Not enough tractor or bad strategy?

[Gio]

Had my first real snow and I failed to get out of my 1/4 mile lane. We had about 8 inches come down, I cleared that ok..then the wind came in. Overnight some parts of my lane piled up to 20-25 inches. I worked at it for about 4 hours and by time i got one spot clear the wind would cover it back up in a few hours. I had a hard time getting up my hill to try blading on the way down. After the wind died down I went back out and had a heck of a time. In the end I was bailed out by my neighbor with his Deere 8300 and massive rear bucket. It was very emasculating. Sitting there on my GC I felt like I just walked out of an NFL locker room shower.

I have a Massey GC2400 with an FEL and 4ft rear blade. The Blade would load up with snow and stop the tractor, the FEL was ok but I had nowhere to pivot and dump. I admit it, I am a city boy who just moved to the country and i have no idea what i am doing but I am willing to learn.

What am i doing wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Should I switch to a blower set up? Should I get a bigger tractor? Should I bribe my Neighbor with my excellent cooking?

HELP!!

 

[ihuntbear]

you might have better luck with a snow blower.That way you can shoot it with the wind

 

[Lou_B]

Tire chains give you the traction needed to handle deep snow with a back blade. Also try running with the blade at an angle so that the snow does not pile up in front of it.

If your neighbor has a pickup with a plow on the front, that is the best option. Bribery almost always works!

Lou Braun

 

[flusher]

Had my first real snow and I failed to get out of my 1/4 mile lane. We had about 8 inches come down, I cleared that ok..then the wind came in. Overnight some parts of my lane piled up to 20-25 inches. I worked at it for about 4 hours and by time i got one spot clear the wind would cover it back up in a few hours. I had a hard time getting up my hill to try blading on the way down. After the wind died down I went back out and had a heck of a time. In the end I was bailed out by my neighbor with his Deere 8300 and massive rear bucket. It was very emasculating. Sitting there on my GC I felt like I just walked out of an NFL locker room shower.

I have a Massey GC2400 with an FEL and 4ft rear blade. The Blade would load up with snow and stop the tractor, the FEL was ok but I had nowhere to pivot and dump. I admit it, I am a city boy who just moved to the country and i have no idea what i am doing but I am willing to learn.

What am i doing wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Should I switch to a blower set up? Should I get a bigger tractor? Should I bribe my Neighbor with my excellent cooking?

HELP!!

So which way do you prefer to plow with the snowblower? Going forward? Or backing up?

If you don't mind backing up to plow, the blower can attach to your 3 pt hitch and run off your pto. No modifications needed for your tractor.

If you want to plow going forward, you need to get a skid steer quick attach adapter for your FEL and a hydraulic power pack hanging on your 3pt hitch and run off the pto. Looks expensive to me.

If you want to get a blade for your FEL so you can plow going forward, then you'll need the skid steer QA setup for the blade and for your FEL bucket so you can swap them on the FEL arms. The QA setup on my Mahindra 5525 tractor with the ML250 FEL (6ft bucket) cost about $1K installed.

Good luck.

 

[jake98]

'I see a bigger tractor in your future..'
Edit: 'no, wait.. A house in Florida..'

 

[bp fick]

To be really, really honest, a subcut, armed with a 4' rear blade and a loader isn't much of a match against snow drifts, in open country like that. I can see from your one photo that you did indeed have your blade tilted to the max?
You DO need to blade very wide upon cleaning a drive. A blade wider, on either side, more than your normal "two track" drive width. Gotta strategize that you'll need to make it really wide, while you still can, early on.

You said you had it all cleaned, but overnight the wind drifted it back in?

Unless you were willing to go out every 3 hours during the night and re-clean in 3"-5" bits, there wasn't much hope. Yup, that was too much for your tractor.

Nebraska means winds and drifting. Go Big Red!!

 

[JJZ 109]

To be really, really honest, a subcut, armed with a 4' rear blade and a loader isn't much of a match against snow drifts, in open country like that. I can see from your one photo that you did indeed have your blade tilted to the

True enough, so don't feel bad about not being able to complete the job.
I ran into the same scenario once while trying to bail a friend out of a jamb.
His was probably a little less than a half mile but was a winding driveway. At the time I had no blower, just my JD 790 with FEL and a ballast box. Stuff just drifts in too hard sometimes. I did a lot of wheel spinning and bucket maneuvering but only got about a quarter of it done before I quit.
Should have known better, since an old tractor with a 7 foot blower tried before me and had to quit due to mechanical failure on the blower.

 

[devildog1]

Listen you received some good advice here now I'm going to tell you what you need to do. You have two options, one buy either a front or a rear pto snowblower,they will take care of almost all drifts. But as others have said front snowblower is $$$,Rear blower will work just fine but you need to be half turned in seat to see where your blowing snow.Second option would be a larger tractor, but even whith a large tractor and fel or plow you have banks of snow. That could work for you if you bank on the prevailing wind side, it would act like a snow fence. Hope this helps youj decide?
DevilDog

 

[D33r3 6r33N]

Looks like to me you need at least a blower. If you have the property space; I would also start planting some type of tall shrub like forsythia or burning bushes. To act as a natural wind break. I just wouldn't want to put up a snow fence that long every year is all.

 

[JMynes]

No, you don't need a bigger tractor. Get a 3PH snowblower. Mine really clears the snow, was chugging through 24 inches of 'reblown' snow today. Second season, and I remain impressed with the Puma. Reblown snow is what you get when you don't have room to toss it right here, so you blow it in front of you until you get past the side of the house. One foot quickly piles up to two or more.
The small tractor fits into places a bigger one couldn't go. I must say, the cab and heater make it almost too nice. And the electric twist-n-tilt spout are working great!
Yeah, blowing backward is not ideal, but I can spin around and dig with the bucket when I need to. Still my first choice in setups.