One of those days snowblowing

In preparation for a storm this weekend I replaced the bent adjustable 3 point lift rod on my little 50 hp hydrostatic. I do all my snowblowing in this tractor with a 1970's 7 ft Lucknow blower and it works really well. Unfortunately I galled some female threads that I don't have a tap for and couldn't get the parts.

No problem, the blower was already off for the repairs. I plug in the 100 hp Massey and charge the battery. Fire it up late in the day no problem even though its been parked 5 months. I'm a bit excited, never blown snow with it, and its got 40 kmh gears which should speed up my route.

Get the blower on, head out to test it out, 7 ft barely catches the tracks from the big Michellins but its alright. Shut it off to chat with a neighbour. Won't start. Dead battery. Hmm, Date stamp is Jan 2009 on it, charge it up, check alternator. Not charging, belt is loose and alt is adjusted all the way. Hood and grill guard are frozen in several inches of ice locking everything out of reach. I grab some jumpers and put a new battery up in the cab with me with leads to the jumper posts.

Head out again after the snowfall, blow a shear pin on first driveway, no rocks. Ok bit more torque on this one, I'll be careful not to load it up. Boom, shear pin on next driveway. Grumble.

Got the other 10 or so done, head to my last one that is 30 mins drive from home. Get one pass up the half mile driveway, try to clean up the improptu snowmobile trail the neighbours have started on the driveway, boom, shaft is spinning crazy even after I kick the pto off, the weld had come apart at the shear bushing, threw the circlip and fallen in two. crud. I vice grip it back together and plow the rest of the driveway with the loader (which the owner won't be happy to see!).

I'll be happy when my little tractor is back up, it put 100 hours on the blower this winter with only one shear pin and a broken chain.

Though day, but good to hear you keep at it and everything is done now back to your place and fix things for the next snow fall. Kinda funny story because we have all had a day or so just like that.

I did that kind of thing with my 4020 and 24T baler.

I always used the Farmall 404 to bale hay just fine. On the very day I had to bale around 1000 bales, the 404 developed carburetor problems.

SO, I went to put the fuel hog to work (barely to work) on the 24T baler. Kept snapping shear pin after shear pin. Half throttle made it worse. Slower gear only allowed a little bit more time before a pin would break.

I DIDN'T have the bales packed any tighter, NOR did I have the windrows any larger than I would normally do.

There's just something about brute strength and raw, unused horsepower that changes the whole physics of drawn implements.

My old Farmall H would be hammering away on all 4 cylinders pulling my angled disk and never break anything on the disk. Went to hook the 2640 up to it one day and all of a sudden I'm having broken disks and a bearing out on the left side.

Guess it doesn't pay to have too much horsepower not only because of fuel costs, but that your IMPLEMENTS NO LONGER LIKE YOU!