Will a BX Plow Snow

[kcender]

I am wanting to hear from BX owners on their experiences plowing snow,especially with the FEL bucket.My situation is that I have a BX2360 that I now only use for mowing and an L3240 with FEL and BH.I am thinking of selling the 3240 because I bought it to do work on my property and now the work is done.The only reason I have to keep it is to plow snow which I may do, but it is a lot of money sitting there just to plow my driveway.I have had a BX25 with a front blade and I found it to make quite a mess of my gravel driveway.I also used a walk behind snowblower for a few years and found that too made quite a mess.With the FEL bucket on the 3240 I am able to clear the snow and hardly make any mess which is why I prefer using the FEL bucket even though it is slower.I have about 300 feet of driveway so the little extra time of using the FEL is not a concern.Plowing with the 3240 is almost effortless because of the weight which is just under four tonnes with the loaded tires and me sitting on it.I know the BX will be lighter and slower but I am wondering if it is capable of plowing or will I just be frustrated with it?In order to gear it up I will need a loader valve,FEL,tire chains,and extra lighting which I figure will cost me around 4500 dollars.This is money that has to come from the sale of the 3240 if I sell it.I can use my aerator for rear ballast which I can adjust from about 270 pounds up to about 700 pounds so that is not a concern.This is the my main consideration of whether to sell my 3240,will the BX 2360 be capable of plowing snow with the FEL bucket.I have read conflicting opinions on this so I am curious to hear from actual BX owners on their experiences,I know there are lots of them on here.

 

[gerford]

Yep, It'll plow. You can see the snow is above the blade and deeper than the rear tires. Since this picture I've put chains on the rears and almost nothing stops it. If the blade is perpendicular to the travel, it doesn't stop. When the blade is angled the snow can push the front of the tractor off to the opposite side so I've figured out how to plow the really deep snow without having an angle on the blade. 2 winters ago we had 18" each night for 3 nights and I ran out of places to put the snow, but the BX 23 kept pushing it. I bought the front snow blower last year and of course that meant no snow.

 

[sw18x]

I purchased a BX2360 last year. In order to justify the purchase, my tractor had to be an all season machine, but unfortunately, I couldn't afford a snow blower attachment, so I went with a rear blade instead for about 400bucks. Last winter I only had to plow a few times (weird winter, we got hardly any snow here), but here's what I found: the FEL is ok for clean up work especially if you back blade with it, but personally I can't picture plowing an entire driveway with it, it's pretty inefficient for snow removal. It sounds like you have experience plowing with the FEL on your larger tractor and it worked for you, but I found a rear blade to be much quicker and more efficient at pushing snow. If your question is will the BX have the traction and power to push snow, Gerford's post confirms that it will, but I'd highly recommend getting a rear blade to supplement the FEL if you can't afford a snowblower attachment. If you do, I'm certain you'll find it's the FEL that ends up supplementing the rear blade, not the other way around. I have a gravel driveway much shorter than yours, my technique was to leave the rear blade facing forward like this: Front of Tractor Rear of Tractor ) where the parentheses indicates the curvature of the blade, and plow by driving in reverse. This did a much better job of pushing the snow than the FEL, and limited the amount of stone the blade scraped from the driveway. In addition, the rear blade will provide extra ballast in the snow for traction. Good luck, next step is a cab and a heater to keep you warm and toasty!

 

[gerford]

Heres my heated cab. Ski helmet, goggles, ski jacket and pants and I'm toasty warm. All I need are some electric goggle wipers.

 

[gerford]

View attachment 275282
Heres my heated cab. Ski helmet, goggles, ski jacket and pants and I'm toasty warm. All I need are some electric goggle wipers.

 

[RaydaKub]

Your BX will push a LOT of snow with the FEL. I have a BX2230, so a tad smaller than yours. I got mine last fall and it was a fairly wimpy winter, but I had no problem pushing the bucket through a 3 foot pile of snow. What annoyed me the most about the FEL is that it spills off to both sides. So you end up making 3 passes instead of one. It gets the job done just fine, I just don't find it efficient. I am looking for a rear blade this winter, but might have to balance that off with 2 kids in college. If I do that, I will probably still push the snow with the fel, but then tilt the blade to one side and try to get the spilll all over to one side. I've got loaded rears, turfs all around. I have a 3ph weight bar of about 275 lbs. The blade might be comparable weight, so I don't think traction will be an issue. I'm a little concerned about the bucket edge scraping into my pavement and a blade with a hard rubber edge would alleviate those fears.

 

[radioman]

Yup -- I think the BX will plow just fine on blacktop with no chains. I even plow my path in woods with the same setup with turf tires/no chains/loaded tires.

 

[Scooby074]

BX is very light on the front end particularly when the loader is down and taking weight off the wheels. Its quite hard to steer when plowing. Lots of power for pushing however.

 

[OrangeRidge]

Keep the L3240 ! It's in a different league .

 

[dstig1]

How the heck do you come up with 4 ton (8000 lbs) for a 3240? My 3130 (same basic machine, more or less) clocks in at about 5500-6000 by my math. Rimguard in the rears, FEL and something on the 3 pt. If you have a cab, I'll spot you another 400-500 lbs, but we're still way short of 8000 lbs... Just curious.

 

[kcender]

How the heck do you come up with 4 ton (8000 lbs) for a 3240? My 3130 (same basic machine, more or less) clocks in at about 5500-6000 by my math. Rimguard in the rears, FEL and something on the 3 pt. If you have a cab, I'll spot you another 400-500 lbs, but we're still way short of 8000 lbs... Just curious.

Dry weight of tractor-3400,fluids-200,loaded tires-900,FEL-1500,backhoe-1700,and me-200.These are the numbers I have read for a total of 7900 pounds which is close to 4 tons.You have the right to disagree but I would like to keep this thread about plowing with a BX.

 

[jb62901]

I made a 5' blade for my BX2360 and yes it will plow snow. I never felt the need for chains. Snow depth ranged from 15-20"

snow plowing 1/8/11 - YouTube

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

I'm from Ky which isn't much of a snow state but year before last we got our ten year allotment in one winter. At that time I had a BX2660 FEL(I think, just know it was a BX for sure). I had turfs on it and figured I'd have to wait till after noon to get it back up the hill to its storage building. Usually in Ky the snow is gone by noon. Guess we had almost a foot of snow one of the days and I was shocked and surprised at what that BX with turf tires did in the snow. I have over 200' of concrete driveway that's fairly steep and it scooped/pushed the snow with next to no hesitation. Course most of my pushing was on the downhill run but came back up with no problem. Didn't have weighted tires and not sure I even had any thing on the 3ph for weight.
Yes, a BX will push and scoop snow and our snow is wet and not dry snow.

 

[radioman]

I'm from Ky which isn't much of a snow state but year before last we got our ten year allotment in one winter. At that time I had a BX2660 FEL(I think, just know it was a BX for sure). I had turfs on it and figured I'd have to wait till after noon to get it back up the hill to its storage building. Usually in Ky the snow is gone by noon. Guess we had almost a foot of snow one of the days and I was shocked and surprised at what that BX with turf tires did in the snow. I have over 200' of concrete driveway that's fairly steep and it scooped/pushed the snow with next to no hesitation. Course most of my pushing was on the downhill run but came back up with no problem. Didn't have weighted tires and not sure I even had any thing on the 3ph for weight.
Yes, a BX will push and scoop snow and our snow is wet and not dry snow.

:laughing: your wet snow must be different then our wet snow!

 

[dstig1]

Ah - backhoe. I got it now.

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

:laughing: your wet snow must be different then our wet snow!

The southern states highways are littered with Yanks when we have snow. They quit saying they have driven on snow covered roads all their lives when we pull them out of ditches with a grin. I drove in Montana for a few years and the snow there is a lot easier to drive on than Ky snow. Hit someone with a snow ball in the Soutern states (or a baseball sized piece of limestone which is about the same hardness) and it's almost a felony when the visctim gets out of the hospital.:laughing:

 

[taborekle]

There's snow and then there's SNOW. I'm not talking so much about the height of it as the weight of it. Some snow can be so light and flaky that even a foot or two would not tax a TX, but other snow could be so heavy and sticky that a blade on a BX would not work.

If you want the blade on the L series to not tear up your gravel, try bringing in the top link so that it's as short as possible, and the blade has basically zero cut. It will still divert snow when angled, but it will not dig into your gravel. If that doesn't work, then try shoes for the blade on the L.

 

[case245]

i had i bx 25 to get me unstuck 2 yrs ago to go the 100 foot in 20inches of snow it took 3 hrs to get to my truck the bx could not budge my truck i put hoe bucket down on bumper till the back wheels came off ground to put wieght on my truck that work they are a lawn mower with a bucket i have an 7040su fel 4x4 loaded rears cast centers

 

[dodge man]

I dug out my driveway and part of my township road from about 2 feet of snow using the FEL. Its slow, but when its that deep, its the FEL or a blower. My rear blade wouldn't do a thing, there was no place to push the snow to.

 

[Dick]

In a tough winter (lots of snow) you can probably push the snow with your BX but at some point, you will run out of places to put it. A blower goes a long way to fixing that problem however in really bad winters that fel on your 3240 may be your only hope. Then again with this "global warming" we will probably need earthmoving equipment to build dikes around our houses.