I thought about the Boss plow and now I'm gonna most likely buy a blower for my gator. I also looked at a tractor but this is what I'm going to get. Has anyone bought a snowblower for the JD gator 825? I have looked a bunch on the net and this one seems decent. I have a driveway about 500' or so and we get about 250" of snow a yr. I have a crushed mine rock driveway, and each spring I end up raking for a good few days to take the rock out of my grass and replace it. I am currently plowed out by my neighbor for a $1000 for the yr, he is retired and does a good job. It looks like it will cost me about $6k to get a 72" set up but I might be nuts to discontinue my current set up.
Someone on here posted up some pics of his new Gator with one of those big ole snowblowers attached to the front of their machine...can't remember who it was now, but maybe they'll chime in if they see the title to your post...or, you could uise the search feature and find his post maybe...
All I remember about it mostly was that it looked huge on the front of his Gator and looked like it could throw snow about a half a mile!!!...and he mentioned something about the skids or caster wheels on the front of the snowblower too I think if my memory serves me right...he had it rigged up really nicely too...
Anytime my friend....did you find that other post that had the Gator with that snowblower attached to it???...if you can't find it, let me know and I'll try to find it for you...I'm pretty sure that if you put "snow blower" in the search box up top, you should come up with that post eventually...
I think you might be referring to my Berco installation on the wife's Gator. I don't know what happened to my original post. Here's a picture of the Berco mounted before I made modifications for use in Southern New Jersey sand. I bought this monster after two nasty snowy winters, the last was 2010. Had it all rigged up and ready to go for 2011 but we never got enough snow to use it. Last winter I never even mounted it, just kept it on a skid in the barn. Just having the thing managed to keep the snow away. This year we had an early dusting, so I mounted it up and aimed at the the big 16' x16' door, ready and rarin to go. The following modifications were made:
1. I made 24" long skid shoes from 6" wide, 3/8 thick steel and welded them to the little 4.5 x 4.5" provided by the factory. This things made in Canada where the ground freezes hard. When I took it out for a test drive in South Jersey sugar sand it just sunk. The skid shoes keep the head from becoming a sand scoop.
2. When I lifted the head, the two wimpy little caster wheels sank down to the rims under the 700 pound weight of the blower. I re-enforced the yokes, increased the axle diameter from 1/2" to 3/4" and put triple wheels on both sides.
3. The blower is lifted by a winch and originally the cable went over one pulley and hooked to the frame. This made operation very jerky. Now the cable still goes over the first pulley, but then goes to a double pulley mounted on the frame, then up over a high single pulley, then down again around the second pulley and unto where it is attached to the frame. This gives a three to one reduction in speed of lift, allowing precise positioning of the height above ground.
4. The Austrian glass cab of the gator was fitted with two double lamp lights in the front and one in the back. I found switches that fit the knock-puts in the cab frame above the windshield. Each switch is a three position type wired so flipping it to one side turns on two of the four lamps in the front and flipping it the other way turns on all four. These lights are handy in the summer also.
5. I didn't want a heated cab but I did mount a small electric heater with blower in the back of the cab that sends a nice gently wash of warm air down over the windshield to keep it clear of fog.
If anyone wants information bound my modifications, just ask.
Jack
Originally Posted by Regulator
Someone on here posted up some pics of his new Gator with one of those big ole snowblowers attached to the front of their machine...can't remember who it was now, but maybe they'll chime in if they see the title to your post...or, you could uise the search feature and find his post maybe...
All I remember about it mostly was that it looked huge on the front of his Gator and looked like it could throw snow about a half a mile!!!...and he mentioned something about the skids or caster wheels on the front of the snowblower too I think if my memory serves me right...he had it rigged up really nicely too...
With a 500' crushed rock drive are you sure you want a snowblower? I have a 10hp walk behind snowblower that I use to do walkways and crushed rock will really zing out of the chute when you pick one up and it happens a lot. It's much easier to get the rocks off the edge of the drive than from all over the lawn. $.02
Personally I'm not sure I'd want to hang 700 lbs off the front of my 825i....I have the Boss V plow which is 400lbs and even then I've got over 500lbs of ballast in the bed and could probably use another 100 lbs or so easy enough. With another 300 lbs hanging out front I'm not sure how much ballast you'd want.
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Originally Posted by Regulator
I have a 10hp walk behind snowblower that I use to do walkways and crushed rock will really zing out of the chute when you pick one up and it happens a lot. It's much easier to get the rocks off the edge of the drive than from all over the lawn. $.02
