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Ballast for moving snow

J

jeffkeno

Member
I'll be using an 841 with FEL to move snow soon. Trying to figure out how much weight I need for decent traction on my gravel driveway.

Its pretty flat except for about a 4% grade towards the road. I live in SE Wisconsin--our annual average snow fall is 20-40".Standard tires -no chains.

i started with 700 pounds--am I in the ballpark?
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I've been using my Ford 841S for 20 plus year to move snow. I live in Missouri but at times have gotten 24 inch. I have a V plow for it and have fluid in the rear tires plus a back blade on the 3 point with 6-85lbs suit case weights on the blade and a 150lbs wheel weight on the center link part of it. Most of the time I have not needed chain on it and my drive way is a mile long with a big hill in the middle of it. But now that I have the IH584 I plan to use it since it is bigger and heavier. On it I have a 6 foot disk with around 400lbs on the disk.
 
It depends on your FEL, attatchment (e.g. bucket or plow), and how icy the driveway gets.

My Dad used to use an 8N with a Dearborn loader with a 6-ish foot plow in place of the bucket. His tires were loaded, and he used a 500 lb 3-point mounted counterweight and tire chains.
 
Anything is good, I would want about twice that if loader on tractor, I have about 1500 on each wheel on my 6610.
 
1 and a half times that per wheel will put you in the ball park. 2N with loader, fluid and weights of probably 0ver 400# each plus chains and still spin. Ohio.
 
1000 pounds hanging back there will do a lot of good. If your loader is dual acting you won’t be able to put as much down pressure on the bucket for scraping packed snow off of cement but the trade off is more traction. I used to have a 1200 pound weight on the 3 point of a 50 horse loader tractor plus 300 pounds in each rear wheel. Without that 3 point weight I couldn’t do much on packed snow.
 
Almost everyone will agree, you can't have tooooooo much weight.
Chains are always super duper. Load the tires with beet juice or
windshield washer fluid. If you can stop at your local Full Service
paint store they might be able to order you 5 gallon jugs or a drum of
straight methanol alcohol. That is what keeps winshield wash fluid
from freezing. Just mix a measured amount of water to meth. Good test
is mix a little up and stick it in your freezer. When it stays liquid
that is what you need. Used antifreeze from the junk yard works
fantastic but everyone will tell you that a leak can be deadly to pets
and animals. I have it in three of my garden tractor rears and it
makes an incredible difference. Just make sure to keep an eye on the
tires for any leaks. Over three years and not a drop. A 55 gallon drum
filled with concrete on the rear is even more gooder.
 
(quoted from post at 21:29:28 11/25/18) . You can add all the weight you want but there won’t be traction until tire chains are installed .
Click to expand...

BINGO!!! If you are serious about snow removal, get some tire chains. The frustration level will be reduced immensely.
 
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