Rear Counter Weight for Front Mount Blower

[Fallon]

Leonz, could you explain why a you would not have to load the tires with a single stage blower?

Because he loves recommending unusual obscure impliments. Single stage does have some advantages, but for many reasons 2 stage are more common.

In theory a wingless stage with a big tube wouldn't pack as much snow/weight into the auger as the hollow open fighting on most 2 stage blowers. I doubt it would make that much difference though.

 

[leonz]

Single stage snow blowers are not obscure implements, they were mounted on lawn and garden tractors first long before the 2 stage snow blowers came into use.

Single stage snow throwers require a great deal more steel to construct them and cost more to build and fell out of favor when they started using the 2 stage units because the 2 stage homeowner units were made with thinner steel. Some 2 stage units were made very well and many were junk and still are.

In 1968 when we moved to the burbs-5 miles from the city limits the house came with a beautiful original International Harvester Corporation 12 horse Cub Cadet lawn and garden tractor with head lights, 4 link ladder snow chains, a homemade cab and a I.H.C. single stage snow blower mounted on it. I believe it had a Kohler engine too.

That lawn and garden tractor had power and then some as it used a small V belt to spin the right angle one to one grease filled bevel gearbox that was spinning the drive sprocket and #40 roller chain that spun the driven sprocket that was attached to the snow blower rotor.

I am going from memory here but the snow blower rotor was 12 or 13 inches in diameter and the solid steel tube that the auger flights were welded to was 6 inches in diameter. I believe at high idle/wide open throttle it spun at 600 revolutions per minute under no load.

The lawn and garden tractor had a hydrostatic transmission with the forward and reverse lever on the dash and the rear wheels were bolted to the rear axle shafts like my Wheel horse 244 hydrostatic tractor that I want to get going on again.

The weight of the single stage snow blower and its mounting frame and the weight of the lawn and garden tractor itself was enough to create the adhesion needed to sprint up and down our 20% grade asphalt driveway and get rid of any snow fall. I wish pop had not traded it in on a IHC cub low boy with a 4-cylinder I.H.C. water cooled engine, mower, plow and no chains as that only made it harder to clean the driveway as it could barely get out of its own way even with chains.

With a single stage snow blower at wide open throttle you are cutting into it as fast as the conditions will allow and you are throwing the snow and ice chunks as far as possible as fast as possible through the chute and spout and the tractor is not pushing against a great deal of load.

If your dealing with a lot of ice covered ground to clear snow adding beet juice or windshield washer fluid to the rear tires even with chains is just added insurance for working in snow.

I have to put chains on my Garden Way snow blower and fill the tires because the mess they make with the huge amount of salt they use creates a huge amount of slush that I have to get rid of to be able to use my broken up asphalt driveway.

I have the same issue with the cleaning the second driveway even though it is sod right up to the ditch markers.

The old Canadian made Reist single stage series 1000 snow throwers design was perfect with its
augers flights occupying the half the volume of rotor housing and the other half being the snow blower
rotors steel tube that is supported by open flange bearings.

The former Reist Series 1000, 2000 and 3000? snow throwers were designed as a single stage snow thrower that could be used either as a rear 540 RPM PTO powered snow thrower which if desired could also be used as a hydraulic driven skid steer mounted snow thrower by simply switching out the three-point hitch mount for the SSQA plate, removing the gear box and installing the hydraulic motor for the snow thrower drive cross shaft plus the high flow hydraulic motor hoses.

The snow thrower rotor rotated up to 700 RPM with the sprockets as installed and could be slowed down with a larger pair of sprockets, the sprockets were secured with locking rings that were secured with Socket Head Bolts (Allen Bolts) in taper lock rings to keep them in place and could be removed to change sprockets with simple hand tools and a torque wrench to assure the Allen bolts were torqued properly.

The space between the rotor flights edges could be adjusted to move the rotor closer to the housing to reduce plugging and prevent ice and snow build up behind the rotor.



The 2 pictures I have uploaded show the hydraulic drive 48 and 54 inch single stage design that Reist made and made very well.

1. the snow blower rotor diameter is 13 inches if my memory is right and the steel tube the flights are welded to is
2. the snow blower rotor has 4 center paddles welded 90 degrees apart to discharge the snow at a high rate of discharge
3. the snow thrower chute is long to reduce snow dust spillage while clearing
4. The angle of the snow thrower flighting is shallow being about 15 degrees allowing the snow blower rotor to clear snow pack efficiently allowing the snow blower to operate at a high rate of speed

 

[leonz]

Related to the above post I neglected to mention this yesterday as I was very tired.

The following is based strictly on my opinion and my 53 years of snow removal experience.

MK Martin purchased the snow blower line, drawings and patents from The Reist organization
and made massive changes to the single stage snow blowers making them worse and making them
much less effective to use as they increased the size of the snow blower rotor requiring a much, much
larger mule in PTO horse power to use where the 13 inch rotor in the original design allowed a
small mule like the sub compact BX or sub compact series 1 JD to be used in the example.

In my opinion the same can be said for the motorized single stage snow blowers they offer for sale now as
the honda engine GX390 13 horsepower engine they offer for those 2 models is too small.
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I do not remember the width of the 12 horsepower 1968 IHC cub cadet lawn and garden tractor we had at the new
house but the lawn mower and single stage snow blower mounted on it was slightly wider than the tires so it may
have been 44 inches wide and the V belt to final drive involved a single row roller chain that was a #40 roller chain I think.
The 12 horse kohler engine in the IHC Cub Cadet was mounted with the crank shaft mounted forward to allow the simpler
more direct connection for the drive belt for the transmission, snow thrower and lawn mower.

My neighbors had 12 horsepower wheel horse tractors and they also had single stage snow throwers.
The Wheel Horses used a manually tensioned single V belt drive off the right side of the engine crank shaft using a
compression clutch through pulleys to the larger V belt Pulley that was connected to the cross shaft that powered
the roller chain drive for the snow blower rotor.

The V belt drive for the snow thrower was routed outside the snow blower frame rather than under the lawn tractor.

The hydrostatic drive for the IHC cub cadet, Wheel Horse and Simplicity was belt driven and I do not remember how the
forward and reverse drive was operated but my wheel horse 244 hydro lawn tractor has a V belt that was mounted along
the side of the engine cradle just as the wheel horses in the late 1960's were. The newer Wheel Horses and Simplicity
lawn tractors operated the same way from what I remember.

It has been 50 years and the single stage snow blower for the simplicity lawn and garden tractors we had were also V belt driven
without a gearbox just like all the older Wheel horses but I believe the V velt drive was routed under the tractor through a pair of
V belt pulleys mounted on the snow thrower frame like the IHC Cub Cadet.

My 1968 IHC Cub Cadet was designed so that the mounting frame of the single stage snow thrower carried 2 stationary V belt pulleys that
carried the V belt to the pulley that spun the right angle bevel gear box that was connected to the cross shaft that powered the
drive sprocket for the snow thrower.



'

 

[IH2424]

I have a Massey Ferguson GC1720 TLB (SCUT) that I use with a front mount snowblower in heavy wet “Sierra Cement” snow. I haven’t been removing the backhoe when snowblowing. I sometimes have trouble turning but all I have to do is raise the blower slightly and it will turn. I’ve been wondering if the heavy backhoe counterweight on the rear is causing the front tires to be light and not turn well. I run chains on all four tires.

How do you run your front mount snowblowers? Any sort of weight on the rear?

Thanks!

Consider a ballast box also. You may be fine with traction pushing the blower. But if you have to lift it, that will take a lot of weight off the rear wheels, especially if you are trying to back up on an incline. I have saved my neighbor a few times with my old ag tractor when he got too far into a ditch and could not back out - lifting his blade took too much weight off his rear tires, even though he had a 30 hp compact 4x4.

Tim

 

[Bobrown14]

No blower here, use a pusher wider than the tractor tires. All tires filled, I leave the tiller on the back for extra weight no chains with R4 tires.

We get 90" of snow annually so yeah plow/remove with the storm dont wait it out. I've seen some full size tractors that waited out the storms and were struggling even with a big ass blowers.

Since I remove with the storm I was finished well ahead of the guys that waited.

Plan where you're blowing the snow. Expect another big storm make room for more snow.

 

[mgstevens]

Depends is not just a popular brand of adult diaper. What is the surface of the drive? Asphalt, gravel, dirt? The grade? Flat, sloping? Tires? Chains? Type of snow and average temperature?

I have R4's with a sloping gravel drive. We get plenty of mostly powder snow, outside the very start and end of winter. I run chains on all 4 wheels, and I run a ballast box to keep me planted in the rear. The front chains are to give me a little extra traction in the front for steering when the blower is on float. So as I mentioned, it depends.

 

[BWSwede]

I have a Massey Ferguson GC1720 TLB (SCUT) that I use with a front mount snowblower in heavy wet “Sierra Cement” snow. I haven’t been removing the backhoe when snowblowing. I sometimes have trouble turning but all I have to do is raise the blower slightly and it will turn. I’ve been wondering if the heavy backhoe counterweight on the rear is causing the front tires to be light and not turn well. I run chains on all four tires.

How do you run your front mount snowblowers? Any sort of weight on the rear?

Thanks!

I have 4 wheel drive with aggressive chains on all 4 tires and have no problem turning. I have a 7' Farm King blower with 1700 pounds hanging off the end of my rear 3PH.

My 2 wheel drive tractor at times does have trouble turning when the blower is on the ground. When this occurs I lift the blower slightly to transfer the weight onto the tires which then steer tractor where I want it.

 

[leonz]

Because he loves recommending unusual obscure impliments. Single stage does have some advantages, but for many reasons 2 stage are more common.

In theory a wingless stage with a big tube wouldn't pack as much snow/weight into the auger as the hollow open fighting on most 2 stage blowers. I doubt it would make that much difference though.

The single stage snow thrower spins at 600-700RPM at wide open throttle and tearing off the snowpack and discharging it at the same speed with the 4 paddles in the center of the snow blower rotor.

 

[52 Ford]

View attachment 767558

You drew genitals.

 

[leonz]

I never intended to do that that; I wanted to circle each important part of the
Riest series 1000 snowthrower.

I have edited my post and removed the image with the circled and numbered parts.

I have added a front view image of the hydraulic drive single stage snow blower
offered by KOMMTEK mounted on a Mcconnel branded KOMMTEK track driven tool carrier.

I have added an image of a KOMMTEK tool carrier with spiked tracks using their
hydraulic drive single stage snow thrower clearing heavy snowpack while traveling
away from the camera on the same Mcconell branded KOMMTEK tool carrier.

Snow removal takes time, a single stage snow thrower is simply a more efficient
way to do it with an attachment that has fewer parts.

The Kommtek single stage snow throwers snow throwers flighting is slightly
different in design where the ribbon ends in curved lifting paddles.