Skid steer snow blower on tractor loader?

[hayden]

I have a Kubota L5740 and for years have been clearing a 1/2 mile road plus parking areas with a rear mount PTO snow blower. It works well, but as I get older, being twisted around to see and work backwards is getting old. So I have started thinking about a front mount snow blower.

Kubota of course makes one, but it involves a substantial sub frame that doesn't look easy to install and remove, and as I understand it, the sub frame is incompatible with using the loader. So even if you remove the blower itself, you still can't use the loader unless you remove the whole sub frame. That just won't work for me.

So I've been thinking about using a skid steer snow blower. I have a SS mount on my loader, and I have front hydraulic remotes that could be used for chute rotation. But I don't have enough hydraulic power to drive the blower. I've seen specs in the 16-21 gpm, so I'm figuring on 20 gpm as a round number. I think my choices are a rear PTO pump, or a mid PTO pump. The mid PTO runs at about twice the RPM of the rear PTO, so a smaller pump will work, But somehow I'd have to mount and secure the pump. For a rear PTO there are a variety of commercially available kits, but on first check they seem a bit pricey.

Anyway, I'm interested in thoughts on this approach, and especially interested if anyone has done this before.

Thanks in advance

 

[nybirdman]

You are correct;very expensive($15K) for a front blower for your machine.
I had a Kubota sub-frame set-up and used a snow plow,you are right must remove to reinstall FEL,not that bad if you have a solid pad to do the exchange on.
I can't justify a blower for my uses,have a FEL mounted plow and like that set-up.

 

[shooterdon]

After looking at front mount blowers on the L series Kubota and the LS I came to the same conclusion. I do not want to deal with a subframe that has to installed for the winter and taken off or hooking up a mid mount PTO laying on my back.

I bought a pull blower for my LS. FarmKing 74" for $4k new two years ago. Plus I can mount an old rear blade on a SSQA adapter so I have a blade for scraping and light snow falls. The SSQA adapter was just over $200 but has gone up in price:

Amazon.com: 3-Point Attachment Adapter for Universal Skid Steers, Quick-Attach Equipment : Patio, Lawn & Garden

Amazon.com: 3-Point Attachment Adapter for Universal Skid Steers, Quick-Attach Equipment : Patio, Lawn & Garden

www.amazon.com

I bought an old light duty blade for $100. So I have less than $4500 in my snow removal.

With a light snowfall, you can windrow the snow and then one pass with the blower and you are done.

I get 100-140" of snow a year and so far so good.

 

[4570Man]

Would a plow not do most of the work for you and not have to spend a lot of money or work backwards?

 

[hayden]

Would a plow not do most of the work for you and not have to spend a lot of money or work backwards?

A neighbor plows, but the snow blower is needed for better clean up, and to get the snow more out of the way. It’s a wooded road with limited room to push snow. Eventually is just starts caving back in. The blower is slower, but does a much, much better job -at least in my situation.

 

[oldnslo]

Depending on your snow fall amounts if a rear pull type blower an option? Much less costly than front mount.

 

[hayden]

Depending on your snow fall amounts if a rear pull type blower an option? Much less costly than front mount.

Tempting, but I don't think so. I think the tractor would pack down a 12" snow fall enough that it would be difficult for the pull blower to then pick it up. I also have a number of areas where I really need to be able to go in auger-first. Especially when I need to break open a path to reach the propane tanks for filling. I can be cutting into 3' of snow at that point - way more than the tractor can drive through, even with very aggressive chains.

 

[hayden]

So I'm really interested in whether anyone has experience with a 3ph mounted tank and pump assembly, or perhaps has built one. As I said earlier, I think I need about 20 gpm, but the snow blowers I've seen don't specify the pressure. So in the absence of a spec, I'm presuming 3000 psi. I think some skid steers probably go up to 5000 psi, but I think I'm OK holding it at 3000. With that, 20 gpm at 3000 psi should take about 40 PTO HP which I have. In fact, I might just need 5000 PSI to get equivalent power to what I have now. The snow blower is the only thing that really bogs down the engine, so it's consuming the full 55+ hp available at the PTO. 40 HP would be comparatively under powered. I don't want to have less power that I do now, at least not in an y significant way.

One thing I like about this whole approach is that I should be able to leave the hydraulic power pack in place, and easily swap the blower and bucket as needed. And removing and reinstalling the power pack should be pretty easy too - just like any 3PH implement.

 

[4570Man]

A hydraulic drive like that is fairly inefficient. You’ll loose power regardless of what flow and pressure. That’s a trade off you’ll have to pay to drive forward. You might look into putting a motor on the snow thrower and power it that way.

 

[hayden]

A hydraulic drive like that is fairly inefficient. You’ll loose power regardless of what flow and pressure. That’s a trade off you’ll have to pay to drive forward. You might look into putting a motor on the snow thrower and power it that way.

Yes, I understand there will be some power loss, so all the more important that I be able to extract max available PTO power.

A stand-alone motor on the snow blower is an option too, but we would be looking at around a 50 hp motor, plus whatever clutch and gear reduction is required. That's a pretty big motor, and hard to believe it would be less expansive than a hydraulic power pack.

Speaking of which.... I see Erskin makes a 25 gpm power pack for a bit under $7k. Not cheap by any means, but combined with a SSQA snow blower, still probably less that a Kubota blower plus mount....