snow blower

I'm thinking about getting a snowblower to run off the PTO from the rear of my tractor. Any suggestions or advice.
Had a few snowfalls last winter and my rear blade wouldn't quite get it.
Thanks

What kind of tractor and options?
After using a snowblower I couldn't imagine trying to use a blade or push snow.
b.t.w. snow is a four letter word.

I have a Ford 800 and I'm thinking about a 60" snow blower. I've never used one and have asked around to no avail.
I previously used a blade on the rear of a Kubota 7510 4X4 and it was OK but not the best so I was snowed in on a few occasions.

Just my limited experience with snow blowers?

They take a heck of a lot of snort. This year, I'm putting this 7-8' blower on a 150 horse tractor.

Works that little 115-hp guy too darned hard.

Allan

If you have an 860 Ford you might get by but verry limited with lack of horspower, 860 will have 2 stage clutch live pto that you cannot run a blower without, also 5 speed transmission. Chances are good your tractor is an 840 with 4 speed tranny and NO live pto or an 850 with 5 speed but still NO live pto. Neither of those will handle a blower, you must have that live pto. And you are about 60 hp short for a 5' blower for it to work as should and you are about 6" too wide to get thru a 5 foot blower cut. An 8' blower will kill a 150 hp tractor with no problems in heavy snow. You are about 40 hp.

I'm not sure what the reverse speed on the 800 is, but I don't think horse power will be an issue. We run a 60" blower on a 23hp tractor and a 72" blower on a 45hp tractor without problems (thats PTO hp). I'm sure it takes us longer than the guys running double, triple, or quadruple the horsepower, but it works just fine.

If it starts to bog the engine down, stop moving and wait for the engine to recover. This is where the independent PTO is helpful and a 2-stage clutch would be a must.

Good luck.

My tractor is an 850 (no live PTO) so am I out of luck? I will be in reverse.

Do you have a 2-stage clutch? If not, then yes. Unfortunately you are probably out of luck.

You're out of luck.You need one of the foreign made tractors with creeper gears to really make a 3pt snowblower work easily.

I use a John Deere 240 PTO snowblower. 6 feet wide and two-stage. I run it with a 28 horsepower IH B-275 tractor. It has live PTO, and a very slow reverse thanks to a hi-low range. Power has never been a problem if I go it slow when snow is over four feet deep. Only problem is my dirt and gravel driveways. I get a lot of big rocks landing on my roofs.

A slow reverse is a must, and a live PTO almost as important. I've got a Ford 641 with four-speed trans and a PTO that stops whenever I push the clutch in. And, reverse is way too fast to be of any use. It is absolutley useless to power a rear snowblower or tiller.

My neighbor has a three-point blower that is self-powered with a V4 Wisconsin engine. It will work on any tractor with a three-point hitch regardless of gearing or PTO setup. With a self-powered unit, you can idle the tractor engine down and creep, even if geared to fast.

I often get snow higher than some of our lower roofs here. Many times, if I don't keep up, the snow gets too deep to plow with a truck. For those times, a PTO snowblower works great. Just have to prepare to get wet, and get a sore neck from driving a lot in reverse.

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Herbert, your 850 will handle a Vee shaped, pull through snow blower, a 72" width would work best.....

Forget the backup blowers with your tractor; live PTO is voted as a must.! and, don't ask me about a sore neck!

I worked as a mech and later parts manager at Bradley Motors in Erskine, Minnesota. Floyd Bradley started selling 9N Fords in 1939, and sold his share of new Fords. Over the years, many of these Fords were tested on new snowblowers, as

Next door was Erskine Manufacturing. .. Those fellows built both the Vee style and two stage backup snowblowers by the thousands. Not to mention their front mounted two stage blowers. ..Today they are building a fourth style; This blower is a two stage blower that mounts on the three point, but faces foreward, so you blow when driving forward..Yep, spendy but good machines..Google Erskine Attachments for their website...

I have to chuckle every time someone claims that you NEED a live PTO to blow snow with a Vee type drive-through snowblower. Live PTO is a clear advantage, but if the snow is too heavy, you just make a half cut or simply keep the blower partially raised the first time through..

An older model, the 722 would be a good match for an 850... 72" wide would be PLenty Big, and then add the wing for doing the road shoulders... These blowers can often be found for sale in the $300- $500 price range... Only two greaseable bearings and a PTO shaft to service.. These are tough machines...

I can run my 6 foot blower all day with a 28 horse tractor, as long as I take it slow and don't freeze to death. And, I'm talking about snow that's deeper than the blower, often 4-6 feet deep and sometimes wet and heavy. Granted, if I had twice the power, I could go twice as fast - but my little 28 horse tractor handles a 6 foot blower fine. I do have a 60 horse tractor, but usually don't have chains on it, so I use the little one instead.

A twin fan like that would take a lot of hp. I've got a 7.5 ft single fan and my 50 hp tractor can only run it because its a hydro. Its going on the 100 hp tractor this year.

Wow, that's a lot of snow.

I always enjoy your posts, and I think you're the guy who lives "off the grid". I may be confusing you with another regular poster. If I'm right, I'm curious about how you deal with all that snow on your solar panels. That much snow is gonna stick around for a few days.

Paul

Snow on the panels is no problem. They do get a snow-covered, but as soon as the sun comes out, they warm up enough that it slides right off. Even after ice-storms, they clean themselves off as soon as the sun comes out.

Here's a photo of my youngest son helping me find my car. We parked a little Chevy diesel Chevette under the eave of the barn-roof a few days before. Big mistake. We had a big snow storm, and the snow slid right off those panels and buried the car.

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One snowblowing point that has not been emphasized here, along with power, is TRACTION. I concur that taking less than a full swath enables you to get by with a lot less power. I would be much less cheerful about having to drive through snow before blowing it. I live in southern Wisconsin and have used a 76" rear-facing snowblower since 1990. I started with a Massey 165, 2 wd loaded tires and chains. Now I have a Kubota M5400 4wd- I can do as much or more with this, even with "industrial" tires and no chains. However, in conditions where freezing rain precedes the snowfall going up hill on a paved drive is still a real challenge.

Live power and 4wd are both nice, and yes: you will throw dirt & rock; your neck will get sore; and you will get cold!

TRACTION absolutely.... That is an area where the two stage backup snowblower shines.. With the old Vee style pull through snowblower; there are times that you have to back into the larger drifts with the blower raised, then drop the blower and drive forward with the blower running..This is the only way to not chance getting hung up when a large, long drift is tackled..

Once that first path is knawed through, you can slip on the snow wing and chew away on the side of the drift, while keeping the tractor wheels on the cleared path...

These old Vee type snowblowers are a good buy for the money, and will blow snow.. They were designed to work with the old tractors of yesteryear.. There is little else out there that will work well with the older tractors, especially without live PTO and creeper gears.... One thing for sure, they beat using a shovel.

I enjoy talking about the evolution that equipment has experienced over the years..

The snowblower and tractor designs have both experienced major improvements..

Getting the tractor, the equipment, the job at hand and the poor pocketbook to all match at the same time; !! That can get to be a challenge....
One thing I enjoy about this Forum; there are so many good contributers that are willing to share their experience and advice..So many diferent machines and combinations to learn about..So many different ways to do a task, and so many different reasons to do so..

my 7 foot lundell blower is a single stage. We put it on a hydrostat but still seems like a huge load. If I could get my hands on a 2-stage blower...

Boy, that B275 is really working hard in the first photo by the look of the smoke. I have a 584 with an IH 70 6 1/2' blower I will be using this winter. Used a Buhler 7' hydraulic angle 3 point blade last year. Alot of those B275 & B414 tractors still kicking around our part of the country.

I'm desperate for a snow blower here in Phoenix,
it must be able to handle 114 degree snow. Can
anyone reccomend one?

It's working, but the fuel delivery is also turned up a bit too high. That B-275 in the photo is sort of an odd-ball. Most B-275s have the CAV rotary injection pumps with mechanical governors. But some early ones, including the one in the photo, have a CAV in-line pump with an air governor and a throttle-plate air-shutter in the intake-manifold. It's a great running tractor but also my worse starting IH. I have several later version B-275s and 3414s with CAV rotaries that start better and run cleaner.