V bar chains on pavement

[Manvito]

I snowblowed about 4 inches of snow today with my B2601 on my super steep paved driveway. I have a spreader on the back with about 400 pounds of sand in it and when I was on my way back up the 200’ diveway, in 4wd, I came to a standstill. Next thing I knew, I was going backwards down the driveway. With a lot of puckering and some fancy driving skills, I managed not to kill myself and made it down, in reverse. I have a bx5455 blower on the front and loaded tires but I got the feeling that all that weight in the spreader made my front end light. Either way, I can never let this happen again. I want to get chains for the rear and I want to make sure that they work on ice and snow.

I’ve done some searching online and saw that someone had V bar chains on an M series Kubota, which is much heavier than my tractor, and they said it didn’t damage their paved drive while snowblowing. I was hoping someone else had some experience with V bar chains and could confirm this. I figure my tractor is about 3000 pounds with everything on it, including me. I’m thinking, as long as I don’t spin, the V bars shouldn’t sink into my frozen driveway. I can stand a little damage but I don’t want to tear it to pieces. Any thoughts?
This picture was taken on the gravel section of the driveway and a summer picture of the driveway.

 

[85Hokie]

Had the same thing happen to me last year - BX, loaded R4 tires, 4WD, no chains, and going uphill on asphalt, stopped and started to slide back - not a good feeling at all!

I would think, Like you mentioned - if you do NOT spin, you should be fine with chains. Your picture does not do justice to what you describe - rarely does a picture describe the sensation of "pucker factor"

Your drive is a lot steeper than what we see!

on another note - I too have chains now......double link....looking for a little white stuff.......I said little!

 

[Manvito]

Had the same thing happen to me last year - BX, loaded R4 tires, 4WD, no chains, and going uphill on asphalt, stopped and started to slide back - not a good feeling at all!

I would think, Like you mentioned - if you do NOT spin, you should be fine with chains. Your picture does not do justice to what you describe - rarely does a picture describe the sensation of "pucker factor"

Your drive is a lot steeper than what we see!

on another note - I too have chains now......double link....looking for a little white stuff.......I said little!

The picture definitely doesn’t do it justice. Near the top, when driving up it I. A vehicle, it almost feels like you can launch into the air. I measured the incline before and I think it was around 14 degrees. It’s bad enough to have scared the crap out of me one too many times.

I’m leaning toward getting these https://www.tirechain.com/Tire-Chains-Studded-Tractor.htm I’m pretty sure that my little tractor doesn’t have enough weight to drive those studs into the frozen pavement. I live in upstate New York where we get over 100 inches of snow a year, so I’m sure I will get plent of use from them.

 

[Kennyd4110]

I would get the regular 2-link chains and stay away from the v-bars, they will add amazing traction to the R4 ice skates and limit possible damage to your driveway.

 

[85Hokie]

I am with kenny - those that you have chose will de-bark a tree!

Might leave bad places on driveway too!

 

[BAP]

I have a steep paved driveway and I run 2 link ladder chains on both front and rear of my B2920. When I first had it I only ran them on the rear, but found the front would slide sideways when I turned on the side hill. I can go anywheres now with it.

 

[sdk1968]

i found out real quick about v bar chains.....


even on the little B7200 they will flat out destroy blacktop & concrete surfaces if you get down to them.

gravel they were great! but as soon as they got thru the ice to the hard surface.. disaster!

just driving out of the garage on the concrete put gouges in it.

 

[Manvito]

This is exactly the type of first hand information I was hoping for. I guess now it’s just a matter of picking out something else.

 

[skeets]

Like sdk said on black top,,,, BAD JUJU Bwana

 

[Tughill Tom]

Screw in studs work great, my driveway is all hill. studded all 4 r-4's and no issues with the black top.

 

[sdk1968]

This is exactly the type of first hand information I was hoping for. I guess now it***8217;s just a matter of picking out something else.

another tip the guys HERE gave me after i gouged up the concrete:

put them on out in the yard!! lay them out, drive onto them, hook em!

take em off same way before you hit your "good" floor!

 

[Manvito]

I decided to go with these, without the v bars. https://www.tirechain.com/DUO-LADDER-COMBINATION.htm

They should show up on Wednesday. We have a pretty big storm coming so I will get to try them out soon. I will check back and let everyone know how the do.

 

[BAP]

Good choice. That should give you the traction you need without tearing up the pavement.

 

[olekid]

Greetings, I have those ice chains with the knobs, they work great on my gravel driveway, but they are poison to my cement garage floor, so I went to a gravel pit operation and they gave my 40 feet of 24 inch old conveyer belt from the crusher, laid 2 strips on garage floor, everything is great now, no more damage. Worth a try costs nothing.

 

[Manvito]

So I got my chains on today. They work great and don’t seem to be leaving any marks in the pavement. I was able to crawl up the driveway, with the blade on the snowblower digging up the packed snow and ice, and never lost traction once. I couldn’t make it up at all last night, even with the snowblower off the ground. I grooved my tires last year but that didn’t seem to be enough.

Now for the bad part. First, the tractor rides like a tank now. Anything faster than a crawl, rocks the tractor pretty bad. I wouldn’t even consider putting it in mid gear.

The chains were WAY to long when I got them. I’m not even sure why they ask you what size tires you have if they can’t make an attempt at sizing the chains. It was a huge pain in the ass to size them. I had to remove cross bars and move one cross bar to another link. There is a large space between the duo-ladder chains, where the chains connect. There should be a single cross bar in between the duo-ladders but there isn’t any room for one.

Other than that, the chains seem to be very high quality and work very well. I used 6 cheap ratchet straps to tension them.

 

[Dave_eng]

I have a M7040 with TRYGG studded tire chains.

I clear two paved asphalt driveways of my brothers homes. At first I was wary of what the chains would do but after two seasons, the worst that happens is small white marks which the sun bleaches or oxidizes out each summer. No one is upset and they are quite fussy. I am also clearing walking trails through farm fields and 4 WD was not cutting it. Now I am in 2WD most of the time.

As far as riding on pavement, look at this picture where the diamond shapes on the tire are not uniform in size. They rode very rough.

Kubota sold tires and wheels on my new tractor which were 3" lower in height than the industry spec which meant the chains were 9" too long.

TRYGG helped me out and modified the chains to fit my undersized tires.

Now with uniformed sized diamonds, I travel about 10 mph on pavement.

With these studded tires, the studs are in constant contact with the road. My experience with Ladder style chains on other tractors was a slip then grab sensation as the rubber slipped and then the cross chain grabbed. This may be more damaging than a chain that is in continual contact with the road.

Just my experience, others' experiences may vary.

Dave