Snow blower

Hey all, does anybody have experience with using a snowblower on
a ford 8n. Is it worth spending the money on buying a used
snowblower at 1500 bucks.? Does it do a good job at clearing snow
?

Most snowblowers are used in reverse.
8 Ns have the most marvelously, ridiculously FAST reverse ever installed in a tractor.
Save your money and look for a front mount snowplow made by Arps or Dearborn. With good tire chains and rear wheel weights or fluid in the tires and a front mount snow plow an N makes a great little snow mover.

You really need a live pto for a blower

I have a front end loader would a 7? snow plow do the trick mounted on the loader instead of a bucket? I love in Maine we get pounded with snow thatts why I was wondering if a rear snowblower would work well, my 52 has a Sherman combo transmission would that slow up the reverse while speeding up the pto rpm with engine speed.

you can use the bucket to plow; avoid dumping the snow out of it to save time. once the bucket is full of snow, it will function like a plow, albeit a non-angling plow.

mlegassey,

I'm next door to you in New Hampshire, I run a snowblower on my 9N. It's a pull type which is really your only option for a snowblower, especially on an 8N which has too fast of a reverse gear as Ultradog mentioned. You can't use your Sherman unfortunately because if you reduce your reverse speed you're also reducing your PTO speed so the snowblower won't work.

With a pull type you drive forward through the snow instead of reverse which is MUCH easier. Why the reverse type snowblowers are more popular than pull types is beyond me. With a pull type you can get away without having live PTO as well.

The only problem with pull types is finding a used one. The people that have them generally don't sell them so you're going to have to go new if you want one which will cost you more than $1500. In my case a snowblower made a lot more sense than a plow because my driveway and road that I clear run out of room to put the snow fast. With a snowblower I don't have to worry about that.

Here's a couple pictures for you to give you an idea:

I bought my 7' Erskine snow blower for my 8N from Cater & Odeguard located on east St.Germain in St Cloud, Mn. in about 1973. I have used it every winter since then and am very happy with its performance if you know the limitations of it. I'll try to post pictures of it in operation tomorrow if I have time. Yes it is a pull behind and if snow is too deep, lift it up and back up as far as you can, drop it and go forward and work on cleaned ground. Like any other non live pto, you need a ORC.

"Why the reverse type snowblowers are more popular than pull types is beyond me."

Where I live, we don't normally get feet of snow at a time, but the
property is wide open to winds. So we often have drifts that are
three to six feet high and 20 to 30 feet wide. You can't drive an N
series tractor through them to use a pull type blower.
I can't even get through them with a blade. Front or rear.
I either use the loader, which is an extremely slow option or a
reverse snow blower. Not only is the reverse blower faster than
the loader or a blade at that point, it doesn't leave piles to freeze.
Once those piles freeze, you have no where to move snow.

BTW, I bought this six foot snowblower used for $200.
That may add to their popularity.

For years I used a 7 1/2 ft plow on my 2n with a Wagner loader but I had a 300 lb weight on the back and loaded tires with good chains.
My second option which was much faster was a 7 ft rear blade which can angle but you still need chains and loaded tires. BTW my 2n is now doing snow removal chores at my stepsons place in Green Maine.

I now mostly use a 1710 with fwd with either the front blade attached to the loader or the rear blade that stays on the back all winter, now that I keep the 7 1/2 ft blade on the 1710 I use a smaller home made rear blade on the 8n. Between the tractors the walk behind snow blower and shovels we get the job done. BTW I am a NH neighbor.

(quoted from post at 20:45:29 01/27/19)
BTW, I bought this six foot snowblower used for $200.
That may add to their popularity.

Click to expand...

If I could find one of those for $200 it would be popular with me too, I would've bought one immediately. Unfortunately that's not the going rate so you either got the deal of the century or you bought that a LONG time ago. Around here the going rate for a used 3 point hitch snowblower is $1500 to $2500, I'm guessing it's not that different where you live.

Obviously the reverse blower is the right tool for the job for your situation so that makes sense. Where I live we typically get a lot of snowstorms but not a lot of big snow drifts, probably because my state is about 85% forested so we have a lot of natural windbreaks. For that reason I don't understand why pull types aren't more popular, at least in my area. Reverse blowers are by far the more popular type where I live. Pull types are slightly more expensive when they're new so I'm sure that's a big factor but it's worth it to pay a little extra to drive forward the whole time vs. driving in reverse with your neck in an awkward position the entire time.

I live on a private road so I have to take care of my driveway and my road so I can be on the tractor for over an hour sometimes. The thought of driving my tractor in reverse for over an hour with my neck turned just doesn't appeal to me (I could probably get over that if I had found a snowblower like yours for $200 though).

(quoted from post at 20:38:36 01/27/19) I have a front end loader would a 7? snow plow do the trick mounted on the loader instead of a bucket? I love in Maine we get pounded with snow thatts why I was wondering if a rear snowblower would work well, my 52 has a Sherman combo transmission would that slow up the reverse while speeding up the pto rpm with engine speed.

Click to expand...

There was a recent post here about a front mounted blower on an 8N driven by the rear PTO. I looked but couldn't find it. For any significant accumulation front mount is the way to go.

A small truck plow (Myers, Boss, Western, etc) mounted on the loader is a vastly better snow mover than a rear mounted blade.

TOH

"If I could find one of those for $200 it would be popular with me too"

Yes, that was a pretty good bargain. It needed a little work.
The seller had bought a new 4 x 4 tractor with a front mounted blower.
That is the best of both worlds it seems, if you live in snow country.
I like the front mounted one on my garden tractor but I wouldn't
want to run one without a cab.

moved a lot of snow with this set up years ago.

I had a front mount on a garden tractor for a while, a cab is definitely a must for those. The only thing I didn't like about the front mount I had was the difficulty in turning the machine with the snowblower down but that may have had more to do with the particular garden tractor I had.

I recently saw a newer tractor, I think it was a Kubota that had both a front mount snowblower and a reverse mount 3 point snowblower. It looked like it was quite a snow fighter.

Mlegassy like doublebass73 said, if you step your Sherman down, you will slow the tractor down, and the PTO, but if you speed the engine up the PTO will speed up along with the tractor. So you defeated your purpose.

A few hundred bucks or less should get you a decent pull-type snowblower. I've seen decent ARPS blowers go for auction here in Central MN for $75. At $1,500, you're probably looking at way more snowblower than the 8N can handle.

A backblade is probably the best first step and is a very handy snow removal implement. It'll give you a lot of options and can be purchased used for a couple hundred $$.

Colin, MN