Help quick! Snowblower for M5040?

[Bob_Young]

BTW creep speed is rarely if ever needed for snowblowing. Even normal low-range 1st and 2nd are too slow on most tractors. Creep speed is handy for planting trees - or pressure washing a house. .

Dunno if I agree with that statement. I can recall creeping down a runway at .6 mph in a NH TV140 with the PTO going full tilt and barely hacking it with about 15" of snow. Creep speed might come in pretty handy on occasion. Gotta remember that rear mount blowers generally require the tractor to move in reverse to work and, for some reason, reverse is usually geared higher than the forward gears. Make sure you check what the groundspeed will be in your lowest reverse gear at PTO operating RPM. If it's much over 1 MPH, I'd seriously look at the creep package.

Most of the time you can get away with higher speeds by taking smaller bites. But on the first pass you have to go the full width and leave a few inches on the surface if you can't slow it down enough. The kind of obstructions you have to work around is also a factor.
Bob

 

[smfcpacfp]

I don't know if I would be in a big hurry buying a tractor in today's market, I suspect the deal will be there towmorrow.

If your main activity is snowblowing, why on earth would you need a 50 hp tractor unless you have hugh area to blow in which case why would you want a rear blower? If I only had to snow blow on rare occasions a rear blower would be OK, but a steady diet of snowblowing with head twisted to the rear is a painful and unpleasant thought.

My B3030 HSDC (30 hp) with a front blower is comfortable and efficient for the 15 to 30 feet of snow we get each year, sometime 2 feet at a time, wet or light. Below is a link to a video of my tractor handling a good deal more than a foot of wet, heavy April 1 snow.

YouTube - Kubota B3030 snowblower

 

[Tig]

Great video Steve. Your rig works very well. Thanks for sharing.

 

[rbargeron]

............ reverse is usually geared higher than the forward gears.........

Many tractors have some kind of reverser these days so there are as many speeds forward as reverse. FWIW Kubota reversers are either geared the same or slightly lower in reverse.

 

[johnk]

When a tractor size is listed by an implement manufacturer, it only roughly establishes a pairing of machinery. In this case, the Woods heavy duty blower lists 60-80 hp tractors - but there are wider blowers in the model range, some with dual augers. A 1700-pound snowblower would be a lot of freight behind a 30 hp tractor. In fact, the stress on the tractor and blower is really produced by the resistance of the snow being moved. If you bite into deep snow at full speed you'll need a lot of power. But to blow 6" of snow even a 100 hp tractor will only deliver a small fraction of its available power to the blower. And blowers have shear pins to protect them from being over stressed.

Here's a 7' medium-duty blower in action. The M5040 would handle it perfectly.

BTW creep speed is rarely if ever needed for snowblowing. Even normal low-range 1st and 2nd are too slow on most tractors. Creep speed is handy for planting trees - or pressure washing a house. Tread width is measured at the tire center (or from the inside of one to the outside of the opposite).

How can you post such a Cold Picture Of Blowing Snow in the middle of summer. Ouch thats cold!!

 

[rbargeron]

Somebody hand that man a sweater !! Sorry for the chill....

 

[Colby Forest]

I don't know if I would be in a big hurry buying a tractor in today's market, I suspect the deal will be there towmorrow.

If your main activity is snowblowing, why on earth would you need a 50 hp tractor unless you have hugh area to blow in which case why would you want a rear blower? If I only had to snow blow on rare occasions a rear blower would be OK, but a steady diet of snowblowing with head twisted to the rear is a painful and unpleasant thought.

My B3030 HSDC (30 hp) with a front blower is comfortable and efficient for the 15 to 30 feet of snow we get each year, sometime 2 feet at a time, wet or light. Below is a link to a video of my tractor handling a good deal more than a foot of wet, heavy April 1 snow.

YouTube - Kubota B3030 snowblower

Thanks for the video. Looks like yours does a good job from the little I could watch. I can't watch video with my VERY slow dial-up, except in real short bursts. Price of living in the boonies and satellite internet is way too expensive for us.

Been looking at this tractor for two years, not much of a hurry . The hurry was I made him a deal I didn't think he would take, so then I had to find out quick if I could get a snowblower for it. I can only do this once, so it has to be one to last a long, long, long time. Hence, the 5040.

Will be doing more than blowing - loader work, logging winch and backhoe may be in the future. This tractor does not have a mid-PTO for a front blower. Maybe I'll get one of those back-up cameras to avoid the pain in the neck .

 

[Colby Forest]

Somebody hand that man a sweater !! Sorry for the chill....

Don't be sorry. I'd rather be in that picture than in the muggies we've been having. 85% humidity INSIDE the house! Ugh! Everything is damp and clammy. Don't know if we'll ever dry out. Seems like we're in it for the rest of this week too.

 

[Colby Forest]

So, now I'm the proud owner of a bright orange M5040HDC with loader! Have already made a couple neighbours jealous But it's been raining since I got it so all I've done is take it off the trailer and take it for a short spin .

So I asked the dealer about a snowblower. He gave me a quote on an 87" Meteor, the brand that he carries. Freight free if he could get in on his order of other blowers he'll stock for the season, an offer from the manufacturer for ordering in June I think. I found a couple threads on Meteor and I have my doubts. So, I asked him to see if he can quote me on 84" Pronovost Puma and 84" Blizzard (made by RAD Technologies?). He said they'll be quite a bit more. I'm waiting for him to get back to me. How about the plain Pronovost 86" P-860? Must be near impossible to break that .

Thanks to all for the help, advice and links.
I figured I ought to move this over to Attachments, so I've started a thread there if anyone is interested. "Best 7' snowblower?"

 

[stevem5215]

How far is it to Maine from Pa ? I've got a "like new" Allied 73" for sale.

Steve from Pittsburgh, Pa