Snowblower Snowblower Question - How fast can I go?

[scesnick]

I have a 2.5 mile driveawy up a mountain that I snowblow with a 64" Ber Vac. it takes quite a while, no less than 2 hours, once down and once back.
I also have a 72" plow on my Yamaha Rhino. 20 minutes to plow it with the Rhino. But, once i plow it a few times there is no where else to put the snow so i have to break out the blower.
I have found that a combination of both machines works great.
i put my boy in the rhino and he plows it and i then blow it off the sides of the road.

 

[turbo36]

Hey Dutch, how far are you from Old Forge?

 

[turbo36]

Are you thinking front or rear mount blower? The front mount is a lot easier on your neck! I don't know where in the UP you are but I would think the blower is the best answer unless your drive is in a wide open field and you can plow 30' wide at the start of the season it won't take long before you can't get the tractor down the drive with a plow.

 

[etgjr]

Hi tubro36,

My camp is near Nisula which is about 35 miles south of Houghton.

I have been leaning to a rear 6' maybe 7'. I like the idea of keeping the loader up front. But part of me says that with the blower I don't need the loader because I won't be making banks to move.

I have thought about a 6' front mount blower running off of the mid PTO. I want a minimum 6' blower to cover the width of the Kubota L4340HST. So far I have not found any that meet this spec. Any ideas?

Thanks all for the great input,

Ed

 

[RayMunising]

I've heard Erskine makes a commercial quality (and expensive) front mount blower that would work for you. It's driven off the rear pto. Info is available here: www.erskineattachments.com

BTW, did you get your Kubota in Marquette? Is the dealer any good?

 

[turbo36]

Nisula? I had to look that one up. That's a great area, we used to snowmobile out of L'anse quite a bit and always tried to stop at the Northland Cafe in Mass City if we got that way. It's been a few years so I don't know if they are still open but I remember good soups and great bread. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[PILOON]

I have a MT180D (20 hp) driving a 5' BERVAC but it origionally had a 4' blower which got trashed (don't ask)

The tractor is 48" wide and let me tell you when I installed the 5' blower it became a real pleasure to use.

Be sure you buy a blower that is wider than your overall width otherwise you only compact the 'spilloff snow'.
I'd say 12" wider than the tractor.

In my case with a manual transmission all blowing is in low gear and even at that in deep or dense snow I often have to stop traction to 'unload' the blower.
This year I made a plow blade that mounts under the FEL for speedy ' pushing to one side' the lighter snowfalls in order to save many slow blower passes.
This way I make, say 2 or maybe 3 fast passes followed by one slow 'blowing pass' resulting in no snow banks.

I also have a 6.2 GMC 4x4 fisher equipped for comparison and can say that tractor/plow/blower while about 20% slower overall does a nicer neater operation and by end of Feb I will still have full width driveway as against starting at 16' wide and ending up with barely 6" in Feb.
This is the last year for the truck!

 

[masscity]

Nice to see some people that know the UP of Michigan. Nisula is about 15 miles away from my home town. Northland Cafe is long gone. There's a Kubota dealer in Marquette and one in Wisconsin(can't remember the town). My neighbor up there bought his Kubota from Wisconsin where he got the best deal. Both are about 100 miles from my home town. I grew up in Mass City and will be soon be moving back, retiring. On our farm we have a Ford 9n with a backblade, 8hp John Deere snowblower and my Kubota B7100 16hp gear with a backblade. Anyone know of a quality 4' front snowblower for my Kubota, which has a front and back PTO? I've looked at many, but all are two big. I still have some time, but I want to do some research before I buy. It has to be a front mounted, have a bad back. Thanks much.