With our recent snow fall, I decided to do some snow blowing over the weekend. Unfortunately, the tractor was blowing some oil out of the exhaust. I could see the moisture, but I thought it was just melt water from the snow that was blowing back. The oil is everywhere. It covered the building at least 8' up, you could see it on the ground (it looked like black sand flecks). The tractor is just as covered as I was. Because the oil mixed with the blowing snow and the cold temps it immediately congealed into this thick tar like goo. I'll have to wait for warmer temps so I can clean the tractor and the building. Hopefully, it won't stain the paint, but there's a good chance it will. My jacket is already stained. We washed it several times and the color won't come out. Thankfully the oil was new, so it didn't stain my face. Old diesel oil will stain the skin for a couple of days. The turbo worked really well. I only throttled up to 3/4 throttle, but this thing has way more power than I was expecting. Talking to a turbo shop, it sounds like my oil return line was too small allowing pressure to build on the bearings a leak past the seal. With a larger drain line it's probable the oil leak will go away. The snow blower worked exceptionally well. The snow was dry and rock hard so I got some good distance out of it. The larger pieces were probably flying close to 60'. The drifts around the building were a good 20" deep and the tractor just chewed right through it. Only occasionally would I shift to neutral to allow the engine to recover. I wasn't comfortable fully loading the engine just yet. The power shift is great, but I'm not thrilled about having to use the clutch for the ranges.
