Opening Road

[CJONE]

Spent the better part of 5 hours opening a 2 mile road for a friend. Tractor did well considering it was mostly hardpacked/frozen ice from the rain/-15 below temp swings we have been having + being packed in by snowmobiles. The factory bucket is just next to useless in snow. I will be looking for a high capacity one soon. Used about 8-10 gallons of fuel, not too bad considering the work that was done. CJ

 

[mpham]

5 hours of seat time sounds like fun to me!!

 

[Katahdin]

I'd think you'd be better off with a snow plow so you can angle off the snow, rather then a high capacity bucket which will just keep filling up.

 

[CJONE]

5 hours of seat time sounds like fun to me!!

Gets old quick, after about 2 hours of beating on snow I have had enough! CJ

 

[CJONE]

I'd think you'd be better off with a snow plow so you can angle off the snow, rather then a high capacity bucket which will just keep filling up.

You have to be able to dig it out and move it off to the side. A plow will not touch 2' of frozen hardpack. I have a F-250 diesel with a 9'4" v plow and it would not even begin to push hardpack sideways. The rest of the story is we have a 650G JD dozer at the house and once I could get my truck and tools to it to get it started I used that to widen the road. It weighs almost 19000 Lbs and the snow was hard/frozen enough that it would slide the dozer sideways with the blade angled and too much of a bite. Nasty stuff. CJ

 

[Thomas]

Would back scraper blade help?

 

[Singalo]

Would back scraper blade help?

Yea, like a Box Blade with the rippers down to loosen it all, followed up with a plow? Why did you need to clear the road if it was all hard packed anyhow? Just curious?

 

[CJONE]

Would back scraper blade help?

I spun my roller boxblade to work in reverse and would push back into a pile. When going forward I just use the bucket to scrape down to frozen dirt. the tractor does not have enough traction even with the V-bar chains to use the bucket and backblade going forward. Not needed anyway the bucket gets most if not all of it. The ideal thing would be a high capacity or even a normal bucket. The Kioti bucket is just small and odd shaped, works great for dirt just not snow. CJ

 

[CJONE]

Yea, like a Box Blade with the rippers down to loosen it all, followed up with a plow? Why did you need to clear the road if it was all hard packed anyhow? Just curious?

I have a Gannon with rippers but if you crawl up on the snow and spin with chains you will be stuck instantly. The bucket peals it to the dirt, it just does not have enough volume to go very far. As far as driving a car on hardpack, well it works great until you get into a soft area then you will break through and then you will be digging the road out anyway and possibly damage the car or truck when getting it out! Been there done that. CJ