Snow Attachments Not throwing snow very far.

[Shadow99]

Watch out when making a "zero-clearance," mods to a impeller housing! I found out the hard-way that some of the impeller's are not centered in the impeller-housing.
I did the modification this fall, & closed a 1/4" gap between impeller-blade & housing, right before in went up the chute.
I had a 1/4" gap at the 9 o'clock position, but it was about 1/8" at 1 o'clock position and less than 1/16" at the 6 o'clock position. Causing the mud-flap material to fold over & jam up, within the housing.
I cut the extensions down, so I left a 1/8" gap at 9 o'clock position. But even tho the impeller would now spin with less resistance, it still made a horrible "whap-whap-whap," noise, & shook the whole unit.
So I went with plan C, removed ZC mod, sanded, painted & re-waxed inside impeller, housing & chute.
It's worked great the past 2 storms we've had here in New England. I get to play this afternoon, in the same slightly-wet snow, we are getting now. Just waiting for it to stop snowing, by 3pm (weatherman says). Should be a good 4-6", enough to keep the blower happy.

Shadow

 

[DHD]

On a PTO driven snowblower, I think that if you can maintain PTO speed, the HP is irrelevant. The speed and configuration of the impeller is going to determine how it throws the snow, independent of how much horsepower is available. I'm assuming the tractor can maintain PTO rated RPM of course. I have a 60" blower with 18 PTO HP and it never begins to bog down (Of course, I haven't tried to take a full bite of 18" deep wet snow either.)

I agree.
I have a 64" blower with 27 HP pto, but know of folks using 72" blowers with the same pto hp.
A key element to successful snow blowing is ground speed and a hydrostatic transmission can be very beneficial in that respect.
If the blower acts like it's getting bogged down, just reduce the ground speed until the pto speed stabilizes.

 

[tdejong302]

I'm going slow and the snow is anywhere from 4-8 inches, some fluffy and some heavier by the road. Doesn't seem to matter if its heavy or fluffy. Just kind of druels out the end. (less then 5ft.). I am at 540 atleast my dash says I am. Blower is not bogging down. I have the power to blow back banks 2-3 ft. high. Just not enough something in the blower it self to really throw the snow. Will look at the impeller to see how much clearance I have. The impeller doesn't seem to be moving really really fast. The auger is moving fine. Impeller is about twice the speed of the auger. Doesnt' seem to wind down.

Just ran out and checked the impeller. It does have about 1/4 clearance at the top and maybe 5 eights of an inch at the bottom. I will add some fins and see if that helps.

 

[JerryK]

Still say you should look into the fan slipping on the shaft. Since it was a used unit, maybe the key in not in the keyway. See if you can mark one of the four impellers on the fan in relation to the shaft coming out of the tractor side of the gearbox...where the PTO shaft is attached. Then run it a little and see if it still lines up. [ easy to sit here running my mouth.... ]

 

[tcartwri]

On my Bobcat / Kioti, turning it up another 200 rpm results in almost twice the casting distance....

 

[PILOON]

I always run my 3 bladed PTO blower at the 700(+) rpm, like 7-8 yrs now. No problems at all.
I do select the lower 500 RPM if I'm into frozen snow banks or that heavy stuff the city plow plugs my entrance with simply not to bog the engine.

So far this season I am still on last years shear bolts.

 

[DHD]

Is there other way I can speed up the blower other then maxing out my motor/rpms. thx.

What is your engines rpm when the pto is at 540 ?

 

[jonnmero]

I used kids plastic snow slider inside the chute on the other blower. I used heat ( a torch) and molded it to the inside. Bolted the edge (use fender washers on the inside) with small bolts and cut off the extra on the outer edge.

Al

Any pictures of the modification? Sounds like a good way to modify my snow blower as the gravel and sand it also picks up ain't too kind to the painted steel surfaces.

 

[drizler]

I'm betting that rig of yours is right at the edge of the minimum power it need to do the job. My ancient TO 2o Fergy is 26, more like 20ish now days HP at the PTO. Since I got it just running my 6' mower deck required nearly BTW (balls to the wall) power. Plowing snow with the 7' blade is much the same. I notice even my new diesel 36 HP seems to want a lot more power than you think it would much of the time. \
Do what I do, fly it like an airplane. Forget the specs and put the power to it. It won't hurt anything , if anything it's good for it. After a bit of trial and error you will find that there is a learning curve. So much snow, so heavy at so much road speed will work best. At least with a new type tractor you can slow down the road speed and keep the PTO speed up something I couldn't do . All i could do was find the sweet spot and live with it more or less.

There is that popular mod for the impellers to seal that gap everyone mentioned. It's real purpose is to stop clogging with the wet stuff they say. I just did mine but haven't gotten to try it yet since no snow. I just used a 2" by width of chute piece of old treadmill for mine, mud flaps work too. Make em tight to a bit too long as they will wear in fast just like a ring in a cyl. Like I said I doubt it will be of significant help for you now but still will help with the mush and it's only 3 pieces of scrap and 6 self tapping sheet metal screws. Lots of youtube vids on how to if you need it.
I heard of a few guys who had eccentric impellers. For the life of me I can;t see why they would be like that or have a huge gap in the end of the auger to wall clearance. My 2002 Ariens looked like new when I got it last year . I found the bushing that supports the auger had one huge wear notch on it. That cause all sorts of headaches and what a pain to change. Had to take the entire bottom gear drive apart just to pull it out.
.

 

[Amvcane]

As others have stated adding rubber extensions will help greatly with wet slushy snow. This will also increase your fan dia. To 16 1/4 " which will slightly increase your blade tip speed. Now with your fan diameter maximized you can only increase your pto speed which was also mentioned many times. Increasing to 600 rpm at the pto will give you an 11% faster speed at the fan blade tip which you should find as a great improvement. Also you mentioned you were going slow. You should be feeding the blower as much snow as it will handle without the engine bogging down to much. You will eventually learn how fast by looking at the stream of snow and the sound of the engine woking hard. Think someone called it BTW. You need snow to throw snow. There has to be a steady stream of snow coming out the chute. The snow thrown needs more snow just behind it to push it farther, fluid like. Hope suggestions from all will help. Give us some pics to look at.