Good 3 point snow blower vs front mounted?

[Fallon]

The only problem with a pull blower is you need a really big tractor & often to clear with a storm. SCUTs & most if not all CUTs aren't big enough to drive through big drifts much less pull a power through em.

 

[JWR]

"Big" is very relative. Certainly larger blowers require larger tractors but reasonable matches work very well in almost any size range. My example is a 5ft Agri-Trend blower which weighs on the order of 700lbs, 2 stage, made heavy and solid, been using it for 20 seasons. I drive it with a Kubota B2150 which is 24hp 4cyl, 4wd. The B2150 handles it very well and I have never felt the blower was too big for the tractor at all. I typically do removal with just the FEL and a backblade unless it is over a foot deep. This blower throws snow a good 40 feet or more at standard PTO speed. Many times I have used the blower in 25 to 30" snow depths and had no problem with rather large drifts near double the height of the blower opening. I find that a creeper gear (which the B2150 has) is ideal for deeper snow removal because it allows you to just keep rolling and never stop. Running too fast is a disease in snow blowing, not a solution.

 

[Fallon]

On my L3200 (3,500 lbs with loader & loaded R4s) we got several snows I couldn't drive though, much less plow through with a front or rear blade. 1' of heavy wet nasty snow was particularly memorable as sucky. I got my 3pt blower after that.

I could plow up to 2' of snow often, if it was really cold light stuff. I still plow up until the point I can't anymore as its faster, then flip 180 to blow what I can't plow.

We get up to 6' drifts out here (usually against the barn door so I have to dig it by hand to get the tractor out. Even part of that would probably take take a pull blower out of the running around here unless you were pushing towards the 10,000lbs range.

At least I did until I sold the L3200 & plow a few weeks ago. The 60" blower won't work on my new cabbed 72" L4060. Need to build a new SSQA mount for another old truck plow & sell that 60" blower to afford a new 72" or wider one.

 

[JWR]

I'm surprised you get heavy wet snow out there. Every time I've skied in Colorado the snow was very dry fluffy stuff. In the Eastern mountains it is sometimes dry & powdery but often heavy wet stuff. Very rarely do we get deep drifts that you describe. I can only remember a few of those since 1950. Our worst case is usually when the snow was let go and packed down over time (like at a vacation cabin when we are not there) or got rained on and is very heavy packed and stiff rather than fluffy. I park my Kubota facing outward in the garage and have had to move drifts several times with the front end loader in order to get the tractor out of the garage. There was enough snow in all those cases to use the 3pt blower.
I suppose they are very expensive but the Pronovost blower shown in post #18 above is really intriguing. Apparently that thing lets you blow snow going forward or reverse, having a clamshell-looking part that changes position for forward blowing and reverse blowing.

 

[Fallon]

Colorado weather is wierd. It will be in the 70's one day & snowing the next then back to the high 50s the day after . That makes things nasty when the snow melts when it hits then freezes up. Snow in the low 30s is the worst, heavy, dense, wet & slushy. I'd MUCH rather go out & hovel snow in the low 20s than the 30s or 40s. So much drier & warmer with frozen snow than melty wet snow.

 

[RjCorazza]

Colorado weather is wierd. It will be in the 70's one day & snowing the next then back to the high 50s the day after...

That's what caused me problems last year after the NE blizzard. My 72" blower worked great until 2 days after when the temps were in the 40's and the 35" of snow started packing down and melting. Mostly a traction issue, but I did clog the blower a few times while trying to go too fast uphill. I have yet to plow with the new 4060, but with the extra weight I expect it to do well. With blower and front plow it weighs in at about 7400 lbs vs. about 5000 lbs for the previous L3410. I suspect we will both have a more comfortable winter this year! Enjoy...

 

[JWR]

Yes, I find traction is often the issue. In wet snow, particularly, the very first slippage of a tire creates ice under it and there goes any traction. I hate chains but in some cases that is the solution. I switched to ag tires instead of turf on my B2150 and that made a big difference.

 

[fishhead]

whether you would want to tackle a 2 ft deep long drive is probably more a matter of the tractor and the nature of the snow - if you can drive through it - it will blow it- you can gain a bit of depth by skimming the bucket to keep it from getting too deep. As far as the length of drive i would much rather use a rear pull than front or rear push because the viz is much better. There is no powder cloud in front of you (its behind and moving away) and if you need to see the exact edge of the mouth of the blower just look right behind you and down- no housing in the way.
I found i like it so much i just use mine for pretty much all snowfalls ( though in early season i build some berms with my rear blade for safety) Just this past week i did a 1 inch cleanup at the end of a snow cycle just because i didn't want it to pack into ice. For me rear plus bucket is quicker and does a better jpb on small snows than my rear blade.

The problem with a rear pull is generally they are commercial units so extremely well built but expensive. Too, i am not sure if anyone is making one smaller than 68"

just looked through that video quickly (no sound)...looked like a lot of cleanup of a few inches....didnt see him tackling a 1000' driveway with 2' on it. or a snow drift. Seems like that would be the downside?

 

[Soldier415]

I recently picked up an MK Martin Meteor SB68 rear mounted blower for $2,500 new

Add a $50 backup camera and problem solved