Snow Equipment Buying/Pricing Front Blower vs. Rear

[Amvcane]

How many reverse speeds does a 4100 have? Will it travel slow enough in reverse to use a 3pt blower without clutching every few feet?

 

[PILOON]

How many reverse speeds does a 4100 have? Will it travel slow enough in reverse to use a 3pt blower without clutching every few feet?

In my world, Ideal would be any hydrostatic driven blower machine be it front or rear.

My worst experience doing snow was a 4 x 4 plow truck C/W fisher front blade.
Even chained up a 36 inch event is a scary challenge especially if every drive is down hill towards a lake side.
You always wonder if you will get back up.
What I did was raise my blade 6 inches and plow the top layer knowing I could drive thru that remaining 6 or so inches,
You need to adapt to 'system D' aka alternative method.

With hydrostatic you can adjust speed to the rate of blower ingestion.
Ideal would be front $$ blower but sensible is rear mount and a back up camera system to save the sore neck.

 

[fishhead]

Well i'm in the rear pull camp with Tymnorsky and Airbiscuit- just way more efficient and quicker, until you can't drive through the snow.
For someone in Northcentral Pa where the average snowfall is not real big and lately big storms are rare I would think a rear push would be the ticket- best price, tons of used, not brand dependent. That for the big, rare storms and a blade for the rest. Not sure how long the OP's drive is. I couldn't do that since my total plowing is over a mile and I probably blow 30-50 times a year. I would not be able to turn my head.

 

[grsthegreat]

I wonder how the rear inverted blowers are wirking in this 36” storm....i like the idea of them, but just have doubts of driving thru deep snow before the blower

 

[TractorTYMe]

I wonder how the rear inverted blowers are wirking in this 36” storm....i like the idea of them, but just have doubts of driving thru deep snow before the blower

Key to have success with the inverted blower is to do maintenance blowing before it goes above 18''-24'', then they're the cats meow in efficiency. Not the right tool if you have to often deal with drifting above 2'. They should work well in most lake effect states and the Rockies where the snow comes straight down most of the time. North Dakota perhaps not so much.

 

[airbiscuit]

Key to have success with the inverted blower is to do maintenance blowing before it goes above 18''-24'', then they're the cats meow in efficiency. Not the right tool if you have to often deal with drifting above 2'. They should work well in most lake effect states and the Rockies where the snow comes straight down most of the time. North Dakota perhaps not so much.

That's the best description of rear pull capabilities I've seen. Naysayers don't like the idea of driving over snow, but under 18"-24" no problem, and they scrape clean. Not the tool of choice for 3' drifts however. I do think the JD 4100 might be a little small for one though.

 

[RoyJackson]

My 4100 has a quick attach FEL plus a 3pt. hitch and rear PTO.
I'm probably gonna go with a rear blower for that and save the x758 strictly for mowing.
There seems to be an awful lot of extra mounts, hydraulic shutoff etc. that I would need to put on.


Thanks for all your input!
Merry Christmas!

If you were writing about hydraulics for the chute rotation...unless you have a cab tractor, you really don't need that. Manual rotation works fine.
Only problem with an open station tractor using a snow blower is you will get covered with snow occasionally, no matter how the chute is directed. Just need to dress appropriately. I never did, but some guys wear snowmobile suits/helmets

Amvcane has a good point about clutching. According to TractorData.com, your 4100 has 4 reverse speeds ranging from 0.6 MPH to 5.7 MPH. Reverse R1 (0.6 MPH) should work OK
Your 4100 has 17 PTO HP...you'll probably want a 48" rear blower...might sneak by with a 54" blower though

One more point...if you do go for a snow blower, spray the chute, auger, fan and auger/fan housings with something like Pam anti-stick. It's no fun having to chop frozen slush in the chute during a snow storm

 

[The Deerslayer]

I have had no experience with the rear pull, but I would imagine a cab is all but a necessity when keeping a head of accumulation during a major storm?

 

[al3]

Once lived in a place that got between 70 and 110 inches annually; facing forward certainly made the tedious task slightly more palatable. Chute rotation and deflector made dealing with stiff winds easier, but still got a face full of mush too often. Have since moved to a place that gets closer to 35-50 inches. Much of that is mixed ice, slush, melting snow, stuff where the blower is less than ideal if not non-functional. So added a blade out back and have wound up going backwards often.

Not my intention to rehash the push vs pull debate; just being descriptive of what I do----operate at your own risk?.

Takes slightly more than an hour to blow anything up to about 6 inches of snow on my somewhat hilly property. Average about the same amount of time if I am using the blade to push stuff. So going backwards doesn't appear to slow things down. At some point the weight, or lack of it of the 4100 series, limits your push ability.
Despite being a "reverse professional " (back in the day I drove a cutter for Green Giant, which was a pto mounted reel and sickle bar arrangement to cut/window pea vines) my path going backwards is sometimes tad wobbly. And driveway markers suffer abuse as I cut corners.

The previous posters highlighted the cost/benefit of front vs rear. Used 47in JD front blowers in this area run about $1500-$2000. The OE Deere setup for the 4100/4010/4110/4115 works well, is easy to get on and off, but $$$ these days if you need to replace the gearbox. I've used mine in snow up to 16 inches---forward movement was slow, but it ate it.

BTW, I started out with the same blower on a X485. It blew snow about as well as the 4110. Traction wasn't as good, thing drank gas like water, and it had a unfixable cold start surging issues that lead to the upgrade.

Good luck.

 

[airbiscuit]

I get less snow on me with my rear pull than my rear push - I'm moving away from the snow cloud. A cab would be nice, but I'm never really cold.

 

[fishhead]

Nope,
It's all behind you and you are driving away so as long as you are backing up you are good to go. Totally unlike front or rear push where you are moving towards the blower. Unless of course you are talking about the snowfall itself, then of course you are correct

I have had no experience with the rear pull, but I would imagine a cab is all but a necessity when keeping a head of accumulation during a major storm?

 

[fishhead]

Probably about as well as plows- Those storms are cool. I used to live on a mountain in Wv and have seen number of storms with 5+ inches an hour (once we were walking during such a period and it started thundering and it literally got to intense to see to walk , only lasted a couple of minutes but it yielded a couple of inches- couldn't see 10 ft. i'm sure i'll never see that again.)
Most areas that get a huge dump in a Noreaster shut down for a couple of days while the roads get cleared by wheel loaders, graders etc. The big storms aren't common any where in the east outside of L.E. regions often they are well forecast, sometimes like this they over produce.
So do you focus your equipment on the few huge storms or the 95% of the events?

I'm not entirely sure how deep you could get through with fresh snow. With chains on all 4, bucket scraping off the top ft or so and blower raised a bit to lessen drag and add weight to the rear wheels the results might be surprising. Drifting would be another matter as that really packs the snow. I've cleared 24-28 inches in march on a neighbors drive that was sitting for the entire winter- not easy but it did it. There's a video of a member KCO (i think) clearing 28 of storm snow with a fairly small tractor.

Fun to guess at but i don't think I'm likely to run into a storm here that will be an issue.

I had a really cool idea v plow front raised a bit and pull rear - expensive but could get through some stuff i bet

I wonder how the rear inverted blowers are wirking in this 36 storm....i like the idea of them, but just have doubts of driving thru deep snow before the blower

 

[The Deerslayer]

Nope,
It's all behind you and you are driving away so as long as you are backing up you are good to go. Totally unlike front or rear push where you are moving towards the blower. Unless of course you are talking about the snowfall itself, then of course you are correct

Yep...I was talking about the snowfall. I always wait till the storm is over with my rear push. Didn't do that once with my open station, and it wasn't pretty.

 

[RoyJackson]

Obviously this week's Northeast storm would be one of those times where the blower would see use if I were still in Dutchess County NY. I really didn't think it was necessary to point that out.

The OP, jdandme, is in north central Pennsylvania...that's an area (like my old stomping grounds, south central PA) that gets hit hard every 2-4 years...they just did, in fact. Most years, a front or rear blade would be adequate for the whole winter...but what a nor'easter rolls through, the blower is the best option, even if it sets some winters. Even if not necessary for snow removal, the weight of the blower is good rear ballast

 

[RickB]

When my blower was unused I had a 7' rear blade attached. Great for pulling snow away from garage doors, mailboxes, etc. and weight.

 

[fishhead]

but its not really a big snow area-Noreaster's tend to hit east and south of there and lake effect to the west and southwest. You may have seen bigger snowfalls in say York or harrisburg than in Williamsport where the average is 36inches and the all-time biggest snow was this last one at 25in.
It's a little snowier up by the border.

https://www.weather.gov/images/ctp/SnowNormals.png

Great link for Pa snow patterns:
Normal Snowfall in Central PA

Given that I would stay with something in a good quality rear push- cheap, can handle extreme but rare events, easy to mount and dismount and combine that with a rear blade (versatile and keeps loader available) or a loader mounted blade.

The OP, jdandme, is in north central Pennsylvania...that's an area (like my old stomping grounds, south central PA) that gets hit hard every 2-4 years...they just did, in fact. Most years, a front or rear blade would be adequate for the whole winter...but what a nor'easter rolls through, the blower is the best option, even if it sets some winters. Even if not necessary for snow removal, the weight of the blower is good rear ballast

 

[fishhead]

Yep...I was talking about the snowfall. I always wait till the storm is over with my rear push. Didn't do that once with my open station, and it wasn't pretty.

i am spoiled where i live, storm snowfall rates are lower-2 inches per hour here is considered snowing hard, less wind than a nor'easter but we get plenty of snow. open station is fine and i definitely prefer it in the summer

 

[Cycledude]

Well I recently bought a new Meteor 72 inch rear mount 3 point hitch type blower, never used a tractor blower before so obviously I have a lot to learn.
My gravel driveway is about 300 feet long with a pretty good sized yard. For the past 30 years have been plowing with a 8n Ford tractor and a rear mounted plow, it worked pretty well but took 2 or more hours. The new blower will be mounted on a LS XR4155 tractor.
The reason I decided against a front mount blower was because I prefer not to remove the front mount loader and the rear three point hitch system seems like a lot simpler way to mount or dismount the blower.

 

[Cycledude]

Someone mentioned using Pam anti-stick spray , this is the first time I heard anything like that, does it actually help ?

 

[airbiscuit]

Meteor seems to be a pretty good blower for the money. I love my 68" Rear Pull Snowblower.