Rear Inverted Snowblowers 2019

[Working on Rust]

I have not seen a single inverted snowblower on this island except a very few of the old V type ones. The snow blowing contractors in the city are all rear push blowers and often a pull blade on the loader. More recently I have seen a few with the new PXPL style rear push blowers with the drop down back blade.

Front mount snowblowers are few and far between, A few on large tractors with front 3 points and a few on smaller compact tractors. I would say that over 90% of all the tractor blowers around here are rear push, including quite a few that are used commercially.

I blow snow for an hour or two after each snow fall with an old 80" rear push. I do not find the looking backwards for two hours hard at all, you turn a bit in the seat and it is easier if the seat does not have arm rests.

I really like the idea of an inverted snowblower, it would save a lot of time and make blowing easier, with the old gear transmissions you have a lot more forward gears than reverse and it would be a better for most snowfalls.
I have never seen one used around here though, and the other reason we are stuck with rear push is the driveway is cut in a bit and will occasionally quickly drift in with or without falling snow more than five feet deep for at least 100' feet long.

The whole driveing through the snow first/leaving two packed tracks thing I would think would be a non issue, I would think the blower would be able to scrape up any snow that matters, and even an old 2wd tractor can drive through a foot of snow without any problem ( chains are must).

My far and away biggest problem snowblowing in the winter around here is ice. The last two years have had extremely bad ice and the worst of all is when there is glare ice everywhere and then it snows a few inches of powder snow. Then it is so slippery you can hardly walk, studs in tires and boots can't get down to the ice to grip it, and even the tractor with ladder chains on the back I could barely move around on level ground and the hill was a wild slide to the bottom with no chance of getting back up.


The snowblower in the picture is a double auger, 34 inches to the top of the box.
I do not know why the photo attached four times, I still have a lot to learn about photos on this site.

 

[Agvg]

The mules that have the dual command station set up are very expensive and they may start at $100,000.00+
Over here, it is all a case of massive product marketing on this side of the pond as they sell tractors of all sizes
like they sell automobiles.

No ordering to customers specifications on smaller tractors? And I read that dealers stock a lot of tractors, here almost all tractors and cars are factory ordered to customers wishes. Only the Japanese sticks to take it or leave it when it comes to equipment. On some more nice cars I think I counted to 20 choices of steering wheels

Valtra tractors even has it's own custom shop where you can tailor make your tractor, custom paint jobs, leather interiors and of course all kind of one of a kind technical equipment. Valtra has also a lot of colours to choose from when you are ordering your STD tractor so you don't have to look like your neighbor

 

[leonz]

Hello Working on rust,


It took me a minute to finally see what was in your photograph. I take it you are close to the coast like Paul and Kathy Shorts?
Are you able to cut those banks back in the daylight without too much trouble??

 

[shooterdon]

If I regularly had drifts more than 2 ft I would not have bought a rear pull blower. Just not sure it would be the best choice. In six years, I have never had more than 18" of snow over a 24 hour period. In my case, a pull blower seems to be a good fit. I believe that is the case for most users.

Suggestions and recommendations need to be evaluated by what your needs are. The experience of someone living on the prairies is of little use to me. I have nearly no drifts as I live deep in the woods. One gentleman from Washington state regularly posts his snow removal equipment, but what works for him is woefully inadequate for those of us in the snow belts of NA.

And then there is the size of tractor to consider as well.

One size does not fit all!!!

 

[leonz]

No ordering to customers specifications on smaller tractors? And I read that dealers stock a lot of tractors, here almost all tractors and cars are factory ordered to customers wishes. Only the Japanese sticks to take it or leave it when it comes to equipment. On some more nice cars I think I counted to 20 choices of steering wheels

Valtra tractors even has it's own custom shop where you can tailor make your tractor, custom paint jobs, leather interiors and of course all kind of one of a kind technical equipment. Valtra has also a lot of colours to choose from when you are ordering your STD tractor so you don't have to look like your neighbor

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Hello Avgv,


As far as what we can order on the mules we buy, we can only order options provided by the manufacturer in long lists.
If we want something else like the front mount three point hitches with PTO shaft stubs we may buy them our selves but the manufacturer can get really nasty and void the warranty.
The market has not reached the point where a man or woman of the soil can have the mule customized to the point where it has leather seats and custom paint jobs through the manufacturer.
The consolidation of many tractor brands and loss of many other brands of tractors since 1990+ has reshaped the tractor market.
In many cases row crop tractors, sprayers, row crop planters, grain drills and tillage tools are traded in on new equipment and billions of dollars of used machine value just sits on dealers lots hoping to be sold.

Many older tractors could be scrapped and melted into new iron as they will sit on the lots for years until they are auctioned off, if they are auctioned off. Many row crop tractors need major repairs over time and the farmer decides to trade the old machines in for new machines.

The same can be said for construction machinery as it is sold at job completion auctions and or sold at nearby auctions as is where is with no warranty of fitness.

They market to the masses here and in most years they have excess sub compact tractor and compact tractor inventory that sits on the dealer lots and sits on the dealer lots and they are not protected by sheds of any kind like an open sided barn that has four open sides.

The sub compact market for the tractor builders is a very large source of gross revenues for the tractor manufacturers and they keep coming up with new models. They also export a lot of them to Europe.

Buying a good lawn tractor under 16 horsepower with a gear or strong hydrostatic transmission and horizontal crank shaft to operate single stage snowblowers and belly mowers is a thing of the past here. The manufacturers of these are using and vertical crank gas engines, belt driven hydrostatic transmissions of lower value and making a less expensive glorified lawn mower that may have 3 horsepower available to one axle shaft at a time.

I doubt we will ever see high quality lawn tractors like we saw from 1965 to 2006 with horizontal crank gas engines or single stage snow throwers on them either as most attachments are sub contracted to RAD in Canada and lawn mowers from MTD and others in the United States which purchased many brands and ruined them.

If you take my case for example I have a JDLA115 that is 9 years old and I bought it to replace my wheel horse lawn tractor that I still have and it was a mistake as I should have had the wheel horse repaired at the time and purchased a high horsepower Toro snow blower.

The 44 inch snowblower on the LA115 is belt driven and the V belts cannot be purchased from an automotive parts store and are special V belts made for john deere. The drive belt is over $45.00+ tax dollars now and the driven belt for the snow blower is over $160.00+ tax and finding out the bloody thing was shipped short on parts from the Canadian builder RAD and having to purchase the same parts it should have come with is a poor way to do business. To replace the both the driven and drive belt for the snow blower requires that the snow blower be removed and disassembled. It takes almost four hours to replace the driven belt and an hour replace the drive belt counting disassembly time. Doing it in cold weather is no fun even with a space heater running.

I would not hesitate to purchase a 1967 IHC cub cadet with a single stage snow blower and belly mower or a Wheel Horse garden tractor from 1990 to 2006?, as you could purchase single stage snow blowers with them; I think my dads last new wheel horse was a 2006 anyway and it had power to spare just like the wheel horse that had the Renault engine in it before that.
The old economy tractors were well built and I don't believe that they are made anymore.

The only ones that are both economical to buy and well built are the struk kit tracked tractors and they have been sold for many years.

They can build better lawn mowers again but the zero turn lawn mowers have taken over the majority of the market and wheel horse stopped making riding lawn mowers to get into that market after they were acquired by the Toro company.
I have had and a still have Toro snow pups to clear snow for 40 plus years and I will not buy a new one as they are four cycle machines and very heavy. I would have four of the old toro snow pups if they had not had damage that could not be fixed during snow storms
The environmental protection agency has had a huge effect on the 2 cycle product market and as result small push type snow blowers are equipped with 4 cycle engines.

Many equipment dealers will put a machine last in line for warranty repairs if the person that brought the tractor no matter the size from another dealer and that is just poor business. These dealers do that with wheel and track driven snow blowers every year as well if the consumer bought them from an internet seller or bought it out of the area and brought it home.

It just galls me when I hear "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR" from a local john deere dealer.

 

[Agvg]

Here I Norway almost everything under 70hp is considered a small tractor, the only brand that has any sale to talk about in the 50hp and below is Lovol/Foton. Kubota struggles to get any traction at all in the marked.

 

[PEJ5]

Here I Norway almost everything under 70hp is considered a small tractor, the only brand that has any sale to talk about in the 50hp and below is Lovol/Foton. Kubota struggles to get any traction at all in the marked.

That is a beautiful country you live in. We visited in 2017. I expect you have amazing winters.

 

[Boondox]

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Can you sit sideways on the seat and press the reverse pedal comfortably?? Do you have cruise control in reverse?.

No, and no. The way the cab is laid out I have to bend my torso and crane my neck to get a clear view behind me. I also have a few obstructions like wheelbarrow sized boulders to navigate around. For those reasons I'm only interested in an inverted blower.

 

[leonz]

No, and no. The way the cab is laid out I have to bend my torso and crane my neck to get a clear view behind me. I also have a few obstructions like wheelbarrow sized boulders to navigate around. For those reasons I'm only interested in an inverted blower.

I guess calling Erskine to get quote for a rear to front PTO set up for your tractor and your desired brand of snow blower is next on your list then.

 

[Fallon]

Why do the HP minimums vary so widely between brands? I have 33.5HP at the PTO (44HP engine on my JD 4044R hydro). The width at the outer edge of the rear tires is 72" and I'd like to cover that with an inverted blower. In that width Normand says 50HP PTO minimum. The Meteor says 30HP. The Pronovost Puma is somewhere in the middle. Is it a case of lawyers covering their butts in this world of worst case scenarios? We get a lot of snow, but rarely over a foot at a time. With 600 yards of well-graded dirt driveway to clear I want to avoid looking over my shoulder while blowing even though they take less power.

A lot of those specs are arbitrary. They make educated guesses on the size of the machine & tranny type along with usage conditions. With a HST you can trivially adjust your speed to varying conditions to make up for a lack of HP.