Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Pictures of your snow weapons

CompactTractorFan · Jan 29, 2012

Johndeere3720 said:
Here's my new snow weapon. Deere 317 w/ 61hp Turbo Diesel, 2100 lb lift capacity w/ weight kit, weighs around 6700 lbs with the operator. Hauled it home today, tried it on a pile of snow and it pushed it like it wasn't even there. Now I am ready for snow. :thumbsup:

and a weapon it is!!!

582CUB · Jan 29, 2012

here is my 582 cub . this snow was from a week ago. and it was gone 2 days later. weird weather in ohio this year. I hear 50's for Mon. Tues.

lhansman · Jan 30, 2012

Thanks Chopped. It did an excellent job yesterday for my neighbours and I.

Kiotikarl · Feb 3, 2012

Here are both my snow weapons; 2011 Arctic cat prowler 550 with home-made 74inch snow plow. 2010 Kioti CK30 gear with home-made cab, FEL and pronovost Puma 64 snowblower with hydraulic chute

Carl Bert · Feb 7, 2012

lhansman said:
Here are some photos of my new to me Grattex "extendable and reversable" snow blade. I was trying to find a front mount blower for my B26 and came across this used blade at my Kubota / Case / New Holland dealer. It came of a NH tractor that only had 40 hours and one season on it.

Unfortunately we have not had very much snow this winter despite living an hour north of Toronto. I started the B26 for the second time since October on Friday! Forget about a green Christmas - we have had an almost completely green January too. We got about 3" of blowing snow yesterday so I am waiting for daylight and then I will go out and play in the snow for an hour or two.

This is their model "559" blade which means it goes from 5.5' to 9' wide. My driveway is not paved and given that we live in an 1885 house in a small village it will probably stay that way. We have about short 50' single care width entrance with a circular drive to the main entry door and than a large clear area for parking which is probably 100' by 80'.

I had purchased the larger Kubota light duty front bucket for the B26 which increase width from 60" to 66" and has probably a 50% larger capacity but when I saw this Grattex blade I realized it would really cut down my driveway clearing time. I wanted something I could operate will facing forward due to neck and back issues and this has been great the two times I have used it so far. My driveway is a slight uphill from the road so it is a bit of a challenge maintaining traction at full extension but if I get bogged down I just backup and take a run at it. If that doesn't work, I backup again, narrow the blade and push a smaller amount and so far with out two modest snow falls that has worked fine. If traction becomes a major problem, I will get chains for the front R4's.

The blade wieghs about 800 pounds according to the specs and I certainly wouldn't want anything heavier on the B26. Despite the robust construction of the B26 you can really feel the weight of this blade when you pick it up. Very solid constuction. This blade has cut my driveway clearing time almost in half and the reversible option allows me to back drag snow from those awkward spots. I used to have to make repeated loader trips to clear snow from a couple of spots where I did not want piles but not anymore!

Hey if you do find a front mounted blower, please let me know. I had found one (forget the name) that almost worked. It was a hydraulic front loader mounted blower, but it required a slightly larger pump then the B26 had. If I remember right, it needed 12 or 13 gpm and the B26 only has 11 gpm. It was expensive, around $7000, but without any other options, other then rear mount, what can you do. Hopefully someone will eventually build one that will be B26 compatible.

grsthegreat · Feb 7, 2012

Carl Bert said:
Hey if you do find a front mounted blower, please let me know. I had found one (forget the name) that almost worked. It was a hydraulic front loader mounted blower, but it required a slightly larger pump then the B26 had. If I remember right, it needed 12 or 13 gpm and the B26 only has 11 gpm. It was expensive, around $7000, but without any other options, other then rear mount, what can you do. Hopefully someone will eventually build one that will be B26 compatible.

you need a rear hydraulic powerpack unit to run a hydraulic front blower. Even though the tractor may put out 11 GPM alot of that is used in the movements and use of the tractor itself. Also, tractors only output about 2,500 PSI and may have 5 gallons of hydraulic reservoir onboard (average) whereas a skidsteer will operate at 3,000+ psi and carry 25 gal of hydraulic fluid.

Its just the nature of the beast. My rear hydraulic system holds 25 gallons of fluid and runs 15 GPM at 3,000 PSI. Without the 25 gal of fluid, the system would overheat in no time.

lhansman · Feb 7, 2012

Hi Carl

I think grsthegreat is correct - to run a front mount blower on the B26 you would have to put a larger hydraulic pump on the 3 point hitch with hydraulic lines to the front. Pronovost offers a unit that does this and the smallest size of it looks like it would work on the B26. In the end I decided that since my driveway is gravel and will not be paved that I would prefer to push the snow and gravel around rather than blow it all over the lawn. Now that I have the Grattex blade I clear my large driveway and parking area very quickly. I do not have a long driveway so winrowing is not a problem and I have room to use the loader with my new light duty bucket to pile the snow higher if necessary. If I had a long narrow driveway I would probably get a blower but for now I am OK with my current setup.

Have you had much snow this year in your area?

Lauren

grsthegreat · Feb 7, 2012

lhansman said:
Hi Carl

I think grsthegreat is correct - to run a front mount blower on the B26 you would have to put a larger hydraulic pump on the 3 point hitch with hydraulic lines to the front. Pronovost offers a unit that does this and the smallest size of it looks like it would work on the B26. In the end I decided that since my driveway is gravel and will not be paved that I would prefer to push the snow and gravel around rather than blow it all over the lawn. Now that I have the Grattex blade I clear my large driveway and parking area very quickly. I do not have a long driveway so winrowing is not a problem and I have room to use the loader with my new light duty bucket to pile the snow higher if necessary. If I had a long narrow driveway I would probably get a blower but for now I am OK with my current setup.

Have you had much snow this year in your area?

Lauren

good point. This is my first year using a loader mounted plow on a tractor. I have always used a blower to do about 2,000 feet of driveways and walkways on my property. And every spring i have to rake up some gravel off of the lawns.

This year i used to plow on my driveways and pushed everything to a pile off the driveway so i can reclaim any gravel this spring. Seamed to work great.

If the ground would have remained frozen, i probably would have used the blower for subsequent clearings ... but it all melted. I like the idea of using a plow to establish a frozen base so the gravel is protected, then blowing off the top snow layer.

The loader mounted blower did a great job of clearing snow after some pressure issues were resolved. I am very impressed with how much easier it is to blow snow driving forwards as opposed to backing up all the time.

The series of blower i used offers 3 separate systems. A 16 GPM system for tractors with 30-43 PTO HP range, the 20GPM for 44-53 HP, and the 24 GPM for 54-75 HP range.

lhansman · Feb 7, 2012

Hi grsthegreat

Even with a blade, I'm carefull with the first snowfall or two until I get a good packed and frozen base as you pointed out. However here in the "frozen north" we have had the same issue as you - with all the mild weather the base is gone.

Like you I try to gather and push most of my snow into a single large pile at the rear of my property and then I know where to find all the gravel in the spring. I think at this point if I did get a blower I would get a rear mount one as I like having the large blade on the front and for the little bit of blowing I might have to do I could go backwards.

Lauren

grsthegreat · Feb 7, 2012

lhansman said:
Hi grsthegreat

Even with a blade, I'm carefull with the first snowfall or two until I get a good packed and frozen base as you pointed out. However here in the "frozen north" we have had the same issue as you - with all the mild weather the base is gone.

Like you I try to gather and push most of my snow into a single large pile at the rear of my property and then I know where to find all the gravel in the spring. I think at this point if I did get a blower I would get a rear mount one as I like having the large blade on the front and for the little bit of blowing I might have to do I could go backwards.

Lauren

i did many years of driving backwards abd blowing snow. But i have way too much area that needs blowing these days, and my neck was just getting too sore and staying too sore for days afterwards. For me the front blower was a health issue. I have about 2,000 feet of my roads i do, plus shedding snow off of 3 buildings that has to get moved for animal access. This year i added 2.5 miles of association roads that im maintaining also.

Carl Bert · Feb 7, 2012

lhansman said:
Hi Carl

I think grsthegreat is correct - to run a front mount blower on the B26 you would have to put a larger hydraulic pump on the 3 point hitch with hydraulic lines to the front. Pronovost offers a unit that does this and the smallest size of it looks like it would work on the B26. In the end I decided that since my driveway is gravel and will not be paved that I would prefer to push the snow and gravel around rather than blow it all over the lawn. Now that I have the Grattex blade I clear my large driveway and parking area very quickly. I do not have a long driveway so winrowing is not a problem and I have room to use the loader with my new light duty bucket to pile the snow higher if necessary. If I had a long narrow driveway I would probably get a blower but for now I am OK with my current setup.

Have you had much snow this year in your area?

Lauren

We had a total of two storms this year. One of which was in late October. Crazy temperatures too. It was 58 deg F the other day. Global warming??????, who knows. Hey by the way, how much does a Grattex blade that size go for? Very nice unit.

lhansman · Feb 8, 2012

Hi grsthegreat

If I had as much length to keep clear as you do I would definitely go the front blower route too. I researched that option quite a bit but in the end decided that I could get by with a larger blade and so opted for that instead.

Carl

The Grattex blade I have lists out at about $4,000CDN and of course you need the auxiliary front hydraulics for the extendable option. They make fixed width blades but I really like being to extend it. Mine came off a NH tractor that only had 40 hours on it and I was able to purchase it for about half price.

Lauren

CasCar · Feb 8, 2012

Here's mine got it 4 months ago and only got to use it an half hr.

Tor Arne · Feb 10, 2012

Hey here's my solution to the white plague that comes falling, it is a Same Explorer 65 with Trima FEL, homemade bucket and a Snøving 90" snowblower:thumbsup:

bubbacuse77 · Sep 20, 2012

First day of Fall................Time to bring this thread out of retirement. Lets see what new stuff everybody is bringing to the fight this year.

DMF · Sep 21, 2012

No pictures yet but I am planning on some big changes for this year. Stay tuned....

PineRidge · Sep 21, 2012

IMHO the snow blade was the second best thing that we added to our New Holland. Started out using a rear-mounted PTO driven snow-blower but quickly found that with a gravel drive that sucked.

As I remember we paid $100. for the used Myers blade before knocking off the rust, cleaning it up and getting the hydraulics to work. We have used it now for years and it has always performed well. It's really easy to push the snow in deep hills to get it farther from the drive when necessary.

I added a second set of plow shoes not shown in the picture close to where the QA meets the snowplow frame. That enables me to put the FEL in float while plowing. The plow can then travel over irregular surfaces without digging in too deep.