I currently have a 45 hp new holland tractor with rear mount snowblower and hydraulic chute. One of the reasons I went with new holland years ago was because their seat swiveled about 20 degrees and it makes turning around looking backwards easier. I was always able to use my front bucket to break up high banks for my neighbors that would call me that have cottages and only come up a couple times in winter. Then it was easy to finish blowing their drives out. The neighbor came over the other day with a smaller 23 hp kubota with front mount blower and it was pretty amazing how much easier it was. None of the driveways I do are very long I may be selling my glass business in the near future and I will be getting a hydrostatic drive tractor with factory cab and leave the current set up with my glass shop. The new holland I have currently is gear drive and I do not like it for blowing snow. I only drove the kubota for a few minutes but it was definitely easier on my neck and back. I do not quite understand how the front mount is all attached yet I am going to a dealer and see what is involved to mount the front blower every year.
The Kubota likely has a mid mount pto that faces forward. It will have the standard rear mount as well.
I used one at the airport with the front mount snow blower and a box blade on the rear great for any kind of snow clean up.
I can see why the gear would be a bother. I had a kubota and I was not impressed with thier front mount blower with that model. I think walmart snow blowers had thicker steel. :o That is why I went with a rear mounted one,3/16 steel. I have a dirt driveway and than I live on a dirt road. With the rear one,I just turn sideways in the seat and go. I do have problems with my neck,but it does not bother blowing the snow. Tractor is a hydro. Than when I got rid of the kubota,I was able to put it on the back of a NH. Kinda hard to get any front mount and than put it on another kind of tractor. ;D
I have an 8.5 foot rear mount that spends 99% of its life buried in a snow bank. I plow about a half mile of driveway and lots of yard area, by the time I snowblow it all my neck and back hurt for 2 weeks from all the turning. And when it snows daily my neck would be busted until june.
I always say someday I'm gong to engineer it to a front mount with a driveline from the rear.
Friend of mine has a 50 something horse Kubota with a 7 foot front mount blower with hydrostatic trans. Nice set up, has a mid mount pto, not too bad to put on in the fall and take off in the spring but I wouldn't want to do it after every snow. He lives out of state so I do the snowblowing pretty often. He has a lot of out buildings and the barn. The bucket would be real handy cleaning the snow away from the buildings. If I was setting one up I think after using his set up I personally would go with the rear mount to have the bucket available when I needed it. But I haven't used a rear mount so could be the neck/back aches may not be worth the trade off.
I have the Kubota BX2670 with a 4' front blower. There is what they call a quick attach for front mounted stuff but I think they could have done better, maybe they have, but after you've done it a few times it's not too bad. I have about 1,000' of gravel drive plus assorted side paths and should make better skids but overall I like it, wouldn't want to do everything in reverse.
Glassman,
Here's a link that shows the mounting mechanism for the Kubota front mount.
http://beckmannag.com/heavy-metal/bombardier/snowblower (http://beckmannag.com/heavy-metal/bombardier/snowblower)
Glassman NH is very nice tractor and great company. I bet they would have an option to bolt right on to your current tractor. I have a 5' rear mount blower. I used to have a kubota B8200 that had the 2 speed rear PTO. the snowbolower worked great on high speed pto but now that I upgraded to a larger tractor I lost the 2 speed option. the snowblower is no longer as impressive :(
I to have toyed with the idea of making my snowblower mount on the front of the tractor with a driveline from the rear PTO. backing up sux. if I could get a front mount I would. Of course with my current driveway I have ditches on both sides and it runs through the woods so I find myself using the UTV with the plow to fill in both ditches with snow. Only time I use the snowblower now is when I run out of space to push snow.
Front mount snowblower would be worth every penny. still give you the ability to get right up tight to buildings.
When I bought my Kubota it came with an 8 foot rear blower.
I refused to even put it on my tractor. I sold it and bought a blade.
there is no way i'm driving around backwards all day.
My tractor bucket is too valuable for many reasons to have a blower on the front.That is if you only have one tractor.If you have a dedicated snowblower tractor,mount it on the front.Personally I hate going backwards.
I had a blower on my L2550 and really didn't care for it.It wasn't well suited for my property and running the tractor at high rpm's for long periods of time was annoying.For my needs the q/a Fisher plow on the front is the best.....so far.
Call your local tractor dealers and have them bring you a tractor and blower to demo. I would ask for them to put a front mount and a rear mount on it. Then you can decide for yourself before buying what's best for your particular use.
I've blown a lot of snow with a rear mount 7' blower. It hasn't been used in several years now since we put plows on trucks and have a skid steer none of which cause a stiff neck. If I was going to set up a tractor for snow removal it would have a cab, a front end loader with a quick connect to switch between a power angle snow blade and a bucket. On the back I'd have this ;) ;D 8) for weight and just because it's 8) 8) 8) 8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_UvCTY6SBc
Corley5,
That is quite a snowblower,I'm sure it's cheap too.
Yup, looks cheap to me ;) :D :) :) I read somewhere they're around $15,000.00 Canadian :)
you know there is a rear mount snowblower out there designed to be pulled going forward. My complaint with that is packing the snow before trying to scoop it up and blow it away. But they are pretty nice.
heh quick search brings up pronovost inverted snowblower
I think Meteor makes an inverted blower. I agree about packing it down first. Sometimes the snow is too deep to drive through.
I had an inverted blower once, it was only good in small amounts of fluffy snow. Worthless in deep snow and even more worthless in wet/packy snow.
was it single stage? I can't imagine that dragging vs pushing would cause a snowblower to fail that badly. Unless it was designed as a push and the mount changed to pull. That would cause a lot of problems.
Just the fact that the tractor had to drive through the snow before it got moved was the problem. In wet snow the tractor would pack down under the tires so hard the blower would just ride on top of the iced humps. Even in deep fluffy snow it struggled. But then again we get more snow than most places, so they may work fine in other areas.
It was an Erskine 2 stage unit.
sorry guys, I did not have my notify button on:( I am going to go and look at a tractor with front blower on and see how hard it is to take on and off and demo it at a dealer. I am 64 years old, and the only system I ever used was the rear blower with front bucket. My 1st tractor was 29 hp new holland with curtis cab and hydro trans. it did better in snow than my 45 hp gear tractor is doing now. I did not want to spend an extra 8 grand and not be that much farther ahead, I use my bucket to get up close to building and doors, mailbox etc. Thanks for all the input.
Most of the driveways on the lake are short and there is almost no where to plow the snow, to many trees. When I sold my 29 hp and blower everybody was bummed, I cant plow a lot of the driveways in a blizzard your going in between trees to find a place to plow the snow it causes a lot of problems. My 45 hp tractor I keep at my glass shop so the next tractor is coming back home.
Glassman_48 - I have a JD 4500 (~40HP) and I have a 6 foot wide, Erskine front mount snow blower with a hydraulic powered shute. It's powered from the rear PTO, there's a shaft that runs the entire length of the underbelly of the tractor. It uses the same hydraulic QD's as the front end loader. It is pricey but worth the money due to suffering from degenerative disk disease in the my neck. I clear my 200' driveway and 2 of my elderly neighbor's driveways. There's no way I would be able to use a rear mounted blower, my neck would ache for at least a week, possibly more with it craned around for that amount of time. Good luck with your search. Roger
roger2561,
Do you lose a lot of ground clearance? Is it hard or time consuming to put it on? I use the tractor in summer to disc and plow a deer plot and wondered if it could be left on or would it get in the way of rear attachments. I will get to a dealer and have them put it on and remove it, does in increase the length for trailering? If they make a blower to attach to your quick attach bucket, would that have to be run off hydraulics it would not seem that a compact tractor would have the gpm to run one hydraulically. My neighbor would have to take his off in summer if he has a drive over mower deck if I am seeing this correctly in my mind.
My boss has a new JD 60 horse tractor with a blower attached to his loader arms...Theres a pto driven hydraulic unit that powers the blower and all chute functions....Its a pain to install and cost almost 20 grand
Quote from: Blaszer on January 07, 2018, 08:25:28 PM
My boss has a new JD 60 horse tractor with a blower attached to his loader arms...Theres a pto driven hydraulic unit that powers the blower and all chute functions....Its a pain to install and cost almost 20 grand
Blaszer, yikes, john deere stuff is usually high, but thats a bunch extra, I sold my 29 hp hydro about 6 years ago, I dont remember my back being that wrecked, I moved the seat 20 degrees and used my left foot for the hydro pedals and it worked out. Having everything in front like the one I used a bit of my neighbors was sure nice though. I will go and demo and see how everything lays out. Thank you
I have seen an adaptation profiled that added a rear facing seat between the front and rear wheel on the side of a tractor. An idler steering wheel used a belt to connect it to the regular steering shaft and hand controls got clamped to all the controls to bring them within reach of the operator. Drive facing rearward like a forklift and in the summer unclamp the extensions and take the steering belt off to use the tractor forward facing. Probably not doable on a loader tractor.
Quote from: glassman_48 on January 07, 2018, 06:47:37 PM
roger2561,
Do you lose a lot of ground clearance? Is it hard or time consuming to put it on? I use the tractor in summer to disc and plow a deer plot and wondered if it could be left on or would it get in the way of rear attachments. I will get to a dealer and have them put it on and remove it, does in increase the length for trailering? If they make a blower to attach to your quick attach bucket, would that have to be run off hydraulics it would not seem that a compact tractor would have the gpm to run one hydraulically. My neighbor would have to take his off in summer if he has a drive over mower deck if I am seeing this correctly in my mind.
glassman_48 - The avatar shows it from the front end. The unit installs and removes quite easily. To install it the front end loader has to be removed. Erskine provides a plate with 2 heavy duty pins sticking out, facing forward. The blower unit has a receiving unit for the pins. Turn off the tractor to connect to the QD's on the tractor with the hydraulic hoses. Restart the tractor and use the hydraulics to line up the receiving holes on the receiver. Drive tractor ahead to engage the receiving holes. Install the quick clips to hold it in place. At the rear of the tractor is where you'll find the transfer case and PTO shaft. Using the jack that Erskine supplies, raise the entire frame work to align the connecting plate with the drawbar. Once the frame is connected to the drawbar rotate the transfer case to it's upright position and bolt it in place - this part takes the longest due to needing a wrench to turn the bolts and tighten in place. Connect the PTO shaft to the PTO on the tractor and you're ready to go. Installing takes a bit more time than removing it. It takes around 5 to 10 minutes to install in, removing it takes perhaps 2 minutes. I've had mine approaching 10 years and it's never given me any problems. The only time I sheared a pin was when a piece of asphalt approximately a foot by a foot got caught in the auger; it didn't go anywhere. If it's maintained, it'll last a long time. I hope this helps. Roger
HAD a rear blower for my NH2120......my back and neck couldn't take it.
Went back to the front mount on the 955 Deere.
With the higher rpm of of the mid pto, the Deere will throw snow further than the 2120 did.
Both have hyd rotate, I added a cable control for the spout on the Deere, no need to get off the tractor all the time.
Ed
roger2561,
That makes sense, thats a good explanation. Thank you and all you other guys that are giving your input. Going to try to go down this saturday and demo one.