3PTH hitch Blower vs Front snowblower

[olekid]

I will change my question, I have a B7510 with a 3 PTH Kubota snow blower, thinking of getting a Kubota front mount blower, so both blowers are designed to work on my machine ,if you have good dry snow my question is, which one will blow the snow further?

 

[tcrote5516]

I have a B7510 with a 3 PTH snow blower, thinking of getting a front mount blower, my question is, which one will blow the snow further?

There's a lot of factors that determine how far snow blows but front mount vs rear is not one of those deciding factors. How big the impeller is, the gap between the impeller and the housing and the gear reduction ratios all play a bigger roll.

Only thing to consider is PTO output. Usually the rear has the most HP but not always.

One other point is generally speaking the 3pt blowers are built heavier and are less expensive. I have a front mount myself because I don't care how great a rear is, I'm not spending that much time looking backwards. That said, I'm very pleased with the build quality and the throwing distance.

 

[olekid]

Thanks for the reply Tom, I changed my thread, hopefully its a little clearer

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I will change my question, I have a B7510 with a 3 PTH Kubota snow blower, thinking of getting a Kubota front mount blower, so both blowers are designed to work on my machine ,if you have good dry snow my question is, which one will blow the snow further?

They would work about the same, as they both turn at the same rate.

 

[asgard]

I have had both and can say the front is by far the easier on your body. No turning.
Throwing distance is about the same, I had paddle extensions on my previous blower but have not seen the need to fit on the new front one -- yet.

 

[KubotaVet]

As others have posted they will throw about the same. Couple of other factors to consider. Can you get by without your loader if you have a front blower? Also air filters tend to fill up with snow when using front blowers, so you might have to find a way to prevent snow getting in the engine. Otherwise a front blower is by far the easiest way to move snow.

Personally I really wanted a front blower but I cant get my snow moved without my loader.

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[bucktail]

Couple more thoughts:

It looks like there is a gear drive variant of your tractor. If you've got a slower gear forward than in reverse, and you can't go slow enough to keep the engine from bogging, a front mount may do better just because you can shift down slower. I really wanted to put a rear mount on my L1500 DT, but the slowest reverse is too fast for 15 hp at the flywheel and I don't have live PTO.

The dry snow isn't the snow I'd be worried about throwing. The wet stuff is generally more problematic.

 

[olekid]

Thank you guys, I considered what you all said and I am going to keep what I have. Great to have a resource group to run your ideas by. Thanks again

 

[rut3556]

>>Can you get by without your loader if you have a front blower? <<

That would be my question too. Even if I could use a front mounted blower I'd hate to give up my loader to do so. Storms like the ones we've gotten this past week have caused me to use both the rear mounted blower and FEL, which may not be the case for everyone.

 

[tcrote5516]

I had the same fear about going through winter without my FEL. I really love my fel and thought I would miss the flexibility but I'm doing it this year and it's not a problem at all. The blower moves snow so much more efficiently and so much farther there is zero need for the FEL. We have 3 feet of snow on the ground and I don't have a single snowbank. If I hadn't bought a blower in the fall I would have 5' banks on both sides of the driveway and about another 15 hours on the meter from moving the same snow 5 times to make room.

The backblade does the scraping and gets up tight to walls and such that I used to use the fel for. Now I drag it out with the blade and then blow the crap 50 feet

 

[Dave_eng]

I will change my question, I have a B7510 with a 3 PTH Kubota snow blower, thinking of getting a Kubota front mount blower, so both blowers are designed to work on my machine ,if you have good dry snow my question is, which one will blow the snow further?

Be careful, very, very careful with front mounted blowers sold by Kubota, John Deere, and probably others. All made by RAD in Quebec and painted and labelled to match the tractor brand.

See how much detail you can find on the Rad web site. They wont respond to emails. One guy who is very proud of his blower but is having problems, tells me he is going to call RAD. I suggested he may need to get his French into good shape. Further, I told him to let me know when he got through to RAD and what he learned, I have not heard back from him.
http://www.radinter.com/snow-blowers

Not certain if what I say is correct?

Try looking on Kubota.ca or John Deere Canada web sites for detailed spec's for front blowers for your size of tractor. Simple things like the rpm of the fan, type and location of the gearbox.

I own a M7040 and my only involvement with the blowers I am warning you to stay away from is trying find solutions for owners of them.

The RAD blowers are glorified walk behind blowers with a worm gear gear box between the two halves of the auger. Try searching "Shear bolt" and you will find so many frustrated owners of these blowers. They go through handfuls of shear bolts doing a driveway.

There are repeated fixes put out. Sometimes the shear bolt has two grooves around the shank, sometimes the grooves are shallow, the next thing they are deeper. When a shear bolt with two grooves breaks and you dont know about the grooves, you find the head of the bolt if you are UNlucky. You see it is a grade 5 bolt and buy one at Home Depot and put it in. Next thing you know the gearbox has split into pieces. $700 for parts.

There are good front mounted blowers made in Canada by Smyth Welding and others. They are a scaled down design of a blower for a 300 HP tractor not a quick upgrade from a walk behind.

This is a Smyth Welding product.

This unit with the black part is an upgrade which involved a new fan and this black piece. A neighbour spent $1,500 on his blower having the dealer make it reliable.

This one with the shear bolt through the shaft and fan hub is the disaster.

This a Smyth install is for a tractor with FEL mount.

The front blowers can be driven from the rear pto using these twin gearboxes.

.
If you are impressed by distance the blower throws, educate yourself on rotating drum blowers. They bypass the chute, thus eliminating friction, and the snow goes a long way.

Airports which have wide runways use them. Locomotive snow blowers often use that design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiSuVMq-byw

Look in the next video around 1:30 to see the snow now coming out not using the chute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQIsFQR2tuA

More snow outside the chute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTUvQaKvLxw

This image is a close up of the discharge of a rotating drum. The snow comes out the round nozzle and not up the chute when you want lateral distance.

A gravely walk behind has the next best thing where the drum and chute rotate so the snow comes off the fan and straight up the chute with no turns. For 12 HP amazing! Called the snow cannon

My blower is 90" inverted and my priority is not distance but throughput. I blow in High range 2nd gear at about 6-7 kilometers per hour. The blower is just keeping up and the auger is buried in a heap of snow. I cannot go faster because the fan cannot move more.

Dave M7040

 

[BAP]

Be careful, very, very careful with front mounted blowers sold by Kubota, John Deere, and probably others. All made by RAD in Quebec and painted and labelled to match the tractor brand.

See how much detail you can find on the Rad web site. They wont respond to emails. One guy who is very proud of his blower but is having problems, tells me he is going to call RAD. I suggested he may need to get his French into good shape. Further, I told him to let me know when he got through to RAD and what he learned, I have not heard back from him.
http://www.radinter.com/snow-blowers

Not certain if what I say is correct?

Try looking on Kubota.ca or John Deere Canada web sites for detailed spec's for front blowers for your size of tractor. Simple things like the rpm of the fan, type and location of the gearbox.

I own a M7040 and my only involvement with the blowers I am warning you to stay away from is trying find solutions for owners of them.

The RAD blowers are glorified walk behind blowers with a worm gear gear box between the two halves of the auger. Try searching "Shear bolt" and you will find so many frustrated owners of these blowers. They go through handfuls of shear bolts doing a driveway.

There are repeated fixes put out. Sometimes the shear bolt has two grooves around the shank, sometimes the grooves are shallow, the next thing they are deeper. When a shear bolt with two grooves breaks and you dont know about the grooves, you find the head of the bolt if you are UNlucky. You see it is a grade 5 bolt and buy one at Home Depot and put it in. Next thing you know the gearbox has split into pieces. $700 for parts.

There are good front mounted blowers made in Canada by Smyth Welding and others. They are a scaled down design of a blower for a 300 HP tractor not a quick upgrade from a walk behind.

This is a Smyth Welding product.

This unit with the black part is an upgrade which involved a new fan and this black piece. A neighbour spent $1,500 on his blower having the dealer make it reliable.

This one with the shear bolt through the shaft and fan hub is the disaster.

This a Smyth install is for a tractor with FEL mount.

The front blowers can be driven from the rear pto using these twin gearboxes.

.
If you are impressed by distance the blower throws, educate yourself on rotating drum blowers. They bypass the chute, thus eliminating friction, and the snow goes a long way.

Airports which have wide runways use them. Locomotive snow blowers often use that design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiSuVMq-byw

Look in the next video around 1:30 to see the snow now coming out not using the chute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQIsFQR2tuA

More snow outside the chute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTUvQaKvLxw

This image is a close up of the discharge of a rotating drum. The snow comes out the round nozzle and not up the chute when you want lateral distance.

A gravely walk behind has the next best thing where the drum and chute rotate so the snow comes off the fan and straight up the chute with no turns. For 12 HP amazing! Called the snow cannon

My blower is 90" inverted and my priority is not distance but throughput. I blow in High range 2nd gear at about 6-7 kilometers per hour. The blower is just keeping up and the auger is buried in a heap of snow. I cannot go faster because the fan cannot move more.

Dave M7040

So who's snowblower do you sell? You seem to have a lot of bad to say about the Kubota snowblower for someone who doesn't have one and sounds like you haven't used one yourself.

 

[KubotaVet]

I can't speak to Kubota's front blowers but I have used New Holland & John Deere front blowers and I can attest to breaking sheer pins. I would break atleast one pin in 6-7 hours of use. Both blowers did have their gear boxes in the front.

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[OBKubota]

I have Kabota GR 2120 with GR 2728 front mounted snowblower with gear box mounted between blades and I will admit I have broke a few sheer pins a couple times when I hit the curb and once when I hit the garage door[emoji9]but otherwise it works absolutely flawless I change the gearbox oil every year except for last year I only put four hours on it, i grease it and oil the chain as per the manual. Good works absolutely flawless if you don't run into stuff LOL hope this helps. I've never broken a sheer pin under normal conditions. The only complaint I have is that it's a pain in the back getting it on and off but I'm still working on a solution for that!
So I am not sure what Dave_eng is talking about!

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[asgard]

The front mounted units are designed the same as a walk behind but as for the component size they is a vast difference.
I took apart a 25-year-old Canadiana 28 inch walk behind snowblower last year that had the front drive gear outside the casing, it had machined its way through and the brass gear destroyed.
On further inspection, one side of the auger was completely seized and that is what caused the failure, the shear bolt was gone but the lack of lubrication on the shaft meant it was locked solid.
There is no reason this should be any less durable if maintained correctly. Oil and grease are cheap by comparison.

I would, however, agree that the front blower I have is of generally poor quality, the paint finish is very poor, with little use -2 hours it is completely missing from the area where the skids mount, the lubrication hole for the chain is a joke, the universal joint cover on the short PTO is all but impossible to remove, meaning greasing is not a simple as it should be. It does leave a lot to be desired for the cost.

I agree with you on the shear bolts, I bought some grade 2 bolts and if needed I will use them, rather have them break than the gearbox. I might be wrong about that but I am willing to be advised otherwise.

Still beats looking backwards.

 

[OBKubota]

My sentiment is that anything on the back should be pulled not pushed!


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[tcrote5516]

So who's snowblower do you sell? You seem to have a lot of bad to say about the Kubota snowblower for someone who doesn't have one and sounds like you haven't used one yourself.

I agree, not sure what his deal is but I haven't had an issue (knock on wood) with my front gearbox Kubota blower. Never broke a sheer pin and that includes cutting into plowed snowbanks.

I also take issue with calling them a walk behind blower as if that was a bad thing. Correct me if I'm wrong but there's a whole lot more walk behinds in use than tractor blowers. My father had a Ariens for 30+ years with a front gearbox that never gave him a lick of trouble.

Bottom line, there's nothing wrong with the Kubota blower or the front gearbox style. It's been proven over time to be a reliable setup and that entire post lacked any real evidence of a widespread problem.

 

[trapperdrew]

I could be totally wrong.. but when I was looking at blowers for my bx. The rear one seemed to me to be quite a bit beefier.. the metal looked to be thicker. And the machine looked much heavier. I did end up with a kubota branded rear blower... I like having my bucket available for playing in snow piles.

 

[KubotaVet]

I could be totally wrong.. but when I was looking at blowers for my bx. The rear one seemed to me to be quite a bit beefier.. the metal looked to be thicker. And the machine looked much heavier. I did end up with a kubota branded rear blower... I like having my bucket available for playing in snow piles.

No you're correct, generally speaking rear blowers are more heavy duty compared to front blowers. I think it has to do with the fact that the blower is on the rear 3pth, which is your strongest point on the tractor for lifting. And the rear PTO is larger then the mid, allowing for heavier construction. But I'm no engineer so take that for what its worth.

Basically in my opinion both types of blowers have there pro's and con's.

Rear Blowers - Pro's: Heavier duty, Cheaper (unless you add hydraulics), Keeps the snow out of engine/filter, you still have your FEL.

Con's: Sore neck!
My solution for sore neck can be found here http://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28858

-----

Front Blowers - Pro's: No Sore neck, you can use a back blade or box scraper on rear (very handy!).

Con's: Not as heavy duty and more expensive.

Ultimately it comes down to which setup works best for you and the type of winters you have to deal with, and what concessions you're willing to make.

 

[bucktail]

I think that the worm gear design is good for smaller applications, but as it gets scaled up, you can't really make the worm gear beefy enough without it getting too big and getting in the way of the snow that's headed for the impeller. Using belt drive gives the drive train also gives the drive train the ability to absorb a bit of shock so that you're not relying entirely on the shear pins. PTO shafts don't have much ability to absorb shock.