Advice Needed Before I Destroy My Driveway

[Spencer]

I am new to the compact tractor scene. I bought a new New Holland TC33D at the end of December. I am using a Bush Hog 6 Foot 35-06 rear blade for snow removal. Unfortunately I am removing a lot of dirt along with the snow when I use the rear blade for snow removal. This blade does not have shoes on it nor does it have provisions for accepting them. What can I do to minimize the damage to my driveway while I am removing the snow? Should I have the blade tilted forward or back? I have it straight up and down right now. Any advice?

Thanks, Spence

 

[HR_Mutt]

Spencer
Until the ground freezes I've had the best results by shortening the top link so that the blade tilts forward, making it less aggressive. Also, are you pulling it forwards rather than pushing in reverse? You might want to also try taking some of the weight off with your 3ph lift.
regards
Mutt

 

[Thomas]

Like HR Mutt wrote..once your driveway frozen..
Can you set hyd so your blade about half inch or so from the ground than travel so.
There been many thread about adding skid shoes to rear blade,and there will worth the dollars.

 

[Boondox]

Spence -- I have a gravel driveway, and found that by either plowing in reverse or reversing the blade and driving forward (with the convex edge of the blade leading) I disturb nary a stone. As previously mentioned, it's all academic once the ground is frozen solid.

Pete in Brrrmont

 

[gordon]

About skid shoes,,Does your blade have a bolt on cutting edge at the bottom of the blade? I'm guessing it does. The way skid shoes mount to a rear blade is by removing two of the bolts that hold on the cutting edge and the skid shoe mount bolts on to the edge that way. At least thats the way it works for my landpride blade. I've got the skid shoes and they work ok unless the gravel is real deep and loose. As it's already been said use the blade backwards or drive in reverse. Or you could go all out. Buy a gauge wheel and that way you could use it in the summer as well. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Gordon

 

[HR_Mutt]

Spencer
I forgot to mention turning the blade around! Good thing the others are more awake than I was. Good Luck/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Mutt

 

[frank_f15]

i can only reconfirm what the others have said.less aggressive on the blade angle, up a little with the 3 pt.do u have position control?

 

[RPM]

Just plowed my neighbors gravel drive with my rear blade - found the best way to do it was driving forward with the convex side of the blade forward too. I also have skid shoes. Once I did this it went very quickly and easily - only 4" of snow though! Really just an excuse for more tractor time /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[duanet]

Spencer,
With my vast experience (we had four inches to plow twice this winter) I found that reversing the blade and pushing or pulling with the convex side worked best for me, as most of the others have suggested.

One other thing, since my driveways are cut out of hills and on edges of banks, I "floated" the tilt on my back blade by removing the locking pin. This allows the tractor and blade to be on different horizontal planes. I realize that many back blades do not have the tilt feature, but if your driveways are not all level and you have tilt, it's worth a try and works real good for me.

Duane

 

[Spencer]

Thanks Everybody,
I will shorten up the toplink so that the blade tips forward. I have been plowing moving forward with the blade facing forward as well. If the toplink doesn't help enough then I will try turning the blade around or going in reverse. I do have an adjustable stop on my 3 point lever. The problem using that is that there are a lot of dips in the driveway so when my front end goes down into a dip the rear blade is lifted off the ground and when I come out of the dip the rear blade digs in too deep. The first few snows we got here everything was fine because the ground was pretty hard. Since then we have had a thaw and thats when things got more difficult.

What positions do you all use for your FEL? My New Holland has a float feature but if I angle the bucket level or slightly up it doesn't clear well and if I angle it slightly down it digs in even though it is in the float position.

Thanks, Spence

 

[JimMorrissey]

Pete,

Hey, just a side note here......I saw what I believe was your wife this morning in Richmond! I was turning left to go to the interstate and she drove past me. The only reason I knew it was her was your gatewaytovermont.com sign was on the Subaru. You have a beautiful dog there too.

 

[Boondox]

Jim -- Yup, that was her! Small world! The dog was a rescue being taken to safety via the Canine Underground Railroad: CURR. In abuse cases, we get them as far away as possible as quickly as possible. That fellow was headed for Pennsylvania via a half dozen volunteer drivers.

So if you live that close, why not bring your sled up for a try at my bobsled run..?

Pete

 

[benewton]

I've the same problems you have, including my first, and probably only, tractor.

I've only about 175' of driveway, which is called gravel in New Hampshire, but dirt elsewhere, but also get to plow to the woodpile, clear pads for turn arounds, etc. I'll also get to try to level the whole mess in the spring, a problem I'll deal with when I get there!

I'm using a TC-40D with a Land Pride 3584 rear blade, T+T, and the 16LA FEL.

We've had only a single 8" snowstorm so far, with the remainder being 2-3" or so, none of the above being important given that we run 4WD in our Blazer and F150. Still, you 'gotta do the job...

I've done best with the blade plowing backwards, blade in the "normal" reversed bulldozing position, with the ground frozen, of course. The FEL, float position be damned, is useful only for pile removal, so far as I can tell.

Good tractor, smart buyer, stupid operator....

So it goes!

 

[gordon]

It takes time to get the hang of it. I've got the exact same blade as you. I really good investment is a reargauge wheel or skidshoes so the blade doesn't dig in to much. I've attached a picture of my blade showing the rear gauge wheel. In the pic's the skidshoes are on their mounts but upside down of course.

I'm gunna have a blast with this new camera.
Gordon

 

[Spencer]

Well we finally got some more snow so I got to try some of the advice out. The ground here in Western Michigan is not even close to being frozen so it was a true test.

I first tried shortening up the toplink to make the blade less aggressive. That didn't seem to help a whole lot because the toplink was already set pretty short.

Then I tried rotating the blade around so that the convex side was to the front. This helped a lot but was still not the best method due to my driveway configuration. I have to pull the snow away from my garage and then push it into my turnaround which is 90 degrees from my main drive. When I would try to pull the snow with the blade convex, my tractor would run over the piles of snow that I pulled away from the garage and everytime the tractor tilted a little to one side or the other the rear blade would dig into the ground.

Then I rotated the blade again to its original position with the concave side toward the tractor. I swiveled my seat to one side and pushed all the snow while driving backwards. This way the convex side of the blade was still pushing the snow and the tractor would never tilt because the ground was cleaned up by the blade before the tractor traveled over it.

I knew that the swivel seat would come in handy for something. The Kubota that I was considering (L3010) had armrests but no swivel seat. The NH TC33D that I ended up with had no armrests but the swivel seat. At least I can add the armrests later if I want to.

Thanks Again,
Spence

 

[HR_Mutt]

Spencer
That heavy wet snow on top of the fact it had been in the 50's for days before it arrived, it's hard NOT to cause damage. The only spots where I did not scrub up some gravel are where I used fel in float with leading edge tilted up, leaving some snow which may turn to ice. We'll get some more warm days and you can put it all back in place again./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
regards
Mutt