Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Manual trans for snowblowing?

[NIdaho]

OK I had a B7100 with the gear transmission and a rear-mounted blower and used it for over 10 years. I thought I had a pretty good weapon against the winters in North Idaho. The B7100 had HI and Low ranges for the transmission and just one reverse gear, so I had my choice of slow and really slow. Like I said I blew a lot of snow with that set up. The issues are the depth of the snow fall is always different as well as the moisture content (here we get everything from super light powder (us skiers call it cold-smoke) to that clear snow (rain) and everything in between.

Almost 2 years ago I bit the bullet and got a B3200 with a Hydro-Trans. Boy it is a night and day difference! With the hydrostat I can go as fast or slow as I want to change the feed rate into the blower. I get to a big drift, I slow down and let it get rid of it and then speed back up until the next drift. My biggest complaint is that the time I get to spend on the new tractor is about half of the time that I used to spend on the old one.

 

[RFB]

This may sound like bragging, but it is not. It is just my reality.

I blow and plow snow for miles with 50 hp, mfwd and chained on all 4's. I hear many people on this site talking about heavy snowfalls...when I mean heavy I am talking about several feet per day for days at a time. It is snowing hard right now again, and I already plowed and blew the foot that fell this AM.

The only, and I mean ONLY, way that I would blow snow with a geared transmission is if it had a super-creep capability.

Effective blowing means full pto rpm's at all times (or risk plugging). A hydro trans or super-creep allows that; normally geared trans will required start/stop or clutch slipping operation.

The money spent on the hydro (if its more) will be saved in time and clutches.

 

[Ductape]

Since opinions are like bellybuttons.........................

I will never again try running a blower on a geared tractor. With a hydrostat, your ground speed is infinitely adjustable. Driving into a snowbank..... slow down and eat right through it. I found with my geared tractor, I could never slow my ground speed to where it needed to be without losing RPMs.

 

[crazyal]

Get the hydro and don't look back. Snow isn't always a nice even amount so one speed doesn't always work. Too often while blowing snow it'll build up in front of the blower so I'll stop for a second, let the blower clear it out, and then move while never dropping the RPM. It would just suck if I had to press a clutch in half way so the tractor would stop but the blower wouldn't.

 

[TrenaryDucks]

I use an Agri-Power 5000 (Zetor 5011) which has ten forward and two reverse gears. I run a seven foot Gruett rear PTO snowblower in low reverse, which is about 0.8 mph at 2,200 engine rpm and gives me 540 at the PTO. If the snow is too deep, I can always blow the snow in layers. I do not like riding the clutch too much.

 

[955Lincoln]

Keeping within the confines of the post title, manual trans ok but ONLY if your tractor has very slow creep gearing to handle deep blows without slipping the clutch.

 

[RoyJackson]

A 2-Stage clutch would work with a blower (push halfway down to disengage the tractor's transmission and stop movement) but it does take some experience to get it right. Since I don't have a blower, I'm basing my comments on using a rotary cutter in heavy brush.
As far as "speed", the low range of a Deere collarshift transmission is pretty darn slow (snails pass me when I used it).

 

[grsthegreat]

i have a jd870 with 9 forward gears and 3 reverse gears and a 2 stage clutch. i have a 60" farmking 3 point pto driven snowblower and the combo has served me well here in north Idaho for years. i agree that without the 2 stage clutch, it would never have worked. I recently purchased a dk45 hydrostatic tractor and im going to buy a loader mounted blower and front blade. after 15 years of driving backwards in an open station tractor...enough is enough. it took me a little time to get used to the hydrostat....all of 2 minutes. now id never go back to a clutch tractor or an open station tractor again.

 

[Airedale]

It comes down to what kind of gearing a gear tractor has, todays newer models offer plenty of capability. I have been running an 80 inch blower behind my TYM gear 433 all winter in some pretty heavy snow with no problems. It does have 16 speeds with some nice low gear selections to match conditions, I actually like it better than my previous tractor that had hydro.


Al

 

[Jay4200]

I have a jd790 with a lorenz three point blower and live in northen montana, lots of snow.

No fair. A Lorenz can eat a car at 12MPH.

JayC