Snowblower Chute

Friver · Feb 18, 2008

The snow this winter made it easy for me to bite the bullet and order a new snowblower for my B3030. I am going to leave the bucket on the front end, so the blower is going on the rear. I only have a couple hundred feet of driveway, plus a little volunteer road work, so rear seems like the best bet. Right now, I am thinking I will go with the Woods SS60. If I do buy the woods, I would like some advice on the Chute control. It comes standard with Manual rotation, but apparently I can go either hydraulic or electric. Neither the hyraulic or electric are cheap, and I am not sure where we would get the hydraulics from.
I would appreciate some advice from anybody who has some experience with a similar setup.
Thanks

ccsial · Feb 18, 2008

If you get the hydraulic one you need a rear remote on your tractor. I don't know if the B3030 comes standard with that. If not, that is another expense. I would take the hydraulic over electric for reliability.

I would not have a manual control. It is enough hassle blowing snow without the cranking. I move my chute quite a bit when blowing, Sometimes just to keep the stream downwind.

I have a hydraulic chute on my blower and I added a rear remote when I bought my L3400.

Tig · Feb 18, 2008

I have a 50" Buhler. I do like the hydraulic control. It makes life much easier in the wind and in tight quarters.

smfcpacfp · Feb 19, 2008

From my point of view a rear mounted blower would be a big problem, but if I then had to hang out the door to rotate the chute (which I do a lot), snowblowing wouldn't be fun at all.

srs · Feb 19, 2008

smfcpacfp, that is a great set up you have there. I imagine you get quite a bit of snow in your area. Have fun!

canoetrpr · Feb 19, 2008

Get a hydraulically operated chute rotator. I have an L3400 and a Walco Meteor 68" hand cranked blower. Didn't get a hydarulic one because I didn't have remotes. I plan to add remotes at some point for a hydraulic top link and now I wish I had bitten the bullet and done all of that initially.

I've pondered trading in my blower for a larger one with hydraulic controls instead of just adding them to my existing blower. Figure a 6 ft blower can be taken to my next (bigger!) tractor - whenever that is. Not sure if I'll be able to justify the difference in expense just for the hydraulic rotator though

My advice - bite the bullet upfront. Get remotes and hydraulics on the blower.

WayneB · Feb 19, 2008

I have the Woods SS-60 snowblower and last year I used it with the manual chute rotator. I work okay, but this year I went ahead and purchased a Femco weather break and also a sunshade for the tractor. This really cut down in the amount of blown snow hitting the driver (ME).

Then I decided to add a shield attached to the ROPS and leave a slot so I could reach through and manually rotate the chute. This worked, but I finally decided to add an electrically controlled chute rotator so I could close off the entire back area. What a difference.

Mine is an older tractor 2002 and the blower is also a bit older so for me to grab a bunch of parts laying around and come up with something to rotate the chute seemed a good approach. I had a very cheap 1500 LB winch that I had purchased off from Ebay for another project so I decided to use it as the motor to rotate the chute. So far it has worked great for me and I think including the wire and winch I have about $50 in the project.

bx24 · Feb 19, 2008

You won't necessarily need rear remotes for the hydraulic chute control if your tractor has a FEL. If this is the case, you can simply get longer hoses and control the chute using the FEL quick connects (or by installing quick connects if your FEL has "hard-lined" hoses w/out quick connects)

ccsial · Feb 19, 2008

My 1910 came with a transfer valve that switches between the curl and rear remote. The curl control operates bucket or the snow blower chute depending on the transfer valve. It was a small pain. Had I know better in those days I would have got a full rear remote. My L3400 now pulls the snowblower duty and has a rear remote.

Friver · Feb 20, 2008

Thanks for the replys. I talked to the dealer yesterday and decided to go with hydraulic rotator and rear remotes. I have had the tractor for a little over a year and plan on keeping it for several more. I keep the tractor in my garage at my cabin, so if I am gone for a period of time (a month this time), I have to dig myself out. Two weeks ago, when I went to the cabin, the snow was up to my belt buckle, and we're not talking powder. Digging out wouldn't be so bad if I had anywhere to put the snow as I was digging, but that isn't really the case.
Thank goodness I had the backhoe on - I got stuck several times and had to "pull" myself out with the hoe. Next year the backhoe wont be on there - the snow blower will be, so I may have to look at chains.

Looking forward to spring!!

Friver