Skid steer snow blower on tractor loader?

[Andy12]

Andy, For an alternative, and depending on how handy you are, take a look at my front mounted build thread located here:

Sweepster Rotary Broom - rebuild and modification

I'm going to start this thread a bit ahead of time so I can actually get input along the way rather than just showing finished pics as there are some areas I am less certain of. I have started taking apart bits of it but probably won't get seriously into it until Spring/early summer when it...

www.tractorbynet.com

It was a lot of work but is working well. Yes it is a broom, not a blower, but they are very similar in principle of operation as a hydraulic driven attachment and the lessons there would apply directly to a blower.

Hope this helps.
-Dave

Wow, thanks Dave! V interesting bit of reading. Not sure I’m quite that handy- particularly in the welding dept. But it has made me reconsider the mid pto, which the kioti came with. Iirc, it’s 2000 rpm as standard. Which may well mean no gear needed prior to a hydraulic pump. Of course running a shaft to the front could mean using a direct drive blower. Someone here mentioned doing that but still using his fel as the mount, with chains to restrict the vertical movement to acceptable for the shaft. Although it would involve a gearbox I think, as there aren’t many blowers running at a native 2000rpm pto
So much to consider!

 

[Andy12]

I don't. My assumption would be that it's their own terminology and not of any industry relevance. But perhaps someone who knows hydraulics better could comment.

It appears that Galtech is the Canadian distribution arm of Walvoil who are an Italian hydraulics manufacturer.

I don’t seem to be able to find much comment, adverse or positive, about them from users.

 

[Andy12]

I run a Lucknow rear mount and I never, never turn around and look at where it's going. I have 3 rear facing cams so I watch the screen above my dash instead. I can look left, right and down the center, all at the same time in color too. I use it more when cutting hay but it works fine for the snowblower too.

I wonder if you could take a photo of what you see in the cab, please? The concept sounds promising, but I wonder how easy it is to see exactly where the snow is going, as well as drive, whilst working in reverse. As I approach the village road, I have to drive between houses, and snow placement is fairly critical. Thanks

 

[5030]

Have no snow here to take a picture of, just mud now. In fact I took both the blower and the plow off yesterday. If we get any more snow, the loader bucket can deal with it.

 

[grsthegreat]

Our winter is probibly over here also, got louse 1/2” snow yesterday. Today its -6°F. Looking to warm up all next week. Wont take anything off tractor yet though….thats tempting fate. When i do remove everything, it will be time for full tractor maintenance.

 

[Andy12]

We’ve had a couple of days of warmer weather, around 2or 3 C, so some snow has reduced. But it’s windy and snowing again today with the temp maxing out at 0.6. More forecast in dribs and drabs for a fortnight. Then, usually, most will disappear, we’ll get lulled into a false sense of security and along will come a big dump of wet snow. So no taking chains off yet! Not unusual to need the blower in April

 

[leonz]

Hello Andy,

I know its late in the season but something mull over would be to line the
loader bucket with slick sheet material and attach it using grain elevator bolts
and nyloc nuts.

The UHMW and HMW slick sheet material is easy to cut and fit with a sharp safety
knife and you could use silicone to seal the exposed joints to keep water from
getting in behind the slick sheets.

I am sure you could purchase this plastic sheet locally as well as the grain elevator
bolts which are a short carriage bolt and the nylock nuts.

I will be doing this with the large walk behind snowblower my brothers gave me to use.

 

[hayden]

A quick update....

We got about 8" of snow yesterday so I got another chance to exercise the snow blower. After getting all the initial issues sorted out, I remain very pleased with the machine. Clearing up to 6-8" of snow works great and the tractor (50 HP PTO turning an 84" hydraulic snow blower) has sufficient power. In deeper snow it could really use more power, but with an HST transmission I can just go slower to keep from bogging down the engine too much. But under any condition, the snow blower is the heaviest load the tractor gets, pretty much running at full power/load the entire time I'm using it. I basically regulate speed to keep the RPMs from dropping too much.

I really like the power deflection control. I didn't have that on my last blower, and I think it's a good example of not appreciating the value of something until you actually use one. It's really nice to have full control over where I put the snow.

This machine throws the snow just as far as my previous 74" 3PH blower.

I've adapted pretty well to having less steering traction. Gentle turns work unassisted most of the time. When the wheels start to slip, most of the time I can correct by some combination of slowing down and/or a little brake steering. Worst case I need to stop and back up a bit to get a new angle, or lifting the blower a bit to transfer some weight from the blower to the front wheels. At this point I probably won't both with front chains.

With the oil cooler, oil temps hovers in the 95-115F range which is great. I do have one side effect from the way I wired the cooling fan. If the fan is running and I turn off the tractor, the fan becomes a generator as it slows down and backfeeds the tractor electrics and the engine keeps running for a few seconds after turning off the ignition. It's an odd sensation. It's fixable, but I haven't dug in to figure out how to best do it.

I REALLY like the extra width. I can cut back the sides of the road further without getting the tractor too far to the edge. I can also now reliably clear the road in a single pass out and back. With the old blower there were stretches where I needed to make another pass the get the full width cleared.

And I REALLY, REALLY like operating face-forward. That was the whole motivation for going down this path in the first place, and it's a big Mission Accomplished! My back likes it, my neck likes it, and my ass doesn't get numb leaning on one cheek the whole time.

 

[grsthegreat]

Yup. Been doing this for 10 years now. Makes snow moving much easier on the body.

 

[Andy12]

A quick update....

We got about 8" of snow yesterday so I got another chance to exercise the snow blower. After getting all the initial issues sorted out, I remain very pleased with the machine. Clearing up to 6-8" of snow works great and the tractor (50 HP PTO turning an 84" hydraulic snow blower) has sufficient power. In deeper snow it could really use more power, but with an HST transmission I can just go slower to keep from bogging down the engine too much. But under any condition, the snow blower is the heaviest load the tractor gets, pretty much running at full power/load the entire time I'm using it. I basically regulate speed to keep the RPMs from dropping too much.

I really like the power deflection control. I didn't have that on my last blower, and I think it's a good example of not appreciating the value of something until you actually use one. It's really nice to have full control over where I put the snow.

This machine throws the snow just as far as my previous 74" 3PH blower.

I've adapted pretty well to having less steering traction. Gentle turns work unassisted most of the time. When the wheels start to slip, most of the time I can correct by some combination of slowing down and/or a little brake steering. Worst case I need to stop and back up a bit to get a new angle, or lifting the blower a bit to transfer some weight from the blower to the front wheels. At this point I probably won't both with front chains.

With the oil cooler, oil temps hovers in the 95-115F range which is great. I do have one side effect from the way I wired the cooling fan. If the fan is running and I turn off the tractor, the fan becomes a generator as it slows down and backfeeds the tractor electrics and the engine keeps running for a few seconds after turning off the ignition. It's an odd sensation. It's fixable, but I haven't dug in to figure out how to best do it.

I REALLY like the extra width. I can cut back the sides of the road further without getting the tractor too far to the edge. I can also now reliably clear the road in a single pass out and back. With the old blower there were stretches where I needed to make another pass the get the full width cleared.

And I REALLY, REALLY like operating face-forward. That was the whole motivation for going down this path in the first place, and it's a big Mission Accomplished! My back likes it, my neck likes it, and my ass doesn't get numb leaning on one cheek the whole time.

Sounds about where I would like to be! Update on the search - I keep finding machines exist that I have absolutely never heard of before. On the blower front, it usually ends up finding (after a LOT of searching) that they are way out of my price range. But after thinking I might need to upgrade the tractor to somerhingcwith a bit more grunt, I was looking at Branson tractors. And li and behold, the Branson dealer includes a blower option - front mounted and with hydraulic power pack. Found out it’s by Cerruti (Italian) and seems ok. Perhaps a tad narrow at 1.6m, but previous chat re power available makes me wary of being too greedy. All sounding positive, until I finally got a photo of the pack. The tank looks tiny! Found out that the pack is not by Cerruti, but locally made for the dealer. Blower needs 80l/min and the tank is 35l!! But they’re offering it delivered free (2hrs away), ex demo €2k discount, and willing to bargain re enlarging the tank. Sounds good to me. Think I’d put the tank above the pump, but we’ll see. One point, there doesn’t seem to be a pressure relief valve at the tank end, although there’s a small hose to the bottom of the tank, as well as the big suction hose. Might it be a prv from somewhere further forward? I haven’t seen the machine yet, so don’t know. Other half says get it delivered and save best part of a day, €30 of fuel. And if it’s no good send it back. If it’s only a new prv and tank rebuild over the summer, we’re up on the deal!