Front mounted V-Plow and Dual Rear Snowblowers

[eltufto]

Uh oh, hit a snag. Those tracks that I wanted to mount onto the loader, apparently it can't be done. They are made by QUADTRAC which installs them onto CASE farm tractors, but apparently they don't fit on CASE loaders. After a little email exchange I got this one:
"Send me 30,000.00 for the engineering team to get on it and study it

Seriously I do not see how to do it good luck"

So I'm looking around for a different track dealer now, any companies to suggest?

Thanks

 

[MicroPilot]

Sounds like what you really want/need is this:

 

[Villengineer]

Do you really need the unit to have tracks? If you must have tracks then a custom front lift on a large ag tractor could be designed. That would also give you the rear hydraulics you were looking for. You'll need to open up that wallet nice and wide though.

 

[eltufto]

The tracks are necessary because the biggest problem is the weight of the loader disrupting the grass. If the weight is distributed along a track, as opposed to acting at the point contact of a wheel, the problem should be solved.

 

[Villengineer]

Here are some options as I see your situation:
1) Keep looking for someone who either has or will make tracks for the Case loader. Personally, I've never seen a large loader with tracks, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. Custom designed ones are going to be cost prohibitive, no airport cares about the grass that much. The other thing you may want to check on with tracks is that although they decrease contact pressure, they can really tear up sod in a turn. I've never seen the articulated tracked ag tractors used on a sod surface so I don't know what they do, but the ones that steer by only driving one side or by counter-rotating the treads can really tear up grass quick.
2) Abandon the Case loader all together and look for track mounted equipment or the ag tractors w/tracks to see if they could be adapted. You may have some luck looking at dozers, the CAT Challenger, the JD tracked ag tractor, or the other ag tractors to which tracks can be added. Dozers might be your best bet as far as having all the capabilities out of the box, but I don't know if rubber tracks are available in the size you'll be looking at. Reference the tread issue I brought up before, my guess is the operators are going to be looking at getting the job done quickly, they're not going to get too concerned about the grass under them so you'll see lots of real tight turns. This too is a $$$ option and I can't believe they like grass that much.
3) You could look at options as far as different wheel/tire combinations for the Case loader. A set of wheels to use a floater style tire, a simply a set for wider tires, or even duals would decrease your ground pressure. Even if you had to have some custom wheels made, I would guess they would be considerably cheaper than options 1 or 2. They would also be interchangable with the rest of the fleet. Traction may end up being an issue with this option, so you'd want to check into that.
Hope this helps. Definitely an interesting problem to solve.

 

[eltufto]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I was thinking about looking into #3 earlier, it would just be a matter of testing to see how much the pressure is decreased; wider, or dual, tires may just do the trick. And what about letting some air out of the tires to make the contact patch larger. I know for pick up trucks this works well to get more traction, but could this work in a machine this size?

Oh, and I should have said disrupting the 'ground', not grass. The weight of the loader creates holes and ruts in the ground, which is a safety issue for planes if they should ever veer off the runway.

 

[eltufto]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( And what about letting some air out of the tires to make the contact patch larger. I know for pick up trucks this works well to get more traction, but could this work in a machine this size? )</font>

Hmm, unless I'm mistaken, it appears from what I've been reading that a floater tire is a special tire that uses less air pressure. So it looks like you suggested this exact thing, which means I guess it would work.

 

[Villengineer]

Well, yes and no. Some tire designs will allow this, others will not, and on some it will have little to no affect. If I had to guess I would say the latter would apply here. Most construction type equipment use tires with very stiff sidewalls and very thick cross sections so they tend to not be affected as much by changes in pressure as much as say an automotive tire. For that matter, there is a great deal of difference in the reactions of truck tires. ie the tires on my 4x4 will increase the contact patch at a much higher degree than the tires on my 1 ton dually, simply based on the design of the tire. Also, some construction/industrial tires already operate at relatively low pressures, so there may not be anything to gain there. Floater tires on the other hand tend to be both wide and more flexible to limit their contact pressure. For instance a down pressured industrial tire would likely still roll up onto an object while a floater would tend to conform around it. I do not know the characteristics of floaters when it comes to operation on snow and ice. If I recall correctly "airing down" most tires in ice and snow conditions is discouraged as far as traction is concerned. I know that most dedicated snow tires I have experience with are relatively narrow (lower tread to side-wall ratios) with stiff sidewall construction. However, I have heard that some of the more pliable 4x4 tires do perform well. You'll probably want to talk to someone with more experience in that field.

 

[bczoom]

I've been watching this thread and admiring the thoughts and creativeness of all posters.
I'm going to throw some things out for thought that are little different.
eltufto - an assumption and a couple questions first.
your current V-plow opens and brushes clean the light so I assume the lights can receive some brushing without damage.
Currently, after the V-plow goes through, what follows it to pick up and move the snow dumped on the runway? Where does it push it?
Where (city and/or state) will this be used? Trying to figure out how much snow you have to deal with.

How about options like these:
Remove your current V-plow and install a brush (broom) angled outward (away from the runway). This will brush the snow away from the runway and clear off the lights. Maybe the mounting can be offset whereby the broom goes over the lights but the driving equipment stays on the runway and doesn't affect the ground. Using the latter, the broom cleans the lights and if you can mount a straight blade tilted towards the runway, it'll make things faster for the plows that are doing the runway itself. An adjustment to this could be to tow a broom on the non-runway side offset and behind your current machine. It'll be lighter than a snowblower but may not work very well if you have a lot of snow.

What if you had/made a piece of equipment with a very high speed air blower. Drive down the runway right beside the lights and just blow the snow off the lights and away from the runway? I'm also pondering some type of liquid or granular derivation of this that has snow melting characteristics.

I believe all the brooms, blowers, sprayers (for a liquid version of the blower) etc. are all commercially available. It would just be a matter of connecting to your current equipment.

Brian

 

[eltufto]

We are in the Great Lake's snow belt, so we get quite a lot of snow.
What currently follows the plow are two snowblowers on either side, that pick up the windrows (one ends up on the runway, one off) and blow them far away from the runway. The snowpiles are eventually hauled away to large snow-melters.

The brushes that are inside the plow don't damage the lights because they are cloth and don't spin at extremely high rpm. This manages to get the ice and snow off the lights because (I am told, I have not actually seen the plow in action) a snow melting solution is initially sprayed over the lights.
A regular sweeper would not work because to remove the large amounts of snow and ice around the lights, metal brushes and high rpm's are required, which would damage the lights.

I thought about a high pressure air blower, but I was told this wouldn't work. A lot of the snow on the lights comes from snow that is blown off the runway by the machines that clean them, and can become extremely hard when it lands on the ground. So only the plow is strong enough to remove it.

And the snow melting liquid they currently use works only well enough to melt the snow enough to soften it a bit. It could not sufficiently remove all the snow.