Rear Inverted Snowblowers 2019

[Boondox]

Do not take the rear blade off. It is the feature you will come to love.

Back up to a door and pull the snow forward a few feet. Then back up again and blow the pulled forward pile away.

I have hydraulic cylinders on mine but many just use gravity.

Your tractor will lift that blower with its blade with ease.

Dave M7040

My reason for thinking of removing it is that, quite simply, I have no situations where I can see it being used. No doors to back up to, all the buildings surrounded by steep earthen berms that prevent me from getting close enough to use it. I have 600 yards of packed gravel driveway flanked on both sides by pasture...

 

[OrangeMuscle]

After going round and round in my mind, and still second guessing my decision, I ordered the meteor rear inverted snowblower. I sure hope it works great. I was so torn over the decision. I just couldn't deal with the front blower and the drama of taking the loader off and putting a subframe on.

I promise to make a proper video of what the machine can do on my L6060. There are no good videos on youtube other than monster tractors with huge wheels plowing 18 foot long driveways. I will let you know how it does on a half mile paved drive with hills. We all know how this plays out. I spend a fortune on a snow attachment and we get a snowless winter.

 

[shooterdon]

After going round and round in my mind, and still second guessing my decision, I ordered the meteor rear inverted snowblower. I sure hope it works great. I was so torn over the decision. I just couldn't deal with the front blower and the drama of taking the loader off and putting a subframe on.

I promise to make a proper video of what the machine can do on my L6060. There are no good videos on youtube other than monster tractors with huge wheels plowing 18 foot long driveways. I will let you know how it does on a half mile paved drive with hills. We all know how this plays out. I spend a fortune on a snow attachment and we get a snowless winter.

I am in the same boat. Times when I need the FEL make a front mount blower a poor option....and the massive sub frame along with crawling under to hook up the PTO were deal killers for me. I have far less HP than you so hoping for the best. Looking forward to the first good dump of the white stuff

 

[Beaver Cove Deere]

I'm both a Pronovost Puma and Normand owner.

The Puma is a 72 inch hydro powered off the PTO. The blower itself is on a quick detach plate so I need to remove the blower to use the bucket and vise versa. It's on a NH 4835 with 56HP at the PTO but we all know there is a fair amount of lost in the transfer of power. The snow dust is a PITA. The electrics on it failed the first year we had it. I've cobbled it into the NH hydro system. It is a homeowner unit for sure. It's currently at the welding shop getting a new AR500 steel bottom installed. Pronovost supplied these in a welded configuration so when they wear it's a bit more work. Unit is about 15 years old and used on both pavement and a gravel parking area. In short I wish inverted units were more common back then. I dread running it but that's what we got. Tractor is running turf tires and they grip pretty good.

The Normand is an Inverted 84" on a JD4720. Much smaller framed machine but also has the same 56HP at the PTO. It's an absolute animal on everything you can feed it. It is at my house in Maine that I use weekends. The driveway is gravel and plowed open for me as I'm there 2-3 weekends a month.
The first time I ran it I was scared for the glass rear window. Small rocks and ice chunks bouncing around are real. I bought a spare arm for the slow moving vehicle bracket and fabricated a rather nice Lexan guard. Problem solved.
I'll take apart the snow banks the plow guy creates with the bucket and send them into the woods. Same with the bankings from the street plow that the plow guy has to push into the corners at the entrance of the drive.
If these bankings have not frozen from rain I can drive thru them and pick away using about a 1/4 of the intake. Keeping the bucket 12" or so off the ground lets me be a little more aggressive.
The Normand has all hydro functions for the chute and rotation but the machine had only one set of extra remotes so I added a Fasse Valve and the problem was solved. Machined a nice custom bracket for it as I didn't like it hanging off the remotes. Made up a couple of short hoses from the remote to the valve.
Normand also had the gravity scraper it worked OK but we get at least one solid ice storm every year the driveway turns into a skating rink. I ordered and installed the hydro cylinders for the blade. Removed the plastic insert from the blade and installed the steel one but before installing it I set it up on my Bridgeport milling machine and added a full row of 3/4" X 3/4" scallop cuts across the bottom. Swap out the quick disconnects and use that 1000 pound blower as an ice scoring machine. Grips tires and boots just great when I'm done. When not in use for scoring It just rests at the same height at the cutting edge doing nothing. I use my bucket for pulling snow away from the opened garage doors.
Unlike the Puma, everything is bolted on the Normand and easily replaced. It's a great blower and I'm glad I bought it. Zero regrets. Wish I had one down here in Mass.

The R1 tires are not my friend. I hate them for everything. Someday I'll spend the money on R4's

Long post but hope it helps. I looked at other inverted blowers but a local dealer had this 1 year old blower in really nice shape at a great price so I jumped on it.

 

[screamin400]

Snow blowing Copper City style - YouTube


One of our tractors in action

 

[jpm]

I just ordered a metor pull type because I was tired of going in reverse . Going down hill really really sucked ,blowing up hill beat up the tractor even more . They are designed to pull in forward not reverse so why fight it's basic design plus the neck and back are happy that way

 

[airbiscuit]

Give us a full report once you've used it.

 

[screamin400]

We purchased a meteor last year and put on one of our tractors. Not a bad blower. Not balanced as well as I would like it. Shakes the tractor hard. Built pretty well. Will blow about anything we throw at it. No issues in it's first year. Great for what you folks are looking to do with it. We will not purchase another one as we will stay with the style in our video above. It is cleaner when pulled into the road. You will be fine with a meteor.

 

[airbiscuit]

What brand snowblower is in the video?

Also, your thoughts (the good, bad and ugly) of using a rear pull snowblower.

 

[screamin400]

What brand snowblower is in the video?

Also, your thoughts (the good, bad and ugly) of using a rear pull snowblower.

The blower in the video is a Cyclone. I would consider it a very commercial blower. It is 1800 pounds and sets too far back for my liking. This one is 92 wide. This years 80 inch has been brought closer to the tractor. I may look into doing that on this one as folks have broken arms on the tractor with these. I have had the builder of this blower at my shop. Great guy out of Canada. More knowledge than anyone I know. He does 6000 driveways.

For me there is no downside. We blow with the storm so never any deep banks unless we got a true blizzard. If I wanted to open a snow bank 7 feet tall this blower would not be optimum. I would put my loader on and pull the snow into the road and blow it away.

The upside is speed and cleanliness. You can see in the video when we go into the road nothing is left. Nothing. I have not found another style of blower that does not push the snow. Back up to a garage door and take off. Pretty much a box blade with an auger. How fast could you box blade your driveway if the box never filled up? Some folks are doing 45 driveways an hour with the one pictured. We are more rural so we get no where near that number but could in the right conditions.

So you can see it does have some short coming as does every blower I have ever hooked to. Everything is a compromise.