How much snow can a L3240 get through?

[Jeff59Va]

Driveway is done. Yeah, probably did not need to shovel at all - the tractor was fine going through the 36" or so drifts to the edge of the driveway where I could dump the load. Probably helped that it was slightly downhill.

Plowing with a FEL is definitely an art - took a while for me to get the hang of the proper bucket angle. The first part I did ended up with about 6" of packed snow because I was messing around too much with the bucket, but the rest of the driveway was pretty decent - it's down to asphalt in places now with the sun on it. Had a few scrapes in the driveway, but nothing major. Only other incident was related to me installing a new diverter. This is the first time I really used it after reworking the hydraulic lines, and I look up to see hydraulic oil all over the hood Luckily it was just a loose JIC connection and I just tightened it up.

Will try to post some pics in the snow thread.

Oh - and to the guy that suggested marking the driveway - yeah, already ordered the marking sticks for next time

 

[leonz]

Do not waste your money on drive way stakes(you will not see them) use 6' to 8'
heavy metal fence posts and a fence post driver and fence post puller as it will
take you very little time to install them and even less time to remove them for
your driveway or snow fence posts.

As you have seen what the weather can do there you should look into
buying snow fence and fence posts if you have the room for them and
if not perhaps asking a neighbor if it may be ok to install it on his property
as long as you remove it when the ground is no longer muddy.

If you have less than 300 feet to either side of the drive way snow fence
may work OK with 2-3 rows of fence 75+ feet apart depending on the
prevailing winds and the property lines; and if you have nice neighbors
all the better as you could both benefit from a large set of snow fences to
help both properties.

.

 

[larry1965]

Thanks for the update, sounds like it worked pretty well. Did you use the loader in float. I have never tried it with that much snow.

 

[Fallon]

I've plowed just fine with my L3200 & loaded (rear onlyl R4s for 2 years here in CO with snows of up to a foot or so. I have a SSQA truck plow. The nasty snow before thanksgiving this year was a different beast. It averaged a foot & a half of wet heavy snow. By average I mean 1/3 of my driveway was bare gravel & 3-4' drifts. I couldn't drive through a lot of it much less plow.

Based on our tractors being similar, I'd guess a foot or foot & a half. Bucket clearing would be to slow for me, but can probably handle deeper snow if you have a place to start from & dump the snow.

I can't fit rear chains without spacers, but got front chains this year. They upped my plow capacity by about 1/3. I also got a great deal on a 3pt blower (wasn't expecting to find that kind of deal until summer). The blower is a lot slower & less convenient so I plow 90% of the time. But I think I could probably handle 5' packed snow banks with the blower. Plow still tops out at a foot maybe foot & a half.