park it on it might be easier, but mine lives in the yard. I use some combinations of the parking jack, the curl hydraulics, and usually the lift hydraulics in float. It usually takes a block under one corner of the bucket/forks to get the frame to twist ever so slightly to make the opposite pin line up. Usually I'm hammering on the pins. Perhaps there's some magic procedure that I haven't figured out. I don't think I'm getting better with practice.

My dealer also said that they had lifted 1500 lb hay bales (with pictures to prove it), but they didn't have a spec. I messaged Bonatti's facebook page using google translate and they said 350kg. I challenged them that I had seen photos of it lifting 700kg hay bales and they responded that it could lift hay bales but 700kg seemed excessive. The most I ever lifted is right around 1600 lb, I had it no more than 1' off the ground, and I had so little weight on the back tires that I could barely steer. I definitely wouldn't try 2000 lb.

With the loader near the ground, the leverage ratio on the lifting cylinders to the pins is about 1:5.3, the OD of the lifting cylinders is right at 3 inches. Even if the wall thickness of the cylinders is 1/4" the lifting capacity at 2300 psi at the pins would be over 4000 lb. So maybe it can do a lot more than I think it should, but it seems awfully sketchy. My 1600 lb lift was a 8" x 2' x 8' section of concrete wall laying flat, and the curl seemed just about maxed. Even with the hydraulics set on "slow" mode, I had poor control lowering it (just blipping the joystick caused a large motion).

A few other notes about the loader:
1. The global/euro attachment system is out of favor in the US. Trying to find loader implements other than skidsteer/quick-attach or JD is difficult.
2. The included fork carriage is class 1 (13"), which is rare, so if you e.g. want longer forks you'll be hard-pressed to find them. Most other compact tractor loader fork carriages (if they're ISO standard) are class 2 (16")
3. As I noted earlier, the mounting bracket that stays on the tractor is a minor pain for PTO implements. I've included a photo to show this better.

 

[RayIN]

It’s really to bad there aren’t hardly any Antonio Carraro dealers located in the USA , none here in Wisconsin.

Antonio Carraro US (MGH Equipment LLC) - North American Distributor for Antonio Carraro Tractors and Parts

www.antoniocarrarous.com

 

[manac]

Mark thanks for the reply. Probably take me half an hour to take off my loader, but I’ve never done it.
Don’t know if I could give up my loader’s 3500# at max height or the versatility of running a blower and a bucket or mower and a grapple.

 

[Cycledude]

Mark thanks for the reply. Probably take me half an hour to take off my loader, but I’ve never done it.
Don’t know if I could give up my loader’s 3500# at max height or the versatility of running a blower and a bucket or mower and a grapple.View attachment 2410313

So how are you liking your pull type snow blower ? I never even knew they existed until reading about them on this forum.

 

[Cycledude]

Antonio Carraro US (MGH Equipment LLC) - North American Distributor for Antonio Carraro Tractors and Parts

www.antoniocarrarous.com

Yes very unfortunate they only have dealers in 8 states, maybe someday when I’m on a trip i will run into a dealer that stocks them so I can get a close up look at them.