Videos of Your Snow Weapons in Action

[airbiscuit]

Nice video and looks the blower is working great after your modifications Hillbilly. Are those four banging noises from ice chunks?

They aren't cyclical like a rotating fan hitting a shroud, but one offs like a chunk of ice being launched.

 

[kco]

The most audible audible are at 21:11:31, 21:12:19, 21:12:21, and 21:12:40 from the clock in the upper left of the video. As you say, likely ice chunks or small rocks from the plowing. I got a few similar events from bones my dog leaves in the snow. He finds ones he has hidden and digs them out when we go for a walk. So for now we've cut out giving him new bones, and I think the ones he buried a several days ago are under too much snow for him to find.

I previously cleared one neighbour's driveway which had steep banks that would dislodge rocks. I bent the auger with one of them. I was able to finish the season and my dealer straightened the auger in the summer. There was one other one the size of a softball that made it through with no damage. I got smarter and learned to stay farther away from the steep banks.

 

[metalbender]

Did you keep the old blower for the next big event? Would be nice to have for "back up"

 

[KenLysons]

Sorry, this is a video but I can't get it to upload

 

[Hilbilly]

I checked the blower and can't find any signs of the fan or auger hitting anything. I did notice there were quite a few scratches in the chute that were not there before. My guess is it was rocks but could have been ice chunks. I know there are a lot of rocks in that area but I thought they were further over. Next fall I will clear rocks a little further to the sides of the driveway.

I severely bent the auger on my old blower a couple of times the first winter I got it. Those were large rocks about the size of a basketball. I now know to go over the driveway every fall and rake off any rocks the size of a golf ball or larger. I finally straightened the auger out this fall before the snows came and the blower works better now. I used oxy / propane and got the auger red hot. A few wacks with the 12 lb persuader and it's good as new.

metalbender,

I am definitely keeping the old blower. So far this year I've had more need for it than the new one. Much of that is because I didn't start with the inverted blower and therefore developed some very high snow banks, which needed to be blown back. Then when I got the new blower it had some problems and couldn't be used until I came up with a fix. Now the weather has warmed up and I don't see any significant snow in the forecast. I also use the rear facing blower to get rid of the snow that falls off the roofs of my buildings. For those uses I would prefer a front mount blower. But If I get ambitious I can convert my rear facing blower to a front mount hydraulic unit and use it on the FEL. I made the old blower into a dual function blower last year. The hydraulic version isn't as powerful but it is nice to blow back high piles of snow, as I can reach very high with it.

 

[Hilbilly]

Here's a couple of videos of the old blower. One is this year when I used it to blow back snow from my wood shed and the other is from last year when I did a trial run with the same blower mounted on the FEL.
Kubota Blowing Snow - YouTube
Converted 3PTH Snowblower - YouTube

Here's another video showing our driveway as of yesterday. This is the biggest reason for getting the inverted blower. Note this does not contain a tractor. But I guess you could consider the Ranger I was riding in a snow weapon.
Winter Run Down the Driveway - YouTube

edit: added last video.

 

[chim]

Hilbilly, do you have any build info or video of the FEL-mounted blower? What is the hydraulic source? Thanks

 

[Gordon Gould]

^^^^^^ I would like to see that info too. What kind of pto hp and hydraulic flow and pressure does it take to do that. Very nice working machine !!

gg

 

[metalbender]

That's one heck of a toboggan run you have there. I've seen the converted blower video before. looks pretty sweet. Doing one like that is pressing on my mind. If I could find a low priced blower, I have a rather large motor from a rock picker, $600 for the pump at Princess. Haven't found the specs on the motor yet. Where did you route the hoses and control valve?

 

[Hilbilly]

Chim,

The only video I have is the converted 3pth one, linked above. The hydraulic source is a homemade hydro power pack. I'm pretty sure I posted pics of the power pack before and will see if I can find them. It is an oddball build though because I had a hydraulic pump that I got an auction and wanted to use that instead of buying a typical PTO pump, like those available at Princess Auto or Surplus Center. Using a PTO pump would have been much easier and less complex.

Gordon,
I don't know how much PTO hp it takes to run one. My Massey 1547 had 38 PTO hp and it wasn't an issue. The blower would bog down due to lack of torque but the tractor never skipped a beat. I can't recall the hp that was produced by the hydro pack but think it was in the order of 20 hp maybe less. The pressure was only 2200 psi and that is why there was not enough torque, in my opinion. I believe that is the reason I had to go so slow but I could be wrong, since I never installed a pressure gauge to monitor the pressure in the feed line to see if it was going into relief. The hyd flow is variable with my setup and I would run it at around 16 to 18 gpm and that would spin the motor at 600 rpm, which produced a much further throw.

metalbender,
The hoses were only hung under the tractor with ropes and tie wraps, since I remove the hoses when not using the blower. I am considering making hard lines to permanently mount to the tractor because I now have also built a front mount brush hog that is offset and that uses the hydro pack too. The control valves are all on the hydro pack.

I'll see if I can find my previous post and link it here.