13" of snow.. No problem!! BR and Plow time!

[kb0nly]

I will get some pictures up tomorrow, but man what a night... Its like -20 to -30 wind chills but the snow isn't drifting as much now so i went out and fired up Red.. The throttle was frozen, dangit, i just wrapped her up in a blanket, well ok a tarp, and gave her about fifteen minutes to warm up and she came right out of it, throttle stuck and scared me a few times but then it was fine. Mental note, next time its this cold i need to wrap it up better when i leave it sit and maybe even pre-heat her a bit with a radiant heater.. But other than that she cranked and fired right up, just needed some time to wakeup.

Got out the V-Bar chains, tossed them on, dropped the plow, and away we went! Pushing that much snow in low range and first gear is very satisfying, had the plow angled, it rolled off to the side nice, four passes and some cleanup, first driveway done, pushed out my neighbors driveway since they offered to pay, and then i cleaned out part of my back driveway, got cold and tired and i gave up for the night, will do some more tomorrow and try to get some pictures.

We had some really wet heavy snow that turned to hard packed ice and got covered with at least a foot of powder, so traction for anything is a mess right now. With the chains she took off no problem. Tossed the chains and wheel weights on the lawn tractor and that will fire up and go tomorrow with the 36" blower as well. Will be a long day of cleanup. School is two hours late and most of them around here are starting to close as well, so might be a snow day for the boys, that means shovels and work party! LOL

More to follow....

[dustrunner]

sounds like fun kb.......cant wait till we see the pics.....

[userj8670]

Plowing is alot of fun - def put up some pictures and video. I will have to take more this year.

[kb0nly]

I didn't get any video sadly, nobody to take it since i didn't get started til after the kids went to school. Surprisingly they stayed 2 hours late and actually had school today, most of the area schools closed but not us for some reason.

It was a hellatious day so i didn't get much for pictures. First thing that went wrong is i went out to fire up the old Ariens lawn tractor, has a new 13hp Briggs on it, and the starter was froze up on it with ice from the previous day, fought it for an hour then decided enough was enough and tossed a tow strap on it and yanked it out of the shed, you can see it in the background of the one picture. So then i fired up Red, got my little lawn cart as it was the only other thing that wasn't buried and grabbed my old Craftsman blower out of the shed, it was parked so that i had to get the tractor out to get to it.. Figures!

The Craftsman blower is a heavy ass 1973 26 inch cut, it has the auger plus the extra drift chipper above it, Craftsman called it a three stage. I put a new Duromax motor on it last year and added a battery box, it has 12v electric start and a good alternator. The original 7hp Tecumseh was due for a rebuild, and for the cost of machining and parts i was able to buy this knockoff motor that is similar to a Honda GX motor and give it a nice upgrade to OHV and 12v electric start. I tossed old blue as i like to call her on the trailer and strapped it down then hitched it up to Red. I had to go dig out a few others around town and wanted the blower for doing the front lawn sidewalks and areas the plow wouldn't fit without tearing up the lawn, etc. Left the blower idling the whole time, 5 degrees above zero and windchill of about -10 all day. Red ran the whole day to, never shut it off, the one time i did and it got cold she was hard to get running again. Nothing wanted to run right today, but at least Red gave her all and saved the day.

Dead vehicles everywhere, mainly due to batteries failing from the cold. It was a battle to get through the cleanup. I finally dragged the tractor around to the south side of the house and let it sit in the sun with the hood up, took some persuasion from a rubber mallet and a heat gun but i got it thawed out and running, although it then ate the main drive belt due to a large chunk of ice and its now a lawn ornament until i go get a new belt, probably tomorrow, and get it moving again. What a day!!

I would have got more pictures but my phone didn't like the cold, the auto focus was doing weird things. And when i tried to do it manually i could never get a clear picture. These are the only three that turned out.

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After today... I think i am going to build a custom tilt trailer with an expanded steel floor just to pull behind Red with old blue on it. That would have made my day a lot easier if i could have driven it off and on the trailer. I made due with what i had available to me though and it worked out. Just want to be more prepared if i run into these problems again.

[gomer202]

Wow you sure are lucky to have snow! thought canada was sapposed to be the cold one haha its only like 5°C here and no snow

[userj8670]

Sounds like a heck of a day KB. I tried to make a video myself doing the driveway by holding the phone in one hand and plowing with the other and found out quickly that it wasnt gonna work out for me lol. Thanks for the pics! Keep warm

[tripledog]

kbOnly, I sent you a pm. I hope my 200ES works out even half as nicely as yours!

[kb0nly]

Yeah it was a heck of a day, thank god for my Big Red... Without her i would probably still be digging out!! I need to get one of those go pro cameras and mount it up on the headlight so i can get some video of the plow blade pushing snow. I literally could NOT stop her, i was pushing some deep and heavy snow and the ends of the driveways sucked from the street being plowed but she blasted through.

tripledog... I will tell you right now one thing you need.. Chains! I was just spinning at first due to the ice that formed under the layer of fresh snow, we started with some wet heavy snow then it slowed to nothing for almost a full day then we got dumped on with the remainder of the snow. Made for a slick working surface after you scraped the snow off. I bought a set of V-Bar tire chains to put on it and some bungie cords to make straps to tighten them up good so they can't creep, did the same on my lawn tractor. I will try and get some pictures of them. They were a cheap set of chains off ebay but they work very very very good! With my large rump sat on her she didn't get stuck anywhere.