MarkFromWA
New member
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2021
- Messages
- 18
- Tractor
- Antonio Carraro TTR 7600 Infinity, BCS 737
Four years ago I asked this forum about equipment to clear snow from my long, steep, narrow, curvy driveway (here). The summary is that I’m in North Central WA, we average around 100” of snow per year, my driveway is 1 mile long with a 13% average grade and 21% maximum grade, along with another ½ mile of milder road that we share with neighbors. I received a lot of good advice, but the suggestions were all over the board (get my own plow truck, front-mount snowblower with rear blade, pull-style blower, Unimog, Toolcat, Kubota f-series mower with a snowblower, skid steer, snow cat, bulldozer, helicopter). As it happens, the west-coast importer for Antonio Carraro is an hour away (compared to the nearest Kubota/New Holland/MF/Kioti dealers in a city two hours away) because they’re popular with the apple and cherry orchards. For me, the crucial feature of Antonio Carraro is the ability of some of their models to reverse the operator station and face the 3-point hitch. I started looking for used models but they didn’t come up for sale often here. Eventually I expanded my search and bought a used 500-hour demo unit TTR 7600 Infinity from a dealer in PA which was delivered summer 2023. I bought it with a Bonatti CP3 loader which mounts on the same end of the tractor as the 3-point hitch. It cost in the ballpark of what my second choice option would have cost new (Kubota L6060 with loader and front snowblower).
In the spirit of repaying the advice I received, this is going to be a long post with everything I would have wanted to know about a relatively rare tractor, in case someone is considering a similar setup. The main take-away is that I’m very pleased with my setup for snow clearing.
(I soon upgraded the chute rotation/deflection to hydraulics after taking this photo)
Video:
Snowblower
I bought a 7-foot Frontier SB1184 snowblower. Last year was unusually dry so I didn’t get to use it much. This year has brought more snow than usual. Without the blower, I would already be hiring heavy equipment to push back the plow piles.
As I mentioned in the original thread, a primary concern is working speed because I don’t want to spend all day snowblowing. During the last big snow I was clearing 7 inches of wet-ish snow and found I could move at ~4-5mph while going downhill before bogging down (depending on how much I was cutting into the pile on the side), which is great. My speed is usually limited by low visibility (flat light plus snowblower blizzard is blinding) or being careful around corners rather than the engine. Looking at snowblower options, I learned to focus on the impeller. There are plenty of wide (6’) snowblowers made for 35 hp tractors, but they tend to have smaller impellers. The front-mount snowblowers tend to have smaller impellers, and so I was nervous with a higher-powered tractor that I’d hit the impeller’s limit (and spill snow out the sides of the box) before I hit the tractor’s engine’s limit. I’ve yet to have that scenario with my setup. Going uphill it feels like the transmission uses half the engine just to move 4 or 5 mph, especially when it’s wet and the cutting edge is biting. For most of the driveway I’m only clearing 9’ wide total, so I’m taking a small bite going back uphill and it’s not a problem. I usually take an hour for a trip down to the mailbox and back (3 miles round trip) but that includes working on the parking area, extra passes for pullouts, and sometimes helping out a neighbor.
The primary reason I’m glad I didn’t opt for a front-mount snowblower on a traditional tractor is turning radius. With the reversed seating position of the Antonio Carraro, I have rear steer when snowblowing, which allows a very tight turn without swinging the sides of the snowblower into unblown snow.
A lot of folks recommended pull-type blowers. I’m glad I didn’t for two reasons. First, the push-type snowblower is useful for cleaning up around parking areas, clearing back plow piles for my neighbors, etc. I underestimated how much of this type of work I would be doing. The second reason is that my driveway is quite curvy so I’m constantly making adjustments. With a pull-type I’d be craning my neck constantly to check that the edge of the box is where I want it to be, and to check how much I’m scraping into the base. In the summer, my neck gets sore every time I use the land plane because I’m constantly looking back. As a side note, I had imagined myself in the Kubota using a front snowblower and a rear scraper blade at the same time, but after using a snowblower I can’t imagine managing a second implement simultaneously.
I looked at what I’ll call “euro-style” snowblowers. I’m not sure if there’s a better term, but I’m talking about snowblowers with a gearbox in the middle of the auger, rather than the North American style with a side-mounted roller chain to the auger. In theory, the euro-style should provide an even tighter turning radius by exposing the sides of the auger to cut directly into a snow bank, as well as by removing the gearbox between the impeller and the tractor. Most euro-style manufacturers (e.g. Westa, Kahlbacher, Zaugg, Snow Wolf, Snoquip) are priced out of my budget. I did look long and hard at the Cerruti Super Middle, and there’s an importer in Ontario, but even that came with a decent (50%) premium over north american-style snowblowers, and no local support. I wish there was more availability of this style of snowblower. The other compelling feature I noted is that the moldboard sits closely behind the auger, so presumably they don’t collect much packed snow that has to be cleared out after a snowblowing session lest it freezes in place. These snowblowers tend to run at 1000 rpm rather than 540 with a smaller impeller, and most videos of these snowblowers are working in consolidated snow packs or plow piles, so I’m not sure if they’d be equally suited to efficiently clearing fresh snow.
Traction
The tractor has wide Continental All-ground 440/50-17 tires (perhaps best described as bar-turf tires), which don’t leave room for chains on the non-steering wheels. I put Trygg Safety Grip 7mm chains (euro-style) on the steering wheels.
In early-winter wet snow last year, my truck failed to make it up the steepest part of my driveway with my “summer” tires (Toyo Open Country AT3). My tractor, without chains yet, marched right up an even steeper grade (~25%) without any slipping. The tractor can lock the differential of the non-steering axle or both axles, but I needed neither. I put the chains on for the rest of winter, but I’m impressed by the traction of the non-chained tires. Even going up the steepest section on an icy base I can take an aggressive bite out of the side of the snowbank with traction to spare. I’m still pondering options for modifying the fenders to allow chains on all four.
Despite recommendations, I did not get the tires filled. The tractor by itself weighs over 5000 lbs. The manufacturer’s intended use of the tractor is haying steep slopes in the Alps. As a happy accident, I also have a lot of steep slopes around my house where brush control is a good way to mitigate wildfire danger, and I thought I’d be doing that with my BCS two-wheel tractor. I bought a flail mower for the Antonio Carraro, and it works well on the steep slopes (much faster than the BCS). Filling the tires would put more ground pressure on the grass than I’d like.
Nitrogen Accumulator
Aside from the reversible operator’s station, the other quirky feature of the tractor is a nitrogen accumulator to provide springiness to the 3 point hitch (Antonio Carraro brands this as “uniflex”). The 3-point hitch lift cylinders have a second piston hidden inside attached to the accumulator, so the cylinder can be lifted by either the normal hydraulics or the accumulator. With the accumulator set to less than the full pressure to lift the implement, and the normal hydraulics on float, a portion of the weight of the implement is transferred to the tractor. For example, I can charge the accumulator until it’s lifting nearly all of the 1200 lb snowblower, then I can lift the snowblower off the ground by hand.
I thought this feature would be most useful for limiting how much gravel I pick up. It’s useful for this, but only on certain implements. For implements like a rear blade at an aggressive angle where the blade digs in (or when using my land plane in the summer trying to not dig so far into loose gravel), the digging force and gathered material provides so much downforce that adding lift with the accumulator doesn’t do much until you add so much lift that it’s no longer floating along the ground. I also usually use these implements at a lower engine speed, which makes the accumulator slow to charge when I need it. I mostly use the accumulator with the snowblower which has the cutting edge parallel to the ground. Adding a hydraulic toplink (which unfortunately required a multiplier because I only have two remotes) along with the accumulator has been effective for limiting the gravel picked up. I took the side skid shoes off because they didn’t help where the road is crowned, and they provided too much floatation other times.. My road faces north in some areas and south in others, so it’s not unusual to be frozen solid in some places and exposed thawing gravel in others, and as a result I’m frequently adjusting the toplink and the accumulator when using the snowblower.
The accumulator has also been advantageous for traction. I can transfer some of the weight of the snowblower to the tires, while still letting the snowblower follow the contour of the road. Without this feature I’d be more motivated to put chains on all four tires.
In the spirit of repaying the advice I received, this is going to be a long post with everything I would have wanted to know about a relatively rare tractor, in case someone is considering a similar setup. The main take-away is that I’m very pleased with my setup for snow clearing.
(I soon upgraded the chute rotation/deflection to hydraulics after taking this photo)
Video:
Snowblower
I bought a 7-foot Frontier SB1184 snowblower. Last year was unusually dry so I didn’t get to use it much. This year has brought more snow than usual. Without the blower, I would already be hiring heavy equipment to push back the plow piles.
As I mentioned in the original thread, a primary concern is working speed because I don’t want to spend all day snowblowing. During the last big snow I was clearing 7 inches of wet-ish snow and found I could move at ~4-5mph while going downhill before bogging down (depending on how much I was cutting into the pile on the side), which is great. My speed is usually limited by low visibility (flat light plus snowblower blizzard is blinding) or being careful around corners rather than the engine. Looking at snowblower options, I learned to focus on the impeller. There are plenty of wide (6’) snowblowers made for 35 hp tractors, but they tend to have smaller impellers. The front-mount snowblowers tend to have smaller impellers, and so I was nervous with a higher-powered tractor that I’d hit the impeller’s limit (and spill snow out the sides of the box) before I hit the tractor’s engine’s limit. I’ve yet to have that scenario with my setup. Going uphill it feels like the transmission uses half the engine just to move 4 or 5 mph, especially when it’s wet and the cutting edge is biting. For most of the driveway I’m only clearing 9’ wide total, so I’m taking a small bite going back uphill and it’s not a problem. I usually take an hour for a trip down to the mailbox and back (3 miles round trip) but that includes working on the parking area, extra passes for pullouts, and sometimes helping out a neighbor.
The primary reason I’m glad I didn’t opt for a front-mount snowblower on a traditional tractor is turning radius. With the reversed seating position of the Antonio Carraro, I have rear steer when snowblowing, which allows a very tight turn without swinging the sides of the snowblower into unblown snow.
A lot of folks recommended pull-type blowers. I’m glad I didn’t for two reasons. First, the push-type snowblower is useful for cleaning up around parking areas, clearing back plow piles for my neighbors, etc. I underestimated how much of this type of work I would be doing. The second reason is that my driveway is quite curvy so I’m constantly making adjustments. With a pull-type I’d be craning my neck constantly to check that the edge of the box is where I want it to be, and to check how much I’m scraping into the base. In the summer, my neck gets sore every time I use the land plane because I’m constantly looking back. As a side note, I had imagined myself in the Kubota using a front snowblower and a rear scraper blade at the same time, but after using a snowblower I can’t imagine managing a second implement simultaneously.
I looked at what I’ll call “euro-style” snowblowers. I’m not sure if there’s a better term, but I’m talking about snowblowers with a gearbox in the middle of the auger, rather than the North American style with a side-mounted roller chain to the auger. In theory, the euro-style should provide an even tighter turning radius by exposing the sides of the auger to cut directly into a snow bank, as well as by removing the gearbox between the impeller and the tractor. Most euro-style manufacturers (e.g. Westa, Kahlbacher, Zaugg, Snow Wolf, Snoquip) are priced out of my budget. I did look long and hard at the Cerruti Super Middle, and there’s an importer in Ontario, but even that came with a decent (50%) premium over north american-style snowblowers, and no local support. I wish there was more availability of this style of snowblower. The other compelling feature I noted is that the moldboard sits closely behind the auger, so presumably they don’t collect much packed snow that has to be cleared out after a snowblowing session lest it freezes in place. These snowblowers tend to run at 1000 rpm rather than 540 with a smaller impeller, and most videos of these snowblowers are working in consolidated snow packs or plow piles, so I’m not sure if they’d be equally suited to efficiently clearing fresh snow.
Traction
The tractor has wide Continental All-ground 440/50-17 tires (perhaps best described as bar-turf tires), which don’t leave room for chains on the non-steering wheels. I put Trygg Safety Grip 7mm chains (euro-style) on the steering wheels.
In early-winter wet snow last year, my truck failed to make it up the steepest part of my driveway with my “summer” tires (Toyo Open Country AT3). My tractor, without chains yet, marched right up an even steeper grade (~25%) without any slipping. The tractor can lock the differential of the non-steering axle or both axles, but I needed neither. I put the chains on for the rest of winter, but I’m impressed by the traction of the non-chained tires. Even going up the steepest section on an icy base I can take an aggressive bite out of the side of the snowbank with traction to spare. I’m still pondering options for modifying the fenders to allow chains on all four.
Despite recommendations, I did not get the tires filled. The tractor by itself weighs over 5000 lbs. The manufacturer’s intended use of the tractor is haying steep slopes in the Alps. As a happy accident, I also have a lot of steep slopes around my house where brush control is a good way to mitigate wildfire danger, and I thought I’d be doing that with my BCS two-wheel tractor. I bought a flail mower for the Antonio Carraro, and it works well on the steep slopes (much faster than the BCS). Filling the tires would put more ground pressure on the grass than I’d like.
Nitrogen Accumulator
Aside from the reversible operator’s station, the other quirky feature of the tractor is a nitrogen accumulator to provide springiness to the 3 point hitch (Antonio Carraro brands this as “uniflex”). The 3-point hitch lift cylinders have a second piston hidden inside attached to the accumulator, so the cylinder can be lifted by either the normal hydraulics or the accumulator. With the accumulator set to less than the full pressure to lift the implement, and the normal hydraulics on float, a portion of the weight of the implement is transferred to the tractor. For example, I can charge the accumulator until it’s lifting nearly all of the 1200 lb snowblower, then I can lift the snowblower off the ground by hand.
I thought this feature would be most useful for limiting how much gravel I pick up. It’s useful for this, but only on certain implements. For implements like a rear blade at an aggressive angle where the blade digs in (or when using my land plane in the summer trying to not dig so far into loose gravel), the digging force and gathered material provides so much downforce that adding lift with the accumulator doesn’t do much until you add so much lift that it’s no longer floating along the ground. I also usually use these implements at a lower engine speed, which makes the accumulator slow to charge when I need it. I mostly use the accumulator with the snowblower which has the cutting edge parallel to the ground. Adding a hydraulic toplink (which unfortunately required a multiplier because I only have two remotes) along with the accumulator has been effective for limiting the gravel picked up. I took the side skid shoes off because they didn’t help where the road is crowned, and they provided too much floatation other times.. My road faces north in some areas and south in others, so it’s not unusual to be frozen solid in some places and exposed thawing gravel in others, and as a result I’m frequently adjusting the toplink and the accumulator when using the snowblower.
The accumulator has also been advantageous for traction. I can transfer some of the weight of the snowblower to the tires, while still letting the snowblower follow the contour of the road. Without this feature I’d be more motivated to put chains on all four tires.
