Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Cutting / Groving / Siping R-4 for snow

[Industrial Toys]

My turf tires are GREAT in snow. Lousy on ice and useless if the treads fill with mud. Although surprisingly, the mud issue has rarely occurred.

 

[RoyJackson]

Turf tires are bad enough on wet grass, can only imagine how bad they'd be in snow.

I've ran turf tires on a Deere 4400 in East Randolph, VT and found them quite good in the snow...better, IMHO, then the R4's on my current Deere 4520. I've regretted, on more then one occasion, my dealer's offer to swap the R4's that were on the tractor, with a set of brand new turfs he had in stock (3 or 4 years ago when I bought the 4520.
Also, chains are pretty easy to install on a turf tire, if you decide you need them

 

[dragoneggs]

I've ran turf tires on a Deere 4400 in East Randolph, VT and found them quite good in the snow...better, IMHO, then the R4's on my current Deere 4520. I've regretted, on more then one occasion, my dealer's offer to swap the R4's that were on the tractor, with a set of brand new turfs he had in stock (3 or 4 years ago when I bought the 4520.
Also, chains are pretty easy to install on a turf tire, if you decide you need them

Just depends on your terrain and conditions. My BX has R4s, my JD rider mower has turfs. I slide on hills with my turfs and don't have as much traction using my bucket. We don't get much snow here, so I don't have enough experience with my turfs in those conditions. Unfortunately I can't mow the snow or put my bucket or back blade on my JD. :smiley_aafz:

 

[gladehound]

Just a quick update on how the grooved R-4s are working out...

I live in southeast PA. Our ice storm left about an inch of solid ice on the drive. It's about a 5% grade from the house down to the road. Unless your shoes had rubber that likes ice, you couldn't stand on it.

knowing from experience that my stock R-4's were worthless on ice, I did a test with 4 vehicles to compare tires and assess the grooved R-4's ice traction. The test was to drive down the grade towards the road at about 2-3 mph. Try to stop mid way (on the 5% grade) and then if successful try to back up the hill (total grade ~50 feet long).

Vehicles / tires / Drive system

Maxima / newish all season radials / front wheel drive
Minivan / new Hankook snow tires / front wheel drive
F250 / Cooper AT 50% tread / rear wheel drive and 4 wheel drive, limited slip rear
Tractor / Custom cut R-4's / rear wheel drive and 4 wheel drive

Results

Maxima - could not stop, slid to road
Minivan - stopped in ~2 feet, could not back up but did not slide down drive when trying
F250 in 2WD - stopped in ~5 feet, slid the rest of the way down drive when trying to back up.
F250 in 4WD - stopped in ~ 5 feet, backed up the drive with some wheel spin
Tractor in 2WD - stopped in ~10 feet (Brakes only on rears), could not back up but did not slide down drive when trying.
Tractor in 4WD - Stopped in ~2 feet (no wheel slide, could have hit brakes harder), backed up drive with almost no wheel spin.

I was surprised by several things. I didn't think the Cooper AT's would be much different than the all season on the car in ice. But that was not the case at all. They smoked the newer All terrains on the maxima.

I was surprised that in my best assessment, the grooved R-4's seem as good as the Hankook snow tires on ice. I thought the snow tires would smoke the groved R-4's. I'm wondering if the R-4's wont stay so good when the currently sharp edges of the grooves round a bit. time will tell (I can always recut)

I used the tooth bar to rip up the ice (gravel drive) and did not spin much at all even pushing hard enough to see my FEL flex. The tires were primarily on chipped ice and I made sure I was on flat ground or going down hill when ripping it up.

While I am sure that a set of V-bar chains in the rear would have been even better. I certainly didn't need any more traction. Considering what my V-bar chains do to my garage floor, I see no need for them in anything I've encountered this year (ranged from 16 inches of snow with several hour of rain in the middle of the storm [i.e. very heavy] to this ice storm). This winter has been a good test.

No new chunking on any of the lugs so far (did have one small piece chunked out on the front before I grooved the tires)

Very, very pleased with this mod

This is my version of Truth (Post 56 of this thread). The grooving works. I wish I would have done a "before" test but "before" the tractor couldn't really do anything on ice. I don't doubt 50% improvement and wouldn't be surprised if someone did a quantitative test and found that it was 250% improvement. I'll dig up another post where I explain why.

 

[gladehound]

I'll try...

An uncut lug had no features to help it retain snow on it's surface. It is smooth. Like a slick.

On a hard surface, only the surface of the lug is in contact with the ground making the whole tire perform about as well as a slick. You get a little bite from the edge of each lug, but they get fairly round after you put a few hundred hours on them and don't bit well.

One of the basics of snow tire technology, is that snow gets better traction on snow and ice than the rubber used in most tires. So if you can get snow to stay on the contact surfact of the tires, it will get better traction in hard backed snow and ice.

Grooving does 2 things to help traction:

1. It adds biting edges to the tire (the edges of my groove are also much sharper than the edges of the lug)
2. Probably more importantly, and unlike the wide spaces between lugs that are too big to hold snow well, the small grooves trap snow inside them. Because snow sticks to snow (think of a snow ball or snow man) the snow trapped in the groove provides a strip of snow on the surface of each tire lug and additional snow actually sticks to these strips that are trapped in the grooves and spreads from these "anchor" points at the grooves across the lugs of the tire. On my tires, in the last snow, each 0.2 inch wide groove was causing a 1/2" to 1.5" wide strip of snow to stay on the contact surface of each lug for the length of the groove. If I made the groove longer, the strip of snow would be longer and improve my traction. This is why I said if I did it again i would make the grove longer. A few additional groves would also help.

Did that make sense??

This was Post 21. Explains why one little groove can improve snow traction so much.

 

[gladehound]

All that said, you are correct that turf tires are generally very good in compacted snow (not deep snow) compared to uncut R-4 tires. I haven't done the comparison between R-4 tires and Turfs in the snow. However, a good turf tire isn't much different than an AT truck tire which I did test as described above.

 

[check]

This was Post 21. Explains why one little groove can improve snow traction so much.

That was indeed a great explanation, Gladehound, and I really should groove my BX25 R4’s. Just need to get around to it. I do have very aggressive chains, but I haven’t been using them since we have 2 properties about 500 yards apart, separated by a paved road plowed by the township. And going down that asphalt with those chains on is like riding a bucking bronco!

In any case, my winter traction has been “acceptable”, since I don’t have much in the way of slopes, but there are a few spots I have trouble with. So, maybe sipes will be all I need. And I do have a friend with a heated garage up there, and he has a pretty talented son who I maybe able to con into doing it if I grease his palm.

Thanks again for the input, guys - you have convinced me!

(Now if I could just figure out what the heck is making those holes...)

 

[Buggs67]

I just finished grooving the tires on my Kioti CK2510 HST. I was going for better drive as well as less sideslip as this has been a problem when mowing and making turns on a slope. I may need additional circumferential grooves on the front tires. The front tires I just winged it, but on the rears I made reference marks with a piece of chalk and a flexible ruler to keep things straight.

My next project is a canopy out of corrugated roofing; two pieces overlapped and pop riveted together and bolted to the ROPS

 

[clarky711]

Does anyone have a grooving knife that they壇 rent or loan? Seems silly to me to spend 80-100 bucks to get a one time use tool that another member has sitting on their shelf. Located in upstate NY (Albany area) but willing to pay shipping cost too. Thanks!

 

[nightdevil]

Does anyone have a grooving knife that they壇 rent or loan? Seems silly to me to spend 80-100 bucks to get a one time use tool that another member has sitting on their shelf. Located in upstate NY (Albany area) but willing to pay shipping cost too. Thanks!

Hey we could work something out here! I plan to do mine today then I'd have no use. Lol I can be the community knife lol