GeneV
Elite Member
First, the rachet rake's snow edge. Overall impression, it did what it was designed for, let me plow snow with my bucket without scratching up the blacktop. I watched the one video they have on youtube for some pointers, and did the same thing they were doing with it...curled the bucket down and more or less pushed the snow along to it's final destination. Also back dragged snow here and there. Plowing with a bucket obviously leaves windrows you gotta come back for, but probably my unrefined technique didn't help that either.
A few takeaways I got from first time plowing with the tractor itself:
1. R4 tires are totally fine for the task if you have 4wd. I read all sorts of pov's about this topic, how r4's suck in snow, you gotta chain them up if you're not rolling on turfs, you need ballast, yadda yadda. You know what, nope, none of that. Did I fishtail in the front a little when the bucket was loaded? Yes. Did the same happen to me before with turfs on my gt when I plowed with it? Yes. So there you go. Also, I got a side drive that slopes down at a steep angle, which I was never able to plow before with my 2wd garden tractor on r3's, because I was not able to drive back up the driveway. With this tractor on r4's in 4wd, I plowed that side drive, and drove right back up no problem at all. Huge win for me coz that side driveway is handy, but before I wasn't able to use it when it snows.
2. You DON'T need rear ballast (at least the way I was using the snow edge with bucket curled down), if anything quite the opposite. Again, after reading various posts on tbn and elsewhere, I was thinking I'd be hurting without a ballast box or something of the sort. Well here's the thing, like I said up there in point 1, I'd occasionally fishtail up front when the bucket got too full. So let's say I had extra weight handing off my tail, would that help with the front fishtailing, or increase it? I'd say increase it.
A few takeaways I got from first time plowing with the tractor itself:
1. R4 tires are totally fine for the task if you have 4wd. I read all sorts of pov's about this topic, how r4's suck in snow, you gotta chain them up if you're not rolling on turfs, you need ballast, yadda yadda. You know what, nope, none of that. Did I fishtail in the front a little when the bucket was loaded? Yes. Did the same happen to me before with turfs on my gt when I plowed with it? Yes. So there you go. Also, I got a side drive that slopes down at a steep angle, which I was never able to plow before with my 2wd garden tractor on r3's, because I was not able to drive back up the driveway. With this tractor on r4's in 4wd, I plowed that side drive, and drove right back up no problem at all. Huge win for me coz that side driveway is handy, but before I wasn't able to use it when it snows.
2. You DON'T need rear ballast (at least the way I was using the snow edge with bucket curled down), if anything quite the opposite. Again, after reading various posts on tbn and elsewhere, I was thinking I'd be hurting without a ballast box or something of the sort. Well here's the thing, like I said up there in point 1, I'd occasionally fishtail up front when the bucket got too full. So let's say I had extra weight handing off my tail, would that help with the front fishtailing, or increase it? I'd say increase it.