Snow Attachments Used Snow Blower questions

[Gryantaylor]

Thanks for all the good advice, the sellers seemed pretty sure the blower was a ford I guess the means its either older then 10 years, OR as Toadhill suggests he's used it on a ford tractor. I suppose it also could just be blue and the seller is assuming.

DWW68 Thanks for the info on at least one "ford" blower. I was hoping to move snow more then 10 feet consistently, but even if it only moves it 5 ft it will beat the rear blade I'm using now.

Hopefully, I'll get to go see it over the weekend or early next week. If it痴 in reasonably good shape I'll be sure to post pictures of the new toy. I mean my new absolutely required piece of equipment.

 

[rbargeron]

I've seen another "blue" snowblower - it was a two-stage Ford , can't remember the number - but it was about 4 or 5 feet wide. It seemed to be well made - decent quality. I think many 3ph blowers run the impeller at pto speed - a thru-shaft in the gearbox is a common design, with a side pinion to drive the auger shaft. A 20" fan has a tip velocity of around 50 feet per second at 540 rpm which throws snow pretty well.

 

[charlz]

I believe your b7100hst has the 3 speed pto same as my b7100 gear. The manual for my snowblower says to run it at 'fastest pto speed possible'. your mileage may vary depending on the brand but you have some opportunity to speed it up if it is not throwing as far as you would like.

Charles

 

[Farwell]

On throwing gravel, I have adjustable skid shoes on my walk behind snowblower and keep the blade edge at least 3/4" off of the ground, this way the gravel throwing is cut by 98% and a good bed is set on the driveway surface.

 

[charlz]

On throwing gravel, I have adjustable skid shoes on my walk behind snowblower and keep the blade edge at least 3/4" off of the ground, this way the gravel throwing is cut by 98% and a good bed is set on the driveway surface.

I think some of it depends on what you hope to accomplish. I get a little snow at a time and then some sunny days. I use the back blade more cause it will expose some gravel which helps melt off the rest of the driveway. Adjusting the blower so it doesn't move gravel leaves more snow than I would like. I can see on a paved driveway where the blower would be awesome. The one time we had enough snow to justify the blower one of my neighbors beat me to cleaning off the street so I didn't get a chance to try it on a paved surface.

 

[Gryantaylor]

Well I called yesterday to arrange a time to pick it up, Bad news. After the seller dug it out of the snow bank he found that "someone" had used it and broken a "few peices" I don't know exactly what is broken but he is going to try and get it fixed (hopefully soon). Prhaps I'll be able to look at it and pick it up next weekend depending on how the repairs go.

It look like I'm gonna have to weather this next storm without the blower. They're calling for 8 to 20 inches over the next 24 hours. The snow hasn't even started and I've cleared 3' drifts twice this moring. I really wish I was able to get the blower yesterday.

As far as throwing distance, yes I have a 2 speed PTO if I run it at the higher speed the max distance ought to increase quite a bit. if I ever get my hands on one I'll be sure to let you know how it works out.

 

[Kendrick]

I have a 74? blower for a 72" wide tractor and wish i had a wider model. get the widest possible for your hp. as for gravel my drive is about 1500" all gravel. I have ajustable skids on my blower and they do well except the ammount of downforce lets them rut the ground. I am thinking of making them about 4" wide or so to see if that helps keep them from rutting. the only time i have gotten gravel so far is when i backdraged my fel a lil to hard and scraped some up with the snow. then wen i ran over the snow piles it went shootin

 

[JerryK]

I welded two 12"X12" 1/2" thick plates under the original skids that came with my JRW. I also have a couple 4" angle skids I put on the outside corners the first few weeks of the season, to cut down on the corner of the blower cuting into the ground on uneven ground [clearing down the side of the road in front of my house that has gravel piled up from the county road crew during the summer]. I take them off when the shoulder gets froze up. I keep the banks of snow cut back on the road, so the road commission doesn't have to throw it back by my mailbox with their big wing plow, which tends to just about destroy mailboxs from the force of the flying snow. The foot square plates really work great, but cost lots of $.........

 

[rambler]

Width: My BiL's 7100 geared tractor without live pto matches up well to a 4' blower, I'd not want any bigger blower on it. If you have hydro, maybe. Without live pto, keep it small.

Blue blower: Ford labeled some. In later years a company called 'Snow Machines' made some good blue & white snow blowers that many Ford dealers sold. I have one of those, 7' model, on my farm.

Gravel: Angle of the top link is the biggest thing to this. Most blowers have skid plates or runners to skid on the snow, you angle the blower more or less agressive with the top link, and it will leave a couple inches of snow, or try to dig to China for you. Little adjustment goes a long way.

Distance & pto speed: No, no! Run the blower at it's rated speed, no more. Most are designed for 540 pto speed, run it at that. Faster only rips things to pieces, and really doesn't help distance very much. Now, some blowers were designed to run at 1000 rpm, then it's fine. But don't rev up a slow one to fast speeds. It doesn't work out.

A worn blower is one that has too much space between the blades of the fan & the collar around the fan. If there is a lot of space here, the snow will slip through & it won't blow enough away fast enough. Any other wear & tear should be fairly obvious type stuff.

--->Paul

 

[Gryantaylor]

Well a week later then expected but Saturday I picked up the snow blower I was asking questions about. It is a ford mode 715 ~ 50 inches wide. I got home about 7:00 pm Saturday and got it up and running by 9:00 no major problems. Sunday morning we had high winds and about 14" of snow. The blower worked great all day. I moved drifts that were easily 3 times higher then the blower. The comments about the 2 speed pto also worked great. When turning at ~540 it will move very large volumes of snow ~12 to 15 feet. at the 750 (I think) speed the I don't have the power to move as much snow but it easily throws it 30 feet (more if its down wind). Overall my neighbors and I were extremely impressed with it's performance. my little old 16 horse tractor & blower was clearing roads faster then my neighbors L series using the bucket and rear blade.

Unfortunately, Sunday may have proven too much for it. After about 12 hours of blowing the connection between the drive shaft and the impeller broke. It appears the previous owner had welded the impeller bracket to the drive shaft and the weld let go. The forecast is calling for more snow all week and more next week, so I think I'm going to weld it back together and keep going. Long term however, I'd like to fix it right. Does anyone know where I might be able to find parts for an old 715 ford snow blower.

Thanks again for everyone great advice.

Ryan