Farmall Cub

Pete:

Yup, similar to the one you have.

One problem and Freddy a buddy of mine up here ran into that with a 20hp Craftsman with a 48" front mounted blower. He needed either a hydro-stat or a creeper gear on a gear drive tractor. He opted for the hydro-stat. Found he had the very same problem even with weights and chains added. The hydro-stat could move slow enough but there wasn't enough oooomph to move it and blow snow at the same time. He has gone back to the drawing board. I don't understand the issue but it has him confused and a lot poorer for his fun account.

Theoretically it should work as IH has the QA 36 and QA 42 for the 108 and up that works slick as can be. My buddy Gord has one on his 108 with a creeper gear and it is just the cat's meow.

That Brinly is a pretty substantial blower and it is already set up to mount on a Cub. If it was mine, I would opt to bring it out wide enough to clear the Cub, mount it on the Cub with a separate 10hp or better B&S, Techumseh, Yammy or Honda engine on it and be done with it. The Cub's ooomph will ensure that it don't get stuck. You might have a few mods to make - mostly for the outboard engine, but that isn't difficult. Also, the mount/dismount might be easier as well. May only be 4 or 5 connection points depending on how it is bolted up. Be a lot cheaper than a used ridem.

Just a tawt

Rudi,
The difference is twofold. The weight of a 20-hp Craftsman tractor is about 500 pounds -vs- about 800 pounds for a Cub Cadet 108 (or any similar sized Cub Cadet tractor). That makes for a whole lot more traction and pushing power (along with stiffer frame, more substantial axles, stronger wheels, stronger lifting mechanism .........)

Secondly, you have the new issue with the ratings of engines. That 20-hp Craftsman has a "20-hp" engine on it. This was the issue with the recent class action lawsuit that everyone was getting $75 check from. The way that new engines are rated is based on a bare engine, nothing on the crankshaft, no intake, and no muffler, running on a Dyno, to determine the running horsepower of the bare engine. Add on an intake, and muffler, drop about 5-hp. So now you've got a 15-hp, V engine which has a lot less torque than a single cylinder engine, and the 10-hp Kohler was probably under rated on the HP side because it was actually tested with an intake and muffler installed. Now things start coming together on why a new Craftsman won't work like a 40-year old Cub Cadet!

My experience. Adding wings to increase the bite of the blower work well in dry powder only. Breaking through the heavy snow pack left at the end of a driveway by the county plow truck will bend the wings backwards. Wings in heavy wet snow will overload the blower and pack the augers.

Bill:

Yeah, that all be true. 20hp on a bench under no load is a whole different kettle of fish from an older 10hp Kohler, Briggs or Tecumseh. These newer engines are pretty much fluff. I have a 20hp Twin B&S on my JD L111 and I can tell you that the JD although stronger than many of the other new ones cannot shine a candle to my Cub, not even to my old Craftsman and it wasn't all that strong. I am curious to see what the difference will be when the 12hp 129 hydro gets up and running.

When people talk HP today it is like talking lemons, apples, grapefruits and kiwis all in the same sentence. There really is no common ground. That is why to me the drawbar rating would be the most accurate - but it is little understood by the average person. Even though I have been involved with engines of different types all my life, hp ratings for them all varied immensely.

Carl:

Yes, you do have a valid point. Many of the wings today are made out of 16 gauge or thinner stock which will not hold up well. The kind of tins used on say an IH-50 or a 30 year old Ariens, Toro or even a Craftsman were much thicker - 14 and possibly 12 gauge or thicker. That stuff will hold up to cutting through banks. One would hope that if someone is making a project like this that they will use the thickest stuff that they can and it makes sense.

Heavy wet snow is going to be a bear no matter what you do. Sometimes a blower simply is not the tool to use - I have my 13hp/33" cut Yardman -- it is a 2000 I think and it packs some oomph, but it will not blow slush or heavy wet snow. When that happens I simply call Ray with the loader on the Massey. Lot easier on me and the equipment.

Someone (Rick Prentice I think) at one of the Cubaramas had one he was building. Had it mostly done but still had some finishing touches to do on it. the thing that stood out most in my mind was it was powered by a vertical shaft engine that was mounted on the frame just in front of the driver. I thought I had some pictures of it, but can't find them. they may have been in the group I had a few years ago when I had the combination of the photo server I was using shut down and i had a computer drive fail, with the result that I had about an 18 month span that i could not recover. The pictures may have been in that group. if anyone has pictures of the 2009 or 2010 Cubarmas they may be in that group.

I just checked my files and yup you are right John. Rick powered it with a vertical shaft engine.

Ok, had to do this just to stir up the pot a bit. A guy here locally has a snow blower from a number seried lo boy for sale. I posted in the Cub Vine classifides, but here are a couple of pics of it. May be something to adapt to a cub. Maybe use the existing drive shaft to the back of a Cub, then run it with a Kohler engine or something????

Yeah John Rick had that at Georges. It was mean looking. I'll go back through my pictures and see if I have one. Cowboy was there too among others.

Is that a snow storm moving in behind that tractor?

Thought I'd jump in to clarify or confirm different comments. I actually had 2 different setups at George Willer's place, each at a different time. The first one was put together for George Hibbs. It was a low budget project because George wanted to use parts laying around instead of making it look fancy (we all do that from time to time). It was a 2 stage MTD blower and the 14hp vert shaft twin engine was mounted just ahead of the foot platform. That thing had amazing blowing power. The only issue was the noise of the briggs was far greater than the noise of the cub and George had a hard time telling what the cub was doing. If money was spent to quiet down the briggs or make the cub louder, things would've been different. Yes, the ground speed of the cub was faster than preferred, but the blower speed compensated for that.
(pictured is GeorgeH's 48 cub)
I had acquired a Danco big blower like Larry and Bill showed, and GeorgeH had a 185, so some trading was done and we installed the Danco on his 185. Shortly after we did that, George Hibbs took the setup to George Willers next gathering, but never unloaded things off the trailer. It wasn't finished yet because I still had to install the next snow cab setup. Here's a link to the cab install on the 185 http://farmallcub.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=49411&hilit=snow+cab

Hope that clears some things up. Also, I re-installed my red snowcab back on my 48 cub with power angle and the first blower setup was never used again because a friend needed the 14 twin briggs for his garden tractor so I took the whole setup apart.

Rick

There's one of those Loboy blowers for sale locally... For $850. Too much IMHO.