Plow?

[daverisk]

We're the proud owners of an '49 8N.  In fact we've been the proud owners for a long time, but haven't gotten it out here until now.  It's a complete resto that Ingrid's dad and I did together. It was his tractor, from a farm property he never retired to because life took them in a different direction.  It'll be used mostly with the bush hog, but question is will it plow if I rig up my Fisher blade backwards on the 3-pt?  The plow has no hydraulics anyways - manual swivel with pin.  And, I really want to see Ingrid out there on the 8N in the blowing snow in her Bibendum-style winter jacket and ski goggles. 

[Justrovin]

Don't know how effective the plow will be Dave, but congrats on the tractor!

[a109]

It should work ok with the usual Risk inventive engineering but you will need tire chains for the tractor.
John

[Peter Knowles]

Hi Dave,

Congrats on the 8N!

However, in my experience, plowing with an 8N is far less than satisfactory.
I've tried...

Front mounted blade.
    Worked OK in light snow, but the front end of the 8N is so light as soon as you build up a furrow it just pushes the front end over. Stomping on the steering brake helps a little but generally quite frusterating.

Back blade used forwards.
   Reasonably effective, difficult to get the snow far enough off the road though as you're pulling. Still had a tendency to want to turn from the pressure from the furrow.  Pushing backwards with the blade set forwards is often effective in light snow as the blade edge is angled in the direction of travel.

Back blade turned and used in reverse...
   Useless, the geometry of a 3 point hitch with the tractor end of the lower links so high coupled with the general design of the 3 point hitch being very poor at resisting offset forces in reverse made it impossible to do much in this setup, at least on my steep, gravel drive. Perhaps on a paved drive...

If you're thinking of mounting your truck blade on the 3 point, I don't expect you'd have much more sucess.

My adice would be to get a good robust back blade and some REALLY good chains and plow forwards. Keep the Rover handy to pull you out when you try to plow too close to the ditch though.




Or other seriously stuck plow dudes...







Cheers

Peter

[ve9aa]

Fab photos !   
 

Thanks for sharing !

[daverisk]

So far so good...we just returned from a 2 week trip and I used the tractor for the first time to clear a foot of crusty now from the driveway.  I set it up similar to how it was on the truck - manual swivel etc.  I definitely need more speed to do the same job, but that's almost unavoidable with the tall reverse gear.  The big heavy plow on the back of the tractor certainly makes for good traction - it's almost an all wheel drive when going uphill with the plow raised, if you get what I'm saying.  Anyways, we'll see how it goes.

[carib]

Dave:

The concept of rerversing the plow and ploughing in reverse could have the tendency to prematurely wear the hydraulic arms splines where they attach to the tractor hydraulics at the top.

There was a guy in Dominica who had a little John Deere Tractor and used a blade in reverse and experienced this problem. He was moving soil, so maybe that was the problem as much heavier than snow.

Do you have good traction in reverse as I always thought the tractor rear tyres only had grip in one direction.

Good luck, nice little tractor. Very nice blade

On another topic are there any disadvantages other than weight if you have to remove a tyre, to loading the rear tyres. My Fordson is just too light in the back, even with the back blade.

Kenneth   

[Brutus]

Dave,

Nice looking tractor. How did you finally get it home?

Other than the stated reasons, was there a reason that you felt the tractor was a better candidate for snowplowing? Even if the truck took twice as long, at least it has a heated cab!! (My personal Ontarian opinion). I guess driving around with the plow must get annoying.

I know the 8Ns aren't great for snowblowing - not enough gears and no live PTO. What about using it combined with one of those funnel type single stage blowers that you pull behind the tractor (drive through the snow and the blower drags behind)? At least you would have a few choices for gears. Around here those blowers go for 100-300$. It would give you some options - Use the blade for light fluffy accumulations that you need to move around quickly, and the blower for heavier stuff.

[a109]

Dave:

The concept of rerversing the plow and ploughing in reverse could have the tendency to prematurely wear the hydraulic arms splines where they attach to the tractor hydraulics at the top.

There was a guy in Dominica who had a little John Deere Tractor and used a blade in reverse and experienced this problem. He was moving soil, so maybe that was the problem as much heavier than snow.

Do you have good traction in reverse as I always thought the tractor rear tyres only had grip in one direction.

Good luck, nice little tractor. Very nice blade

On another topic are there any disadvantages other than weight if you have to remove a tyre, to loading the rear tyres. My Fordson is just too light in the back, even with the back blade.

Kenneth   

Re: arm wear. This will be tractor model specific so is not likely to be a Ford problem.
Re: reverse traction. The tyre will have traction in reverse but the tread will  not self clean mud from between the tread bars. In snow this is not a serious consideration.
Re: Loaded tyres. No down side except for ease of handling when demounted provided the ballast volume does not exceed 80% of the tyre volume.
John

[carib]

John;

 

Kenneth