snow blower without live PTO

[bucktail]

There's a 50" rear mount snow blower for sale locally that I've been thinking about for my L1500DT. It's a farm king Y500. Looking online, the minimum rated hp for it is 15. It doesn't say, but I'd imaging that they're referring to hp at the PTO , not at the flywheel, so I'm already short a couple. On top of that, I don't have live PTO, so I can't just back it up til it bogs then hit the clutch to let it catch up, because I'll lose power to the PTO when I clutch it.

Reverse in low range is pretty slow, but with me being low on power to start with makes it a bad idea. I'm thinking I need to scrap the idea of PTO driven snow blower on this thing altogether, but I'd be interested to hear about anyone else's experience they'd be willing to share.

 

[Kennyd4110]

I think it would be very frustrating and difficult to use without a live PTO, and yes the rating would be for PTO power, not engine.

 

[mendonsy]

It depends a lot on your local weather. In heavy wet snow like we often get here it would be a problem. In lighter dry snow it most likely would work fine.
Another thing to consider is where you want to use it. Working close around obstacles with gear drive and no live PTO would also be a problem.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Yea it will drive you nuts in nothing flat.

 

[bucktail]

Kind of what I figured. Looks like the best way to do a blower on this thing is to fab some brackets to put a garden tractor blower on it and run it off the front of the crankshaft. There's a 48" Case Ingersoll for sale, but I'm not really set up to fab much of anything right now.

 

[mendonsy]

There is another way to look at it ........
If you get the snow blower and it doesn't work out then you have an excuse to get a new tractor!!

 

[rjcorazza]

I agree with the other posters. I may consider it if I had an unobstructed straight run to snow blow and could go slow enough. Heavy snow will bring even large tractors to a crawl.

 

[bucktail]

It's the berm at the end of the driveway that gets you.

 

[skeets]

What really gets you is finding Sundays news paper when you get to the end of the drive way,, now that will slow you down

 

[torch]

I would get it if it's a good deal. Worst comes to worst, you can always flip it without losing anything.

However, I suspect it won't be as big a problem as you think. PTO horsepower is a nice guideline, but torque is really more important anyway and I would suspect your 2 cylinder diesel has more torque than a 3 or 4 cylinder engine of similar size but higher hp.

I see some pretty serious snow up here sometimes. EG: a foot or more a day for days in a row. My 16hp B7100 came to me with the 50" blower my uncle used for 20+ years, and it's rated 13 hp at the PTO. Up until now, I've used various walk-behind and GT mounted blowers. They all have had their limitations. The trick is to stay within the limits.

If your tractor is light on power, then blow heavy wet snow when it hits 3 or 4" in depth even if the snow is still falling. Or take 1/2 width passes if it got too deep too fast. For the first pass, lift the blower off the ground, clean off the top 6" then take a second pass for the final 6".

 

[bucktail]

The lack of live PTO is way more of a deal breaker for me than being underpowered. From what I've looked up, my low range reverse is 2mph at WOT, which doesn't sound like much, but it will need to crawl pretty slow to make sure that I won't need to clutch it. I would be tempted to try it if I had the same gears in reverse that I do going forward. It just crawls if low range 1st. Put it on the snow bank, go in and have breakfast, and it would be through it.

From the pictures, it looks nearly new, and they want $1500 for it, so in my estimation, it's a decent deal, but not something I'd buy to flip. It doesn't look like I'll be building until next summer, so the 8hp walk behind I have now will be more than adequate for the 1/4 acre lot I have now. On the new site, I'll probably be less than 120' from the road, so the walk behind and the 6' back blade should get me through the first winter or 2 anyway.

 

[PHPaul]

I blew snow with a 64" Pronovost Puma and a 750 John Deere for a LOT of years and we do occasionally get a bit of snow here in Maine.

JD was gear drive, no live pto so it does require a bit of planning but once I got the hang of it, plugging the blower was a relatively rare occurrence.

There are two primary techniques that make it possible:

1. If you're coming to really deep snow on the first pass and can't take a partial cut, use the 3ph to lift the blower and only take the top part.

2. Learn to clutch quickly and flip the tractor out of gear at the end of a pass to let the blower clear itself.

Shearing pins on the driveshaft was a more frequent problem than a plugged blower as my foot would occasionally slip off the clutch and shock the driveline.

Of course, the better solution was a new Kubota with hydro, live pto and a cab...

 

[bucktail]

I learned to drive on a Farmall H, so I've done the part where you slip the clutch just enough to pop the transmission out of gear. I'll keep looking, but I probably won't mess with it until I get my new place built.