Snowblower Questions

Mike_H said:
X2. Gotta get that scraper blade up off the rocks. I had to raise the scraper on my tractor mounted...it would grab a particular lifted block of concrete in my driveway and bring the tractor to a dead (and violent) stop!
Click to expand...
X3 and also consider just driving on the darn thing without blowing if you only have a 4" snow until the driveway and soil freezes down for the winter. Of course not an option with an early 12" snow unless you are an all Jeep family LOL. My lake home has gravel drive and since my main home has asphalt by height is set as a compromise. If I blow the lake home drive when not frozen down I have to be really careful where i have the chute pointing to not break windows or to gravel the yard.
 
My area gets ~110" of snow per year and I have probably 300 feet of driveway (160 from side-entry garage to street, plus circle drive). This is my first winter here but I got a 28" Craftsman. It's got good sized knobby tires and hasn't given me any reason to want tracks. The pitch up to the garage is shown in my avatar - enough to give some of our vehicles trouble but not the snowblower. It has levers on each handle to unlock the "locker" so it will turn.
 
Phil Younger said:
Same here- -i struggled for years in Mid Wisconsin with a wheeled walk behind after my back was broken- steering the walk behind absolutely killed my back doing about 450' of driveway. It was absolute murder when i got to the road where the plow left frozen ridges. I was also a literal jerk if someone drove on my drive before i could blow it off because of the problems that caused. I ended up getting a JD x738 4WD with a 54' two stage blower and though I do not have a cab i do my two drives at home in 1/3 the time. It is so easy I do my 2-3 elderly neighbors drives also. It does not matter how much hard plow ridge the road crew left - my rig eats it up though when bad I may have to step on 4WD peddle and back off and hit it again. My drive would be impossible to use a truck mount plow due to the main drive being a U shape with the U bottom being at a 2 car garage--that makes the throw of 60' necessary to avoid doubling the depth.
My only question to Thatguy is about visibility when conditions can cause snow to stick to the glass? How does the cab work for you?
Click to expand...
The Cab was a godsend !! no need to sugar coat it, flat out was a blessing. I could wheel around in light winter garb instead of bundled like a frozen mummy. Snow did stick on a few occasions, wiper did its job for the most part, was never really an issue. They make a cab heater, but I never really felt the need.

Home driveway was +300' and my Lakewood cabin driveway was +400' uphill, got a little more snow up that way.

Recently sold all the attachments for the JD, wont be needing it for CO
 
Phil Younger said:
Same here- -i struggled for years in Mid Wisconsin with a wheeled walk behind after my back was broken- steering the walk behind absolutely killed my back doing about 450' of driveway. It was absolute murder when i got to the road where the plow left frozen ridges. I was also a literal jerk if someone drove on my drive before i could blow it off because of the problems that caused. I ended up getting a JD x738 4WD with a 54' two stage blower and though I do not have a cab i do my two drives at home in 1/3 the time. It is so easy I do my 2-3 elderly neighbors drives also. It does not matter how much hard plow ridge the road crew left - my rig eats it up though when bad I may have to step on 4WD peddle and back off and hit it again. My drive would be impossible to use a truck mount plow due to the main drive being a U shape with the U bottom being at a 2 car garage--that makes the throw of 60' necessary to avoid doubling the depth.
My only question to Thatguy is about visibility when conditions can cause snow to stick to the glass? How does the cab work for you?
Click to expand...

Thatguy said:
The Cab was a godsend !! no need to sugar coat it, flat out was a blessing. I could wheel around in light winter garb instead of bundled like a frozen mummy. Snow did stick on a few occasions, wiper did its job for the most part, was never really an issue. They make a cab heater, but I never really felt the need.

Home driveway was +300' and my Lakewood cabin driveway was +400' uphill, got a little more snow up that way.

Recently sold all the attachments for the JD, wont be needing it for CO
Click to expand...


Cabs are awesome, no doubt about it. I had one for my Simplicity. even though it was nothing more than a conduit frame and heavy duty tarp with a fiberglass roof, it kept the blown snow off you and made a sometimes miserable job pretty fun.

This was my go - to for a lot of years. Only a handful of times did I ever have an issue with snow sticking to the windows. Gotta remember, everything is cold, so the snow doesn't melt and stick. It just falls away.

20161205_204342.jpg


Now, I'm working on building a new snow machine, but I won't have a cab.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJ Starting, Phil Younger, Wildman and 1 other person
Well here I thought I'd fixed the snowblower....
Go out this morning because we'd gotten about a inch of snow ❄ so was going to try the blower out.
Made it about 6' from the garage and the blower stopped driving. So I dragged it back to the garage and pulled the bottom guards back off. Started trying to figure out how the whole drive system worked.
Found a roll pin in the axle pulley that was broken.
Had to figure out where the hole was so I could drive out the broken pin.

Got it out and ran into town for a new roll pin. Came back and got it fixed.
20201215_134219.jpg


20201215_134236.jpg



So now I'm ready for it to snow ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rick Flair, alittleoff and Phil Younger
Thatguy said:
The Cab was a godsend !! no need to sugar coat it, flat out was a blessing. I could wheel around in light winter garb instead of bundled like a frozen mummy. Snow did stick on a few occasions, wiper did its job for the most part, was never really an issue. They make a cab heater, but I never really felt the need.

Home driveway was +300' and my Lakewood cabin driveway was +400' uphill, got a little more snow up that way.

Recently sold all the attachments for the JD, wont be needing it for CO
Click to expand...
You are moving to Colorado?
 
Short video when I was first looking at the broken roll pin and trying to figure out how I would find the hole in the axle.

 
  • Sad
Reactions: Rick Flair
The tractor cab setups are neat! I have a neighbor with a JD 455 diesel with a snowblower/cab. He built the cab himself and it has a heater, wipers, radio, LED lights, etc.

I have an older Deere garden tractor with a 42" blower (no cab) and it has plenty of power, but in certain sections of the driveway I'll use my Toro 721R single stage. It's just easier to maneuver instead of making a 20 point turn with the tractor, especially near the cars.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Phil Younger
Thatguy said:
Yessir. Bought a house on the Western Slope in Aug, been slowly moving my stuff out every couple of weeks. Will be permanent in early spring, gotta finish the project im working on
Click to expand...
Envious — i still have old friends out there. One in Glenwood Springs the rest over on the front range. I really like the SW corner.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Thatguy
Here’s another good snowblower story of mine:

Day 2 of snowblower ownership after moving to Utah. I bought it the day before a storm, sat at work the next day as about a foot came falling down, sitting at my desk looking forward to trying it out. I get home, open the garage door to get to it, & my wife come flying out of the house saying “DON’T START IT! OMG IM SO SORRY!!”

Turns out while I was at work she tried it out herself & ran over a 2x4 that was exactly the same length as the augers & the differential shattered. All I can figure is that she hit the thing at such a perfect angle that the augers contacted the length of wood all at the same time, distributing the load over every blade thus leaving the shear pins in tact. Lol.

Anyway we took it back to Lowe’s & they just gave us another one.
 
  • Wow
  • Like
Reactions: Rick Flair, TJ Starting and Wildman
Turns out while I was at work she tried it out herself & ran over a 2x4 that was exactly the same length as the augers & the differential shattered. All I can figure is that she hit the thing at such a perfect angle that the augers contacted the length of wood all at the same time, distributing the load over every blade thus leaving the shear pins in tact. Lol.
Click to expand...

I've bought my current snowblower around 1996. Never a problem, until the one year I sucked landscaping brick into the chute. Same as you, broken differential. Other than the cost of the part, it was an easy fix. A few bolts removed, and snowblowers open up like a clam shell.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Wildman
LukesfirstJeep said:
I've bought my current snowblower around 1996. Never a problem, until the one year I sucked landscaping brick into the chute. Same as you, broken differential. Other than the cost of the part, it was an easy fix. A few bolts removed, and snowblowers open up like a clam shell.
Click to expand...
I did that too and the whole 4"x4"x 10" brick shot right out of the chute and the impellers, augers, and chute survived. I did do a slight swear word about mother in law's placement of said brick all the way back to shop to install auger shear pin.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Wildman
Phil Younger said:
I did that too and the whole 4"x4"x 10" brick shot right out of the chute and the impellers, augers, and chute survived. I did do a slight swear word about mother in law's placement of said brick all the way back to shop to install auger shear pin.
Click to expand...
My cheap ass Troy Built grenaded shear pins all the time, had spares taped to the bars + tools. Could fix and keep going. Deep heavy snow would take more pins out than the rocks in my driveway.

Wife used to let our dogs take their toys outside, sent a fancy braided tug toy thru the blower. Spent 3hrs untangling and cutting strands.

And i wonder why i have so many patents on new swear words
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Phil Younger and Wildman
Well we got about 2" of snow ❄ last night so I broke out my repaired snowblower and did my driveway. It worked great other than I need to adjust my skids because I'm still picking up way to much gravel in my driveway.

20201226_104232.jpg


20201226_104238.jpg


It's old and only a single stage blower but it works.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rick Flair, jeepguy03 and alittleoff
Wildman said:
Well we got about 2" of snow ❄ last night so I broke out my repaired snowblower and did my driveway. It worked great other than I need to adjust my skids because I'm still picking up way to much gravel in my driveway.

View attachment 213430

View attachment 213431

It's old and only a single stage blower but it works.
Click to expand...
Is it that red Toro in the picture? Those things are beasts and looks like a 2-stage to me. An impeller kit always does a lot of good on those to help them throw farther.
 
jeepguy03 said:
Is it that red Toro in the picture? Those things are beasts and looks like a 2-stage to me. An impeller kit always does a lot of good on those to help them throw farther.
Click to expand...

Yes it's that big beast of a snowblower. It's a single stage I'm fairly sure. I borrowed my neighbors and his is a 2 stage and that thing throw some snow. Mine is very old. Not sure of it's age but it is very old.


JeepOnDecision said:
We got about 16-20" since Wed around 5 (40 hours?) My big orange beast (ariens) plowed through even the heavy wet stuff!! 2" is still shorts weather!! 😏😏
Click to expand...
I wear shorts almost year round as it makes it easier to access my prosthetic.
 
Top Bottom
Back