Grading new 54" front blade on 2210?

megotatractor · Dec 15, 2007

I have a Q about the 54" quick tach. I have the 210 loader and hood guard. I am thinking of buying the front blade for snow removal as it seems it would be quicker - and easier for my wife to operate- than the FEL . My main concern is that while pushing heavy snow to the side will the front tires have enough traction to steer? Is it possible to put suitcase weights on the front somehow with the quic tach bracket installed? will the hood guard get in the way? Currently I use the rear blade to push snow backwards and I can push a lot of snow for the size of the tractor. but its hard on the neck and back. my rear blade is equiped with skid shoes to keep the gravel and the grass where they belong. Obviously these are questions I have to ask the dealer but thought someone might know. BTW the dealer quotes $1150 for the quick hitch, hyd angle and blade.

jsb2b · Dec 15, 2007

I have a 2305 with the 54" Q-Tatch blade. Just finished 10" snow with no steering problems. I always plow in 4WD angled and straight. Wet or powder, never had the front-end give me steering problems. Don't have any weights or chains and have turf tires. Just my 240 lbs and the 2305!! Price sounds about right.

kennyd · Dec 15, 2007

You won't have any trouble with the 54" blade, and you hood guard can stay attached as well. $1150 is a fair price.

gunmaker · Dec 15, 2007

Kenny's right, the price is fair, especially if the dealer has it all set-up for you to pick-up. I have a 72" blade on my 2520, and have no problems steering when using 4wd.

megotatractor · Dec 15, 2007

I should add ; do you guys plow in "float" mode??

kennyd · Dec 15, 2007

Yes, unless I am trying to scrape ice.

wxboy · Dec 16, 2007

Well I have had some steering problems with the 2305 and front blade but after jsb2b said he didn't have any problems and he wasn't using a weight box I decided to do some experimenting today. Usually when I plow snow of any significant weight if I have the blade angled and I try to turn, the front end normally just keeps going straight. I was disappointed at first but then I just started taking smaller chunks of snow or plowed in straight lines and I got used to it. Today I took off the ballast box and plowed 6" of snow and sleet and the tractor steered anywhere I wanted it to go. I could see the fronts digging in and getting traction. So taking the weight off of the back put more weight on the front and helped steering. On the other hand it takes some traction away from the back end so if I was pushing snow off of the driveway and then backing up onto the driveway the rear tires had less traction. Then I put the weight box back on and took some weight out of it to try to find a happy medium. For me it seems like some weight on the back is good but too much affects the steering. More weight is good for pushing heavy piles off of the driveway though.

Hopefully this helps. Not sure if you can put weights on the front with the blade on but I would guess that you can't. Either way the front blade works very well!

pepsidog · Dec 17, 2007

I agree 100% with what wxboy has stated. I just plowed the same stuff today with the 54"blade. Last year I had the JD ballast box on the back, (approx. 600 lbs), and was disappointed with the front end traction, would wash out with the blade angled. So this year I made a smaller box, and had the rears loaded, this years overall performance is much inproved, I'm still bias towards the traction part of the equation, which is ok in my case as I have a few hills in my driveway to deal with.

megotatractor · Dec 17, 2007

I was looking on JD's website and I see they have an accessory for the front quick hitch called a quick hitch weight which I'm guessing hangs on the hitch itself somehow? but again there's that question of the hood guard interfering so if nobody happens to know the answer I'll just have to ask JD when the decision time comes to order the thing.