: : I'm tired of the headaches associated with pulling snow and would like to know some options(with detail) on front blades/buckets. Any comments from personal experience to books and literature would be appreciated.: Snow moves a little better with a rear blade pushing in reverse, at least you clear a path before you drive on it. With a light tractor you need tire chains to move in snow at all. : I had a Ford 8N and rear blade. It had a loader but it was useless. With new tires even and but no chains all I could do was take a run at drifts. I broke the frame of the blade. : That Wagner loader on the 8N had single acting cylinders for lifting, and a trip bucket. With a couple manure tines missing, it wouldn't tip when tripped merely full of snow. So I had to climb over the loader arms and pull down to get it to trip. Needed hydraulics on the bucket. : In central Iowa, some winters its very easy to run out a place to push snow. Generally there's room for the first snow, but by the fourth with no thaw, the push places are out to the fences and the only solution is to lift. : My next attempt was a JD garden tractor with snow blower. Given some patience and dry snow it worked reasonably well. Wouldn't move without tire chains. Moved much better with 200 pounds of weights on the rear hitch and tire chains. If a chain comes off, its stuck. The heavy late spring snows that are wet were a total disaster with the single stage JD blower. It would plug more often than move the snow. : When those didn't work a neighbor's JD 2020 and loader did the driveway in ten minutes most snows. : Then I bought a MF-135 with MF-236 loader. The loader is a little heavy for the tractor. The tractor could use a ton of weight on the three point, but it won't lift that much. It won't move in snow with the loader and a tire chain off either. But with the loader I can push the snow and then lift up to the top of the pile and so pile more snows. Its tough on the tractor sitting ready for snow outside and tougher to get it through a garage door that swings out and up. : More than once I've used the bucket cylinders to move the tractor to a cleared spot to put a tire chain back on. : Last winter I took several hours digging out a snow drift in the driveway at the barn as well as just digging out of the barn so I could take delivery of a JD 4020. After I gave having dug holes all over in the soft ground without tire chains and had half an opening dug out the 4020 walked through the mess as it I needn't have dug any at all. Its greater clearance and weight just mashed its way through. : Now I'm mounting the MF-236 loader on the 4020. I likely will put larger radial tires on the 4020 for better traction. : A neighbor saying he's tired of shoving snow with a loader has purchased a three point mounted snow blower. Probably use it on his 55 hp loader tractor. Its a two stage blower so should work well. May move his drive gravel to his adjacent field if he's not careful. But he probably did that with the loader bucket too. : As a resident of South Grey County where we usually get our first taste of snow by Hallowe'en and usually have it till after Easter, I would respectfully submit that if you are going to use an M-H 22 to move snow, put a good blade on the front of it, at least a half-ton counterweight on the back end and the most agressive tire chains you can find. Push all the snow as far as you can as soon as you can after a snow fall. If you get a wet snow, move it a bit at a time, maybe half the width of the blade or less. Do not try to move frozen drifts with a 22. There is not enough clutch or power. And do not ram a snow drift under any conditions. For the weight and power of a 22, some part of it will just get wrecked. If you really get jammed up, call somebody with a heavier unit. and don't use a blower unless you have live pto. Don't mean to sound like a know-it-all,but I've wrecked a lot of machinery trying to move snow.Best wishes.
| 
