Testing The TC18

JimBinMI · Dec 12, 2000

Well, we got it! Snow! Had a winter storm warning yesterday and last night and it seems that we got the full brunt of it. Out my back door I see 2-3 foot drifts, I think that the prediction was up to 14" of snow. We were at blizzard conditions last evening.

School's closed!

I'll be venturing out in a little bit to see how the Mighty TC18 handles this amount of snow. I plowed yesterday afternoon, about 3:30 at least 5-6 inches and now it looks like I never even hit it. I had rim guard (beet juice) added to the rear turfs Thanksgiving week and I definitely notice improved traction. I'll let you all know how the TC18 handles it with just a back blade.

JimBinMI

RobS · Dec 12, 2000

Jim, anxious to hear how your tractor performs. We had 14" of the same storm with drifts to 2 1/2 feet. I blew this morning with my Craftsman and it was struggling. I'm kind of hoping the county plows us in real bad so I can justify firing up the 790 /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Rob

JimBinMI · Dec 12, 2000

Results,

OK, so a 3 pt. snowblower would have done the job more quickly but I did get it done! Took some time to get through the drifts from my barn to the driveway but the TC18 still impressed me with just turf tires and no chains.
Without 4x4 this task would have been near impossible, would have had to have rear chains I suspect, like I did on the old garden tractor...which, by the way would not have done anything with this snowfall.

Got enough snow to cancel a lot of businesses. Some 1st shifts are asked not to report, all schools are closed, some banks have closed and some have said to call ahead.

After I plowed the drive out I got in the 4x4 truck and went into town, 6 miles, most side roads were still unplowed and most side streets unplowed. Our road is unplowed, has one set of tracks going down the center and you can feel the snow rub the bottom of the truck, kept hoping no one would be coming from the other direction!

In town, I stopped to get gas, milk, etc. and there was a snowmobile at the gas station...don't see that everyday here in south-central Michigan!

Having fun in the snow!

JimBinMI

RobS · Dec 12, 2000

More details Jim! Did you drag the snow moving forward or push it backwards? Which works better? How high is your moldboard? Did the snow flow up and over the blade at all? Is your drive paved or gravel?

All schools and most businesses closed here. I'm at work but only about 25% made it in (those of us with 4X4 primarily).

Rob

Mike H · Dec 12, 2000

I too spent this morning plowing. Looks like I got my TC-33 the right year. We've had two snowfalls > 12" already and winter hasn't started yet. I haven't seen this since my days in Central NY! I used a 7' backblade. Sometimes I push the snow, sometimes I pull it. Used the loader a little. The kids now have dozens of 5' high mounds to play with! Even had to plow about 1/4 mile of road to get to a plowed road. Oh yeah, and I had to tow my non-4WD truck out of a drift!

JimBinMI · Dec 12, 2000

RobS,

Evening news said that we got 13.9" in the Battle Creek area. Now for your questions...I used the blade every way that you mentioned! It is a Woods 5' rear blade, moldboard is about 16", I think, but haven't measured it and it's not in the manual.

my drive is 120' gravel, have a cement pad coming out of the garage that is two cars wide and about 24 feet long. Tractor is in the barn and I had to plow from barn to driveway, probably 140' over rough drive and lawn.

Mainly used the blade with cutting edge toward me pushing backwards so that I used the back side of the blade to push so I wouldn't dig into the lawn or gravel...I don't have skids on my blade but would like to add them.

Neighbor got his older Ford tractor stuck on the side of his paved drive and his 4x4 truck, he and the wife and 4 kids were going out to dig out with shovels. I offered to try and help plow his drive, it is at least 1000' paved. I used my blade like the plow on a truck only going backwards, I was very impressed with the TC18, had to push snow off the edge of the drive from time to time but the hydro and 4x4 worked awsome on the pavement, did have some slippage but had plenty of push.

By the time I got back to where the neighbors were, they had the truck dug out and onto the pavement and had a "coffin" come-a-long hooked to a tree and the tractor to get it back onto the pavement (drive has a nasty slope on one side). I had never seen this "coffin" thing before but it's great, it ratches a chain through itself, looks like a huge ratchet wrench with a hook on it. Pulled the tractor back onto the pavement, started it up and got to plowing. I went back home and cleaned up my drive some more. Then threw the little paddle snowblower into the back of the truck and went over to my mother in laws to plow her out...that took a while!

While I was doing her drive a Kubota B2100 with a rear snowblower went by on a trailer...I got to thinking that I at least need the trailer to haul the TC18 over there when I need to...the rear snowblower would be nice too for the every other year or so when we get big snowfalls.

Oh, snow did flow up and over my blade.

JimBinMI

JATO_RaT · Dec 12, 2000

Jim, interesting to hear about your weather. I understand its been a good storm. I was just checking some facts about the Tahoe area near me where we get about 400" inches a year on average. They have some interesting equipment to keep the roads open like I-80. First they plow it to the side with sand trucks (dump trucks) or graders with huge snow plows on front. They put chains on all tires. After the plows, a blower comes along to widen the road. Eventually the sides of the road get so deep with snow that the snow blower has to raise the blower which is on racks,up off the ground to continue the cut. Its not unusual to see snow banks that are easily twice the height of a Greyhound bus. As kids we would jump off the cabin roof we have up there. The snow gets about 15' deep, the roof is about 25' up so the 10' drop into the soft snow didn't hurt. We get the driveway plowed by a 4 yd loader, but would love to have a tractor of our own to do it. Rat...

RobS · Dec 13, 2000

Jim, sounds like you had fun! Even though we haven't been plowed yet, I did fire up my 790 last night. Sure is more fun to operate than my little Craftsman. My drive had several inches of hard packed snow leftover from snowblowing and my box scraper peeled it right down to concrete. I drug it forward out to the street then used the loader to pile it up along side. Then I did some reverse pushing with the box to clear paths for the neighbors. More loader work just for fun. I did find that my loader cycle time is a bit slow, mostly when returning the bucket and arms to dig again. Might have been the cold? Speaking of cold, it was -3 this morning. Supposed to get another 3-4 inches tonight /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Rob

JimBinMI · Dec 14, 2000

RobS,

We got 6-7 more inches last night and no school today...I think that means that we are adding days to the end of the year. We now have received more snow than we did all of last winter and it's not even winter until Dec. 21. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif
So...more tractor fun today!

JimBinMI

Bird · Dec 14, 2000

JimBinMi, what happened to the global warming? I think I've already had more sub-freezing temperatures than we had the last two years combined./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif A lot of folks in my area have been saying we needed another cold winter to reduce the insect population, so it looks like this is the year.

Bird