Snowblower mods

[Showmedata]

I have a Land Pride SB1064. My driveway is crushed asphalt; it's very well compacted, but still not as as solid as real asphalt. When clearing the narrow part (which is curved and on a hill), the blower skids drop off the edge of the crown causing the bottom lip of the blower body to scrape the driveway - not good for either the driveway nor the blower. And then on the flat parts, I leave an inch of uncleared snow.

Trying to address both, I've made a couple of modifications.
I made two additional skid shoes to run midships, to deal with the crown:

And I'm trying a rubber wiper to see if that will clean up the last inch better (pic of that to come later).

Hopefully we get some snow this week to test them out!

 

[UpNorthMI]

That's a great mod, I hope it works out, I look at the small shoes on my rear snow blowers they are basically useless as I'm running over crushed stone area around my barn and drive. Let us know how you mod works out.

 

[jkrubi12]

Of course the best fix would be getting the driveway flattened out, but that ain't gonna happen in December!

Very nice work on those skids; that wiper is also a great addition. Be sure to get back to the forum with a performance report!

 

[Showmedata]

Here's the wiper:

Still no snow, so no test.

It's 1/4" stall mat, because my store was out of the 3/8". I bought enough to double it up but figgered I'd try single first. You see the seam because the material is only 48" wide.

There are already 8 holes along the box edge for mounting the factory scraper edge. I drilled a piece of 1/4 x 3" bar stock to match and use that to clamp the rubber in place.

I suspect the extra junk inside the box will increase the amount of snow that sticks in there, so we'll see if that's a problem.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

What I see happening is the long rubber lip is just going to fold under and raise the blower even higher.
Or it's going to fold up and get torn to shreds by the augers and until shredded, just push snow out in front not letting the augers work properly.
If you shorten it and use a heavier 1/2 piece of rubber then you might have a chance of it working.

 

[Showmedata]

What I see happening is the long rubber lip is just going to fold under and raise the blower even higher.
Or it's going to fold up and get torn to shreds by the augers and until shredded, just push snow out in front not letting the augers work properly.
If you shorten it and use a heavier 1/2 piece of rubber then you might have a chance of it working.

I've certainly considered that as a possibility. This is version 1.0, in-snow testing will guide version 2.0 development

 

[Showmedata]

Got snow yesterday, so finally some testing!

The new shoes were good. Happy with those.

@North Idaho Wolfman you were half right - the rubber folded over, but inward. I think the angle is so shallow that it gets grabbed by the auger.

I'll experiment with thicker rubber, and also see if I can adjust the angle a bit steeper.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Got snow yesterday, so finally some testing!

The new shoes were good. Happy with those.

@North Idaho Wolfman you were half right - the rubber folded over, but inward. I think the angle is so shallow that it gets grabbed by the auger.

I'll experiment with thicker rubber, and also see if I can adjust the angle a bit steeper.

Ummm, fully right...

Or it's going to fold up

 

[mcmxi]

I have a Land Pride SB1064. My driveway is crushed asphalt; it's very well compacted, but still not as as solid as real asphalt. When clearing the narrow part (which is curved and on a hill), the blower skids drop off the edge of the crown causing the bottom lip of the blower body to scrape the driveway - not good for either the driveway nor the blower. And then on the flat parts, I leave an inch of uncleared snow.

Trying to address both, I've made a couple of modifications.
I made two additional skid shoes to run midships, to deal with the crown:
View attachment 92066
View attachment 92068

And I'm trying a rubber wiper to see if that will clean up the last inch better (pic of that to come later).

Hopefully we get some snow this week to test them out!

Nice upgrade there, and no doubt version 2.0 will be even better.

 

[Showmedata]

Well, v2.0 - gluing together two layers of that 1/4" stall mat - worked no better than v1.0. That material is just too floppy.

So.... v3.0: 3/4" thick rubber from plowrubber.com.

It worked much better, but still curls up a little bit in places. Th problem is the angle of the mounting surface is just two shallow. I've played around with a beveled shim but that creates other problems.

Here's where i tried mounting the shim under the box:

Two problems: 1) the shoes don't go low enough to stay under that stacked material, and 2) I was sure that vertical leading edge of the shim would ice up or otherwise misbehave.

I also tried with the shim above the box lip, but that 1) puts the materials too close to the auger, and 2) creates a giant lip that prevents snow from sliding out of the box.

Maybe when I'm short on projects I will fabricate a steel shim with just the right shape. Meantime, v3.0 will probably stay on there. Might move the rubber back to make the overhang shorter, effectively stiffening it.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Ditch the rubber and put a piece of UHMW that's made for snow plows.

 

[Showmedata]

Ditch the rubber and put a piece of UHMW that's made for snow plows.

I was hopeful that the compliance of the rubber would more cleanly wipe the driveway in places where it's a bit crowned. The stiffness caused by low temperatures is probably making that unrealistic.

I'm probably going to have it all paved this year; if so, I will switch to the UHMW wear strip.

 

[Trustable]

I was hopeful that the compliance of the rubber would more cleanly wipe the driveway in places where it's a bit crowned. The stiffness caused by low temperatures is probably making that unrealistic.

I'm probably going to have it all paved this year; if so, I will switch to the UHMW wear strip.

How do you like the crushed asphalt? Is that something you can get delivered and spread yourself or does it have to be compacted with a roller?

 

[Showmedata]

How do you like the crushed asphalt? Is that something you can get delivered and spread yourself or does it have to be compacted with a roller?

It's far superior to the compacted dirt/gravel that was there before - that got muddy, whereas the crushed asphalt has very little "muddy" properties. I think it works pretty well only because it's very well-compacted - I hired the installation and he used a 3-4 ton vibratory rolling compactor on a warm day with just the right moisture added to the mix. I think if you spread it yourself without great compaction it won't be much better than loose gravel - I see some neighbors' driveways eroding with runoff where mine doesn't. Mine's about 2 years old and holding up very well.

Also, the asphalt does (even compacted) shed small crusher fines that get tracked in. Less than the dirt, but still significant.

 

[Trustable]

It's far superior to the compacted dirt/gravel that was there before - that got muddy, whereas the crushed asphalt has very little "muddy" properties. I think it works pretty well only because it's very well-compacted - I hired the installation and he used a 3-4 ton vibratory rolling compactor on a warm day with just the right moisture added to the mix. I think if you spread it yourself without great compaction it won't be much better than loose gravel - I see some neighbors' driveways eroding with runoff where mine doesn't. Mine's about 2 years old and holding up very well.

Also, the asphalt does (even compacted) shed small crusher fines that get tracked in. Less than the dirt, but still significant.

Good to know, thanks! I got A quote months ago on getting my 500ft driveway done with it but with the labor it was way more than I wanted to spend. Glad I asked, as I figured I could just drive over it to compact it.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

One thing that really helped me maintain my driveway was a hydraulic vibrating roller.
I've got a real old one cylinder diesel twin roller unit that works marvelously at knocking it down to flat.