Pull Type (Inverted) Snow Blower action, How they work, Techniques, Myths, and general thoughts.
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- Опубліковано 17 кві 2022
- Wrapping up the snow season for now, we thought we'd ship out a general info video on the often questioned pull type snow blower.
After many years since Richy first started clearing snow with his original 1976 Ford 1600 (rear mount, rear facing snow blower on 3 pt hitch), and many tractors and attachments later, the 4WD tractor with pull type snow blower and loader seems to have proven itself as one of the best snow removal setups for driveways. From short to very long, and even private roads and lane-ways, these rigs are hard to beat.
Next winter, a Pronovost Cyclone pull blower will likely be on the books to be reviewed, so stay tuned for that!
Pros and Cons...
Pros: Operator facing forward, driving away from snow mist (fine snow dust from blower chute), simple to operate, produces smooth driveway edges since it follows the tractor and smooths out most erratic steering motion by operator, can have other attachments on the front of the tractor like a loader, snow plow, or snow pusher etc., often they are less expensive than front mount snow blowers, much less operator fatigue compared to back up blower type
Cons: Most designs can't clear snow as close to objects like garage doors (designs like Pronovost Cyclone can get very close to garage doors). Typically the blower packs a bit of snow when it is set down on snow, so may require some shovel work where snow pack build up is not desired, ie garage doors etc. Since the tractor has to drive through the uncleared snow first, there is a limit to how much snow can be cleared. We have yet to hit that limit.
Equipment we use:
MK Martin Pull Type Snow Blower (SB75 P/T 75" and SB78 P/T 78") with hydraulic chute rotator
Pronovost Cyclone Pull Type Hybrid Inverted Snow Blower C8026 80" with hydraulic chute rotator
Agro Trend 7000 Series Pull Type Hybrid Inverted Snow Blower
Custom gravel guards
Kubota L4060 Cab model w/loader
Kubota L6060 Cab model w/loader
Kubota MX6000 Cab model w/loader
Land Pride QH20 cat. 2 quick-hitch 3-point hitch
Thanks for watching!
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I'm a Norwegian living in Montana, and the face on 'Muricans when I mention pull type blowers, their mind goes 🤯about driving over the snow 1st. We have used them in Scandinavia for 60+ years, I have a 68'' MK Martin meteor on my 48.3Hp cab tractor. LOVE IT.
Hah yes, so many folks around here get confused as well! They are starting to become a bit more popular here in Ontario In the last few years. I can’t imaging using anything else for what we do… Quebec has been using them for a long time as far as I’ve heard! Mk makes a great pull blower for sure. We are going to run a provanost cyclone this year on one of the rigs. Stoked to see how it does! 🚜💨❄️ thanks for watching!!
How do you choose the width to go with? Should it be wider then tractor tires? I am trying to decide between 68 and 72. My tractor width is 71 inches
@@simd510 Yes, definitely wider than the tractor tires.
@@tractortyme thank you!
When the road drifts under 5 ft of snow and driving forward through it isnt a option.... so yeah, that could be why people look at you funny..... if i didn't have that issue both me and my neck would love one
Very comprehensive instructions on how to use a tractor with a pull-behind snowblower. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed. Hoping we can get some more good pull blower content this winter 👍. Thanks for watching!
Best snowblowing video on UA-cam. Just got the inverted meteor and first snow of the season about to hit. Feels like xmas! Thanks for all the detailed tips.
Thanks for the huge compliment! The meteors have been great for us, hope you enjoy yours as much as we do ours! Happy clearing and thanks for watching!!
Rhett
Nice looking snowblowers and tractors
Thanks, they’ve been great for us! Thanks for watching!!
Great video very informative
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed and thanks for watching!
Great job snowblowing
Nicely done. I run the same blower on a Mahindra 2538, with an hla 96' blade out front on the fel. Love it! I do have the scraper on the back just using a chain lift instead of hydraulics. The two year remotes are used for the chute and the deflector. Road speed is a coffee spilling 17 kph. My route covers 30k, and a mix of commercial lots sand residential.
I started with a rear facing blower and upgraded last year to the Martin. Cut my residential time in half. Located in Ontario as well.
Have a great season!
That's great! 8' Snow pusher style blade? How do you like the scraper?
The pull blowers are so good for making the route go quicker once you have a good base going or have paved driveways. Cringe at the days we used to back up all the time! Ontario; We've been out twice here so far this season... a couple 6-8" storms. Looks like all that hard work is going to melt away in the next few days though. Happy clearing and thanks for watching!
Love my 3616 with a front mount blower. I'd love to try a pull type but I use a 7' back blade to pull away from the 3 car garage and parking areas.
@@ranchroadhomestead 8' hla 2000 blade
Works well on my tractor.
Nice vid. I use a 1968 Ford to pull my Pronovost blower. Use it to clear the 1/4 mile shared driveway and the private drives of the 3 homes in my neighborhood. Also use it to grade the gravel in the warmer months.
2WD has not been an issue other than backing up the one hill once I've cleared the snow and there is nothing for the AG tires to grab. Other than that, have had no issues.
With an open cab, the driving away from the snow is so nice. Rarely get snow blowing into me. Even the walk-behind blower is worse.
I use a fixed toplink, but you are correct, it does need to be "dialed in" for the best performance. I also have a hydro chute deflector because I do need to tame the throw distance at times. Given the size of a rock these things can grab and throw, last thing you want to do is aim anywhere near a car, house, person, etc. I can just imagine the damage.
Nice! Great feedback there, 2wd success on the flat is good to hear about.
How do you like the Pronovost blower? Yes, another thing to take the concentration, where is that chute blasting! The MK's sure launch 3/4" gravel if you aren't careful. The larger stuff seems to just break pins and bends components which around here drives us crazy since so many driveways are just pit run. Thanks for watching!
@@ranchroadhomestead Pronovost makes a good unit. I'd put them second only to Normand. MK seems to be about the same quality. Not had a chance to see one in person. The Normand seem to be heavier which seems to come from using heavier gauge steel. I can see some places where the housing of mine has been dented from stones. The Normand I saw had no such dents.
The Cyclone design would be nice, but that's too rich for my budget. In fact, I got my gently used model as it was a trade for a Cyclone by some commercial user. Not complaining, it was in great shape.
The difference is where the auger and impeller are located. Typically, the augers are in front of the impeller like you see in any walk behind blower. The Cyclone style puts the augers at the very rear of the unit (this is why it does not leave any snow) and then flings the snow up and forward to the impeller mounted above and in front of the auger.
One reason I really like the Cyclone design isn't for the snow clearing, but the fact that the PTO is raised, so the angle on the shaft is far closer to straight. While I grease the heck out of my PTO shaft, the angle it runs does concern me. It's held up just fine, but it can't be ideal.
Only shear pin I've popped was on the augers when I ingested a clump of pine needles. I've not seen an issue with rocks. I have seen one about the size of a golfball get launched. Make a lot of noise as it got flung. Enough so that I turned in time to watch it fly. MUCH further than the snow was going.
So, the reason I got the blower was 2-fold.
First, after killing a couple "Garden" tractors (glorified lawn mowers) by using them to drag a DR Grader to smooth the gravel driveway, I got a REAL tractor. The first one in my budget that was worth buying came from a farmer in town that kept it well, but was a barn queen as he'd added other machines to do much of the work. As a result, I went from a 30hp mower grade machine to a 60hp Class 2 3PH beast. Needless to say, with a 7' wide 1000lb land plane on the back it makes quick work of smoothing the gravel.
Next came the snow. Up until I got the big Ford, we hired a plow to come in and clear the common driveway. The problem was that after 3 storms, the berms on the side became too narrow to push anymore snow. I ended up going out (mostly at night) wrestling with my 10hp Ariens to cut back the berms to allow the next storm. If you know how hard it is to cut the plow berm at the end of your driveway with a walk behind blower, now imagine doing a 1/2 mile of it. (1/4 on each side) It was a 3+ hour battle. Get a cold February and it was nearly a weekly chore for the whole month. So, once Big Blue arrived, I felt there HAD to be a snow solution for the tractor. In short order I found the PTO mounted blowers and then the Inverted style. I began my search for a good used unit. Since all the manufacturers are in Canada and most of the units sold are in Canada, I scoured the Canadian ads. Found a couple, but wasn't quick enough to score them. When this one came up, I pounced, wired my deposit that afternoon, and then waited. COVID had pretty much shut the border. I tried under the commercial exemption and ended up being turned away. The Dealer was only 30 miles across the border on the SAME road. It was a simple grab and go. Had all the paperwork, a statement from the dealer that there would be no contact (they drop it in my trailer and only when they clear do I exit and tie it down). But the border agents did not see it as a commercial trip and turned us away. Ultimately I had to have it shipped for $500.
However, this thing is the cat's meow. No more berms. Works in slush, powder and everything in between. I love the fact that I drive looking forward. The blower is exactly the same width as the grader, so the same lines work to miss utility poles and set the edge. The operation took some care for the first few times, but soon you get into a pattern. I've even cleared some of the trails on my property to allow the tractor to fit so I can use the blower to clear out paths to walk the dog in the winter and access various wood piles around the property. Used to clear them out with the walk behind. Now I just use the walk behind for the front walk and the path to the compost. If the plow failed to come, it took about 4 hours to use the walk behind to clear the driveways. I can now do it with the tractor in 45 to 90 minutes depending on the depth. I can handle about 12 inches without any issues. More than that might cause problems because I simply can't run the tractor slow enough to not overload the blower and would need to clutch a lot. So, on really big storms I'd need to do a mid-storm clearing. I've only had to do that once in the past 2 seasons. Still, a couple 90 minute outings is NOTHING. I remember in February of 2015 dealing with the 5 feet of snow and how I was out there for many hours trying to keep up with the walk behind. I'm dying to see what Big Blue will do in that. (^_^)
Not everything is rosy. The radiator blew the first winter. Nothing like replacing a radiator outside in February. Thankfully I was almost done with the cleanup when it went. I've had to fix coolant and oil leaks, track down various electrical gremlins (finally just completely rewired the machine one summer with the kids) and this past spring struggled with a starting issue that turned out to be a timing problem.
Still, for a grand total investment of under 12k for machine and both implements, I think I made a great investment. I've used the machine for a whole bunch of other chores and I've leveled gravel driveways for several neighbors.
Apologies for the late response!
We actually have a pronovost cyclone that we got used last year, that's why I ask how you liked your Prono. Haven't really used it yet, since it's a big job to make it work with our CAT II quick hitches unfortunately (Salesman said it would work haha). Pretty eager to give it a go. How does yours fare with sticky warm snow, and you say it clears slush well? We were just out yesterday on the rigs for 10" of very heavy packing snow. The MK's hated it and got plugged chutes a bunch of times. Time to try repainting the interior of the chutes to try to avoid that. Ugh...
We love the quick hitches, mainly because it moves the blower back approx 6" which also takes much of the angle out of the U joints which is very good for the lifespan of the PTO shaft of course. With the little trials we did with the cyclone mounted up, I did not like how much angle was on the shaft when the blower was raised up unfortunately... Another reason to make it work with the quick hitch before we put it into full operation.
That's a great write-up on how you ended up with the rig you did! I remember those times during Covid too, trying to buy a sail boat in Quebec which is in our country but had closed up that provincial border. Crazy times. We also got our Cyclone shipped from Quebec, which was pricey but otherwise would have been a day of our lives to get and a ton of gas so... 12K, sounds like you have a great machine that will hold it's value pretty well too!
It's amazing the jobs you find yourself putting the tractor to once you have one eh? I've lost count how many times we've lifted stuff on and off of trailers, and how many peoples driveways dad has graded over the years. Sounds like you now know your way around your tractor pretty well by now!
You're smart to stay on top of the storm and go out mid storm to not let it get away from you. In all of the years we have never been caught with too much snow for the pull blowers. 4x4 helps with that of course, but we just stay out as much as we have to and not let the storm overwhelm the tractors. It can be hard when it takes minimum 30 tractor hours to complete our route under a normal 6" snow. We have blown 20" of fresh stuff with zero hopping or issues. HST transmission helps a lot to be able to creep as necessary. One reason we sold the gear M8560. It was an awesome tractor though.
@@ranchroadhomestead Ariens makes a spray that is supposed to keep the chute, augers, and impeller from sticking. It worked OK, but about 8 or so years ago, I found that cooking spray does pretty much the same thing. I buy the cheap stuff from BJ's or Cosco or whereever I can find it dirt cheap. Then, before a storm is scheduled to arrive, I go out and spray the chute and as much of the augers and impeller as I can easily reach. Since I started doing this, my clogs have been few. Both my Ariens and the Pronovost will push out ice sausage before it starts to clog. For the Pronovost, I have a post hole shovel on the tractor which does a pretty good job of breaking up the mess. This is a fairly long narrow spade with a 3' handle. Just long enough to easily get in there, but not so long as being a pain to store. I've got it attached to the side of my ROPS with a couple rubber clamps.
Most of what I see is wet. We normally toe the line between rain and snow. Even when the snow is heavy and there is no chance of a rain, it's usually an 8-10 inch snow for each inch of water (8-10cm to 1cm of water.)
If we do get a powder (pretty rare here) I'm going to let the back yard go just to see how deep I can go in pure powder. I usually clear out a path for the dog as well as a trail down to the meadow where we dump our compost. I had to trim some trees to get the machine to fit down the trail, but it was worth it. It's a blast leaving a 7' wide path through the woods. Get a good winter and it's used by nearly every type of animal you can name. Great game cam results. (^_^)
25:25 3rd option is to back drag the snow with the bucket and then drive back forward to blow it out
Great video! How much rpm’s do you run the tractor on when you’re snowblowing? It sounds like you don’t slow down the rpm when your «back and forward» by the garage? Is that not a problem for the clutch on the tractor?
Hi and glad you enjoyed! After a normal snowfall we run around 2100-2300 rpm. Our tractors are hydrostatic transmissions, and there is no clutching. Infinite forward and backward speeds with the right foot pedal. Very good setup for manoeuvring a tractor in tight spaces! Thanks for watching!!
What is the advantage to the hydraulic top mount ? is it because if you get the gravel you can angle it back real far from gravel and nice black top with ice you can scrape it more aggressively if you angle it forward is that the reason
Yes that is one of the main reasons. Another is for following changes in angles on driveways, like if you were to crest a hill, or go into a dip/valley. In that way it is quite helpful for maintaining the desired amount of snow base on those challenging parts of a more hilly driveway. Hope that helps. Thanks for watching!!
Thanks for the video. Do you ever use chains on your tires for hilly terrain?
You are welcome. We haven’t used chains, just carbide tipped ‘grip stud’ brand studs. Thanks for watching!!
Great video friend! Thanks for taking the time to put this together. Do you believe most of the blowers these days are quick hitch compatible? I bought a box blade recently and was surprised to find it was not, and completely blew my mind. Happy New Year!
Glad you enjoyed the vid! I wouldn’t say most blowers are quick hitch, I would say land pride, MK Martin, and Agro trend likely are. At least with our experience and Category 2. We ordered a used Pronovost Cyclone blower used from out of province with the understanding that it was, but sadly on receiving it turned out that was not the case. We will be selling it and switching to Agro Trend blowers now. They are very impressive pull blowers!! Happy new year to you and thanks for watching!!
@@ranchroadhomestead what is it that you find advantageous with the agro trend? I'm not familiar with any of the brands yet, but see the cyclone is very popular. Yours is the first I've seen mentioned of the agro trend. So I'm very curious to know more.
@ROCKINRODNEY sounds like a great topic for a video, wish we had more time for videos! Maybe I’ll do a UA-cam short this weekend of side by side comparisons… Simple answer is, the new (not sure when) Agro Trend I’m speaking of is the hybrid pull type, and it’s very similar to the cyclone. Enclosed chain, rear access hatch for fan (wayyyy better latch system to access) but add the Quick Hitch! A few other nice improvements too. I really like that the cyclone is galvanized however. Can’t win them all. 👍👍
@@ranchroadhomestead I agree. Was going to suggest it as a video topic, but wasn't sure if you'd want to commit the time for doing it. I'm subbed, so I would appreciate watching it anyway.
@ROCKINRODNEY thanks for subbing! I’ll see what we can put together that could be informative 👍
Thanks for posting this video, super helpful! Can I get your advice? Im trying to choose between pull type vs regular blower for my long hilly driveway. Id really like to go with pull type but im wondering if id have any issues getting up the hills/slopes with the blower on the back. I have a 45hp tractor. What do you think? Do you have any issues going up hills/slopes with the blower on the back? I cant use chains since I have a paved driveway and dont want to mess it up. Thanks
Glad you enjoyed the video! We plan on doing more pull type blower videos this winter 👍. Question for you, how steep are your hills? What kind of degrees are we talking? If safety is a concern we highly recommend carbide tipped studs like ‘grip stud’ brand (they are pricey but worth it, and we leave them jn all year!) They don’t noticeably damage asphalt unless you spin the tires at all, which you should not be doing. If you have a concrete garage floor, they might damage that over time, but very minimally.
Yes, absolutely get chains, just get the snow on the way down, the trick is to not blow off all the snow in your driveway, which sounds counter-intuitive, but you actually want a few inches of solid snow & ice through the whole winter to protect the pavement from the cold and double up using it as a soft sole for your chains to grab on.
"cultivating" that all-important packed layer and keeping it through the winter is a small art in and of itself, and takes practice.
To achieve it you adjust the top link/drawbar outwards, this pushes the top of the snowblower backwards so the snowblower is tilting backwards by just a bit, that way the sharp edge of the scraper bar will be an inch or so off the ground.
What compacts it is driving over it with cars and the way snow packs and crystalizes itself through the winter.
Rule #1: You don't want the scraper bar to scrape pavement, you want it to scrape snow, which is why you cultivate that layer, the only thing that should be allowed to grab that layer is your chains, and those dimples will be filled with snow anyway.
And at this stage (typically a month in or so) you can adjust your top drawbar so the scraper bar is just kissing the layer, later in the winter season that layer is going to be softening up, that's when you once again adjust your scraper bar to leave a bit of snow.
A decent operator is one that leaves that sole/layer intact until his very last shift of the season, after which the sun melts it in a day or two.
It's a bit of effort and fiddling, I'll admit that much, but nothing that hasn't been done before, well worth the headache because it beats shoveling the snow by hand 😁
This is a great write up! There are a few scenarios on our route when we do need to clear away all of the snow and scrape down to pavement as much as possible (when there is pavement). Here, heating fuel delivery trucks/amazon deliveries/etc. turn away from customers if they don't have their hills sanded, which of course ruins the base layer as it melts the ice as the temperature rises from time to time. In those cases we use the hydraulic top link to adjust the blowers angle to take that as close to the pavement as possible. Also, here in Ontario, we get lots of warmer spells during the winter months unfortunately, which softens that carefully created base layer. As soon as a vehicle tries to pass over it, especially 2wd, and add a hill, and it's a rutty mess that freezes that way often the very next night. We used to try to ask people to stay off their driveways during those days, but you can guess that didn't work. So high traffic and hilly driveways and shared roads, we try to keep almost no base at all. And driveways where we know folks have good tires and 4wd and flatter driveways, we do like to have up to 2" of base layer. Hard to keep everyone happy all of the time, but we do our best!
Thanks for commenting and thanks for watching!
@@ranchroadhomestead Makes total sense! Had an inkling you guys knew what you were doing, my advise was to Simran ^^
Perfect!
appreciate the video. how many miles do you put on a tractor during a storm? i'm in suburban Boston...and have 50 residential accounts...all larger than normal driveways (wealthy suburb), but, still have some jogs between stops....a two mile road run in the middle of the route, and then another mile one...
Hi! All three of our kubotas travel approximately 40 kms on the road each per storm, so 25 miles for each tractor. That doesn’t count the actual length of the individual driveways tho. So actual distance would be a good bit higher than 25 miles, a rough guess is probably 45+ miles per tractor of total ground covered per storm. We also have a few driveways with large gaps between. We try to hit the driveways on the busy highways before the sun comes up so we can see headlights coming over hills/turns and there’s less road traffic before people head to work. Thanks for watching 👍
@@ranchroadhomestead awesome. That’s what I wanted to hear! Keep rocking.
A friend of mine does 190 houses with 2 L6060's is Barrie. His route is really tight.
Would you be better with a larger tractor that has a faster ground speed or did you but the L6060 for the hydrostatic transmission?
Nice! Hydrostatic transmission is perfect for blowing snow because you can keep your PTO revs set and adjust your speed according to how quickly the blower can handle the snow. We used to run a gear M8560, and it could go about 40 km/h, but our roads are so bad in the winter here with frost heaving and ice build up that we are lucky to go half that speed. The L6060 is also a better size for getting around cars and buildings in tighter quarters. Thanks for watching 👍
Great video my man 👍 I’m just north of Orillia and I too do a mix of long and shorter rural drives. We do about 500 laneways and commercial properties per snowfall, of which I do about 80 or so. The last 2 seasons i ran a New Holland set up similar to yours but with a traditional rear mount push blower and a hydraulic top link and chute flap. Most of my driveways are gravel, and as you mentioned, it’s a bit of a nightmare trying to keep the gravel on the driveways, specially in the spring. With that set up I could either just back drag using the blower, or take some bite out of the blower (butter) by shortening the top link. This year i will be using a drag behind blower (inverted) for the first time. So, my question to you is, in order to butter I’m assuming i would lengthen the top link to put the blower onto it’s heal, is that correct? Obviously the reverse would be shortening the link to make the blower more aggressive when I have a good, frozen base. Second question, are shoes or skis (not sure the proper name) necessary for the blower to ride on? My unit doesn’t have them yet and they are not sure about delivery time. My concern is I haven’t been out yet this winter, so I’ve never used this inverted blower and I’m worried I’m going to be removing a ton of gravel without the shoes. Do you think by lengthening the top link i will be ok or should i put my old push blower on until the shoes come in? Looking forward to your reply, and thanks for this great video, you did a great job of it! Cheers and happy blowing 🤓
Hey you're not too far from us! Apologies for the slow reply, been crazy here! You are correct about lengthening the top link to put the blower on it's heel a bit (don't go too much, which is hard on the pto shaft etc...) , letting some snow go under the blower to get packed. I would recommend shoes this early in the season yes, as you angle back you want the blower to ride a bit on the shoes to get away from that nasty gravel and pack down your base. Shoes can dig up the gravel a bit too, so you'll want to watch out for that. Depending on the snow fall it might be easier to just drag your push blower. If your driveways are pretty flat, you might be good with just lifting the pull type blower a little bit? We can't do much of that here since everything is so lumpy and hilly. Looks like we will be going out in the next few days if the forecast is at all correct! Thanks for watching, and happy clearing!
@@ranchroadhomestead Thanks for your reply! And you confirmed everything, much appreciated. We do mostly just drag with our blowers this time of year. Pull the snow out to the paved road and then blow it out. Having a good base is so much more enjoyable, i don’t care for the early season runs. As you said “buttering” is the way to go until it firms up. Lifting the blower never works for me, even the slightest change of elevation or a minor pothole and you are back down into the gravel i find. We got a few inches here in Washago already, so I’m sure we are heading out soon. Safe travels and thanks again 👍
Yeah, you're right, has to be pool table flat for that. We all agreed here that it's been the worst start to the season to date. Four times out already, and still no frozen base.
What kind of pull blower did you get? After a bunch of trials, and a couple of prototypes later, we have invented what we call a 'gravel guard' Which is basically a huge ski that goes across the width of the blower and about 18" front to back, combined with the hydraulic top link and you're all set. I'd like to do a video on it sometime, but it is seriously a game changer for the gravel driveway warrior like us! I don't mention it in the video as it's a pretty complicated item for most people to get made up custom, also it's only good for gravel drives really. We have been running them for a few years now, and put them on all of our pull blowers. We should call up MK and get them offer it up as a part they should have as optional upgrades for the gravel guys.
We were out yesterday for 12" of really heavy sticky stuff. No fun at all.
@@ranchroadhomestead It’s a Agro Trend blower, honestly don’t know much about them. Turns out they don’t make skis for this particular commercial model. So the dealer is going to fabricate a set, but these will be on either side, so they will run parallel to your travel direction. For the life of me I don’t understand why they don’t offer them as a part you can order. First time out with it i gave up after about 6 driveways because all i was doing was blowing rocks. Luckily they still have my old rig set up with my rear mount push blower so I hopped in that. For this last storm they removed the cutting edge and fixed my leaky top link, hoping maybe with that and a bit of base I’d be ok. I managed, but it was slow going. I’m really hoping these skis they are making work. We didn’t get quite as much as you on Friday, probably about 8”, but it was sloppy. Amazing how much slower it is when it’s mild. I even had my fuel light come on just as I was finishing at around the 13 hour mark - that’s how you know the machine is working hard! I think once they get these few hurdles (skis and top link) worked out that I’m going to really like the pull behind unit. As you mentioned, not driving into the snow dust is going to be nice. When I worked in Horseshoe Valley we drove Versatiles with front mount blowers and they would wrap the open part of the chute with old conveyer belting so the dust would end up being higher up letting you see under the clouds of snow. Was a game changer, except when the chute clogged of course 😬 Fingers crossed for some cold weather and a good solid base, cheers!
Yes fingers crossed for cold and solid bases! Good luck with the skis, they should help. Our old MK blowers had shoe mounts on the back which was nice. Our first try was with skis and they worked but only when blowing in a straight line. We found that if you turn on the soft gravel, the skis dove in a little because of the weight of the blower.
Once you get a frozen base down, you're going to love what the pull blower does for you. I would never use any other setup again!
I have a 72” wide 48hp gross (38.4pto) tractor and per the specs on the MK Martin page it looks like a 72 is about biggest they recommend.
I’m curious if you have run a 78 on your 40hp Kubota.
Hi, I don't believe we have run the 78" on the 40 hp Kubota, but we did run the now discontinued 75" on it for 5 years, and it was just fine! In fact if we didn't sell the 40 hp Kubota, we would have eventually replaced the 75" blower with the newer 78" design.
Is your tractor HST or gear transmission? I wouldn't hesitate to put the 78" on your tractor especially if you are HST so you can easily slow down a bit if the blower gets overwhelmed. The extra width over a 72" is very nice when turning or doing large parking lots and turn arounds. Hope that helps and thanks for watching!
I just looked into the specs of the old 75” that we ran on our 40 hp Kubota for 5 winters. It shares many of the specs as the newer design 78”. The recommended HP, auger diameter, chute diameter, but the important one being fan size and diameter are the same. This means that the 78” would perform very similar on the 40 hp tractor as the 75” proved to. You would just have to go a barely noticeable amount slower on your first pass due to the extra 3”. Seems insignificant. Again HST transmissions have the best tractor over ground speed control for snow blowing, so consider that too.
@@ranchroadhomestead Your insight is extremely helpful! I’m looking at picking up a route from a buddy next year. With good route density a 78” pull type blower would crush it.
Do you like the inverted snow blowers and why?
Hi! Love the inverted snow blowers big time. Another viewer just asked as well so I’ll copy that response here for you too… any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for watching!!
-There are many reasons why we chose pull type blowers for our general requirements. They aren’t necessarily better for everyone, but some of the main reasons we use them are: Driving away from the snow turbulence, which keeps much of the snow from landing on the glass or operator. We can adjust the for/aft angle to cut or pack the snow depending on the the driveway and conditions. Most of our driveways are gravel and are in poor condition so it’s important to be able to ‘float’ over areas. Longer driveways are easier once you have established edges and base. Nice not leaving tire marks behind as you cover them which freezes as a nicer base. Great having a loader in the front, and possibly a plow for some scenarios can be very handy. It’s nice seeing the auger and how it’s processing the snow, also visually see if you have some debris etc to deal with possibly before you break a pin or more. There are more pros, which we should do a follow up video on. Hope that helps!
Does your Provonost Cyclone work with your QH20?
Sadly it does not. We were told it was by the dealer that shipped it to us, but on arrival it was a no go. We might adapt it to the qh20 in the future. It’s possible a cat 1 QH might work, I’d like to look into that but will be a bit light duty. Thanks for watching!!
How are the ag tires when it gets slippery, like if there is ice under the snow? Are your rear tires filled?
Hi, they are not filled. We have carbide studs, 2 per lug. We tackle many steep driveways. The ag tires non studded work well on flat driveways with 4wd and can manage on some moderate hills. Colder temps are always better for traction. Even with the studs we have to be careful with glare ice under snow, but really only on very steep hills. We avoid blowing snow up mid to steep grades as it is hard on the tires/studs. Those hills we back up, and clear snow going down which also allows us to have better steering control in the event traction becomes an issue when going up. Hope that helps and thanks for watching!
Rhett
Im curious why you go with inverted pull type blower instead of a front mounted one? I would think front mounted would be the optimal snow removal choice but even in canada it looks like all the commercial guys use a tractor with inverted blower and not front mounted.
Hi! There are many reasons why we chose pull type blowers for our general requirements. They aren’t necessarily better for everyone, but some of the main reasons we use them are: Driving away from the snow turbulence, which keeps much of the snow from landing on the glass or operator. We can adjust the for/aft angle to cut or pack the snow depending on the the driveway and conditions. Most of our driveways are gravel and are in poor condition so it’s important to be able to ‘float’ over areas. Longer driveways are easier once you have established edges and base. Nice not leaving tire marks behind as you cover them which freezes as a nicer base. Great having a loader in the front, and possibly a plow for some scenarios can be very handy. It’s nice seeing the auger and how it’s processing the snow, also visually see if you have some debris etc to deal with possibly before you break a pin or more. There are more pros, which we should do a follow up video on. Hope that helps! Thanks for watching 👍
@@ranchroadhomestead Super helpful. Thank you for the thoughtful response! Do you think you can do a video or comment on the the hydraulic top link. In what cases you shorten it vs lengthen it, how it helps, benefits, etc.
Glad to help! Assuming your question is regarding snow removal only --> The hydraulic top link is most useful on a driveway that has 'ups and downs', so basically changes in slope. For example, as the tractor goes over the top of a hill, the blower is still quite a ways behind the tractors centre, so the blower wants to bite into the hill. In that case you would lengthen the top link as the blower follows you over the hill. The opposite happens when the tractor goes into a dip on a driveway, the blower starts to pack the snow under it, so you would shorten the top link to the appropriate amount. It takes some practice, but works great! If your driveway is completely flat, you would not benefit much at all from the hydraulic top link. You can manually adjust a standard top link to suit the snow/driveway conditions and not need to adjust on the go. So at that point it would be more of a convenience. Another benefit would be, say you had a paved parking area or hill and need to keep it from building up for a variety of reasons, and adjust on the go to shave down close to the pavement, then switch to a gravel section that may be soft, or rutted etc. and want to adjust on the go to pack more snow onto the base. We will see if we can get some more good snow content out over this coming winter!
Also, most tractors do not have a front PTO (power take off) so you can’t put a blower on the front.
Yes this is a huge reason for many folks, I agree.
I have pine trees along my driveway. Do you think the force of the blower will damage the trees and take off bark?
Hello! Blowing snow doesn’t normally damage pine tree bark. If they are trees with low branches, loading up the branches is not good for the trees or branches as they can’t take the added weight of all that snow. How large are the trees? Thanks for watching!
@@ranchroadhomestead Thanks for the response. Pretty large, established trees. Thats good to hear. I have no low branches and was mainly concerned about the bark. Im going to pull the trigger on the inverted blower :) Cant wait. Hopefully its much better then plowing with my rear blade.
I don’t miss the days when we used to start the season with the blades! Once your gravel driveway base is frozen (assuming you aren’t paved) the pull blower is very user friendly once you figure out the operation, like anything else. Mature pines like white pine and red pine like what we have here do get nice thick bark and should be fine. If you have any other questions ever, let us know :)
where in northern Ont? im up in Thunder Bay and looking into buying a MX5400
How's the snow up there? We had an MX5200 open tractor. It was a great machine! We only sold it to move to a cab tractor as our route expanded, and Kubota didn't have an MX offered with a cab back then. 6 hours at the time in a snowmobile suite got old way before half way through the season! Are you looking at the MX5400 for your own driveway or an extended route? Reason I ask is there are some small benefits to got he L series (a chunk more money though) if you're trying to make really good time on a big route. Otherwise the MX tractors are great! We are in Muskoka.
Good luck with your tractor search and thanks for watching!
@@ranchroadhomestead what advantage do you think the grand l has over mx? From what I can tell the main differences are the transmission has a few more ranges which i think most people dont even use, air ride seat, gas tank fill up is lower.
Hi! Well I'll tell you from our perspective, which is basically coming from a time saving, efficiency as top priority, mainly since we have a long day for three tractors after a snow:
1. The transmission is a big one... We blow snow in mid range most of the time. A medium snowfall, in the L tractor I prefer to use Mid Turtle (Let's use Turtle/Rabbit terminology since those are the symbols Kubota uses). So imagine blowing snow in a large parking lot, and having to start at a garage or curb. Mid Turtle allows your to have more precision to slow down your back up and drop the blower when you get close to something, then pull away and blow the snow. But to back up over that large area to start your next pass, you would want to flick the 'Rabbit' selector to back up faster to your target, and then flick back to 'Turtle' again to carefully approach your blowing starting spot again. This selection is all done on the fly which is amazing really. When you are shifting full ranges like from L-M-H, you have to stop completely, and shift ranges. Travelling on our steep roads, in high range, there are times when I get to a steep hill and flick down into High Turtle to go up the hill, again on the fly without stopping. Then when I reach the top of that hill, I just flick up into Rabbit. These are all little time savers that do add up at the end of a long day.
2. MX6000 comes with no rear hydraulic remotes remember, so if you want those for chute rotators, top links, hood deflectors etc. those are additional options, where the L comes with 2 standard here in Ontario.
3. L has opening wing windows, which some people love.
4. the control layout for throttle, 3 point lift, and rear remotes is MUCH, MUCH better on the L!
5. The filler being low on the L is so much nicer. Half way through the day on our MX6000, when we need to add fuel, I climb onto the tire with a fuel can and funnel and fill from the top, and so often cant tell when to stop. Not at all safe or ideal.
6. The MX is also a smaller tank, so you wont have as much working time.
7. The L has an LCD display, letting you know when a regen is going to happen, as well as a fuel counter letting you keep track of how much fuel you have used per hour etc.
8. The L has some fancy advanced computer settings for throttle, HST response etc. which honestly we haven't played with doing snow. But some folks might like those features.
So you have to decide if it's worth the big buck upgrade from the MX series to the Grand L series. For us and our needs, we have decided the L is the way to go, as nice as the MX6000 really is.
@@ranchroadhomestead wow thanks for the amazing reply !!! Now to convince the wife !
@ranchroadhomestead so yeah I ended up getting a Grand L3560 Cab with a 64" front mount Kubota Commercial Blower, air ride seat, full led kit head lights , and work lights front and back, La805 Loader, and the 72" land pride box blade , still sadly waiting for snow up here in the north .. I know I wont miss plowing with my quad come snow piling up! its going to be so nice to be warm and toasty with tunes and a coffee cup lol
Ditch the bucket, get a snowpusher with built in back drag.
Would be great to try a snowpusher. The only downside is that it would have to be a fairly narrow one as a bunch of our driveways are tight even with the 6' bucket. Trees on sharp turns etc. don't leave any room for the front corners of the tractor's loader attachments to swing. It's hard to have one machine setup that does it all when every driveway is so different unfortunately, but we sure do have some driveways where a pusher would be awesome. Thanks for watching!
@@ranchroadhomestead I do 200 drives. Pusher up front, blower on back. Best set up I have used.
The back drag would be great at garage doors I bet.
So in another words pull type snow blowers is not the answer... But I already knew that... Once you get sugar snow tractor starts hopping good way to take out a differential or axle....
It really depends, as everyone can have a slightly different approach to snow removal needs. Sugar snow can take some time to form, and we have always had our snow cleared well before that type of snow layer forms. For sure if one prefers to wait and a go a few heavy snow falls later before doing their driveway, then a pull blower would not be the best choice. However, for our route and customer needs, the pull type blowers suite us best. Thanks for watching and happy clearing!
One advantage of a rear mounted blower of either configuration is better maneuverability…try getting around 90 degree corner on a narrow trail/drive with a front mounted blower!
Very good point, so many of our driveways have turns like you mention and it’s a breeze compared to pushing snow. Thanks for watching!
I open my garage door and the snow is 60 inches deep. Overnight. One night. Pretty sure I'll stick with my front mount blower. Lake effect like we get rear pull useless.
Yikes, almost sounds like you’d need a double auger blower for that kind of snow. But yeah, pull blowers aren’t for everyone. Thanks for watching!