New snowblower gloat

The original owner of the blower, my vendor told me, had fabricated a pair of wings to give a bit more width. Unfortunately they weren't needed with the Ford, so they went for scrap.

Has anyone extended a 5' snowblower to cover the wheel width of a slightly larger tractor? The MF35's rear tread is about 5'6".

What's left of the wings seems to be a pair of strong tubes welded to the vertical cutting edges of the blower, and a plate added about 18" towards the tractor on each side as though you would fasten a chain to it.

I had to shorten the pto shaft to fit the Massey, but then the blower ran very smoothly. I put 50 oil into the gearbox temporarily. Should I replace it with something else? The gears seemed in good shape, though behind the inspection plate looked like a stagnant pond.

Any ideas, plans or pictures, please send along to [email protected].

I've had to cut drive lines to fit on tractors before, and also move the hitch pins too.

My 6' Woods rotary cutter has 3 sets of pins on it, depending on what tractor i'm useing it on that day!!

Robert

The PTO shaft where it joins the gearbox looks as though it used to have a sliding key, but it's no longer there; instead there is a 3" 5/16" bolt which looks as though it might be a shear pin.

I had to re-drill its hole about 1 1/8" further in to get enough space to mount the PTO shaft and avoid the risk of binding at some heights. Maybe if I had put the shaft on before the rest, I wouldn't have needed to do that, but as I said, I'm new at this.

Anyway, once hooked up the blower spins just fine. It seems very well balanced mechanically, though it droops 1 1/2" to the right because I have one new tire and one older one.

When I tried tentatively to compensate by turning the thingie on the MF35's hitch arm, it didn't want to move. Any special tricks to adjusting the right arm on an FE35?

The donor tractor, however, was a compact Ford, and it might have slightly different geometry. I remember the vendor mentioning some problem with using the inboard pins, but he didn't go into detail.

The mount for the wings is a steel tube, as though they were designed to be removable in a couple of minutes. I'll try to send a photo to illustrate this.

Link

The main thing is to travel slow enough and let the blower throw the snow. Instead of just pushing snow backwards with the auger(s). With just 35 to 40 HP the 435 runs the blower fine with the fan 100% full and pushing snow a little. Haven't used tire chains but let the wheels spin instead of trying to push rather than blowing the snow. They are still making snowblowers and feed mixer wagons just south of Lucknow on Huron County Road #1. Father just had his dual auger blower's bearings replaced two years ago. Too fast a reverse and too much stress on the auger bearings.

Link
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I know its long but it works. I hope this helps you.

Boy, that is one expensive used snowblower. I paid $300 CDN for mine in a private sale(grin).

Those wings appear to be rigid, simply bolted on. On mine there's a tube welded on in that location as though the wing was on a pin and dropped on, when needed, secured by a piece of chain. What I don't understand is how the wing got its rigidity: maybe angle irons rested against the body of the drum, held in place by the chain.

Thanks for your help.

Rod

--->Paul

I've seen lots of Lucknow's with wings down here in NB, usually they are just a piece of sheetmetal with a 45 deg bend so you bolt one flat side to the blower.

I use a 7 footer behind a 584 International, it can throw the snow pretty well but doesn't clean well cause of the welded on shoes on the bottom.

I get frustrated using it a bit as it is a gear tractor, hydro would be nice. I usually use our truck to plow with instead, much faster until the snow reaches 6-12".

Ken

The alternative is to make the tractor narrower.

Interesting what you say about the shoes on the bottom. My main worry has been the opposite: the gravel ridge down the middle of the 400' lane leading up to the house. I thought of filling it in with gravel before winter, but then thought that I'd just pack the snow down in the depressions, drive the SUVs over it for the winter, and deal with it in the spring.

Maybe I'll have the ridge relocated down in the field by spring.