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 | Bojo
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 11 Idaho 
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2002-01-10 34420
Which creeper gear kit should I have installed on my JD 5220 to appropriately use a Loftness 721S (72" rearmount) snowblower in moderate snow conditions: standard creeper kit with 0.33 mph reverse, or "high-speed" creeper kit with 0.79 mph reverse? Since the slowest A-range reverse gear on the tractor (9/3 SyncShuttle w/540E PTO) is a relatively fast 2.0 mph, I thought for snow removal (and backwards rotary mower work into heavy weeds and brush) I had better (and did) order the creeper kit option. They way I see it, 0.33 mph would certainly handle a lot of snow, but may be unnecessarily slow when 0.79 mph can handle it just as well but faster. Tractor is MFWD with 45 pto horsepower. Your thoughts and experiences appreciated.
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley 
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2002-01-11 34426
I have a 5' blower on my Ford 1710. The ground speed chart indicates that Range 1 reverse is .9 mph at pto rpm. The table is for AG tires, but my ground speed is slower due to smaller circumference turfs. My 1710 doesn't have the creeper option.
On rare occasions I could use a slower ground speed. If I let 3' of snow or so build up on a strip between buildings, My slowest reverse feeds snow a bit faster than the blower will clear it. The blower then starts pushing snow in front of it like a plow. I guess I have to stop about every 8' or so and let the blower chew up the mound a bit. Of course, it's only once or twice a winter that I do this, and I do have the option of blowing the strip in several passes.
Other than these times, I use the low range sometimes when I'm trying blowing close to buildings and just want to go real slow. However, at least 90% of the time I'm in Range 2 and going about 2 mph. Range 3 at 4 mph is faster than I usually want to drive backwards. There’s a 4th range as well.
It's a little hard to make comparisons because some blowers blow more snow than others do. In my case, my low is similar to your high-speed creeper option. I could use a slower speed on rare occasions, but I'd hate to give up my .8 or .9 mph speed to do it. I think I'd use that speed more often. As a possible use for a slow creeper other than deep snow, I heard a story about somebody using a slow creeper to pull a jet pump out of a deep drilled well
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| Bojo
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 11 Idaho
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2002-01-11 34446
Thanks Tom, that's the kind of information I need. I changed my order today to the high speed creeper. Sounds to me like the 0.79 mph reverse will afford more flexibility. My worst case scenario would be snowblowing wildlife travel lanes through farm fields with no more than 2 feet of drifted snow per storm. This work, however, does not allow the luxury of lanes where snow has already been removed, i.e. the 72" snowblower would be full 100% of the time. Sounds to me like things could get done faster at 0.79 mph (69 feet per minute) and stopping once in awhile to clear the blower out rather than crawling all the time at 0.33 mph (29 feet per minute). It would also be my guess that moving too slowly with a snowblower could cause poor feed and operation characteristics. ....
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2002-01-12 34454
Bojo. Darn...I just wrote this long message about my gearing and went back to check your message and then forward to complete my reply - a big disadvantage to this message reply format is that I cannot see the message while replying to it. anyway, apparently you cannot use the back and forward arrows as it ate my message.
I won't rewrite it except to say that I have a low creeper on my Yanmar YM336D with .31 mph reverse and it is too slow for anything. My normal low range reverse is 1.21, and for heavy work I'd prefer something slightly lower geared...around .9 to 1.0 would be nice. So your choice of the higher geared creeper works for me. ....
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| Bojo
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 11 Idaho
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2002-01-12 34490
Roger, do you run a rearmount snowblower on your 336D at 1.21 mph? If so, what size is your blower, how many PTO horse does your Yanmar have, and what are your snow conditions? ....
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2002-01-13 34501
"Roger, do you run a rearmount snowblower on your 336D at 1.21 mph? If so, what size is your blower, how many PTO horse does your Yanmar have, and what are your snow conditions? Bojo"
Hi Bojo!....Darn!....That was all tractor info and qualifications that I had written in the answer that got lost. To prevent the same thing from happening again, I think I'll begin to recopy some messages that I respond to. Then I won't have to go back and forth - because I've discovered that doing so is what erases the text. So if you see your message repeated above, its just me trying to be efficient!.
One at a time: The Yanmar 336D is quite a bit smaller than your tractor. I know because I like that 5000 series enough that I came real close to buying one new when they first came out. I was looking at the quote the other day. and notice that I had specified the hydraulic reverser 12x12 option ($2678) - not mention of creeper gears. The 5000 series JD is larger than most compact tractors. It is more the size that I would call a farmstead "utility" tractor. By contrast, the Yanmar 336D is more like the size of the mid-to-larger 4000 series JDs. In fact, it is the predecessor to the old 950 and 1050 JD....although the 336D was somewhat heavier and shorter wheelbase, with more sophisiticated hydraulics and transmission.
As I said, I do not use a snow blower at all. We don't get much snow high in the eastern Rockies. I was comparing low speed work, not snow work. The work that I do is mostly landscaper type - pushing through dirt and decomposed granite with loader and blade.
Snow conditions? Neat question. At 7000 feet the typical storm drops around 6" of medium to dry snow. On the sunny slopes it will melt off within the week, and on the shady ones it will remain all winter as an ever-increasing depth of compacted icy concrete that the teeth on the loader barely scratch. Sometimes we will get a 3 foot dump of heavy, wet snow. When that happens I just blade it to the side of my dirt road and let the sun melt it away.
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 | Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2002-01-13 34523
I don't see a need for a creeper speed on a snowblower with the combination that you have asked about. We typically will put a blower on that size with 30 PTO horsepower and never have a minute of trouble. You should be able to run a 7' blower without any trouble. If you were to only be doing old tall banks there might be a need for it but I still doubt it. ....
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| Captain B
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 53 West central New Hampshire
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2002-01-13 34534
I have a JD850, which is a great machine, with two reverse speeds. One is too fast and one too slow for optimal snowblowing. I have always wondered whether there is anything I could do to change the reverse gearing. I assumed there is not. Am I correct? ....
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| Roger L.
Join Date: Jun 1999 Posts: 0
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2002-01-13 34541
Yep. I know those reverse gear speeds real well....the ones that give you a choice of way too slow and way too fast. No way that I know of to change them. ....
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| Bojo
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 11 Idaho
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2002-01-13 34548
Thanks all, I think that about settles it, will go with the high-speed creeper. Yes Roger, I too was impressed with the 5000 series, actually wanted a 5210 but couldn't find a new one with the SyncShuttle tranny with 540E PTO (a major fuel and noise-saving asset, allows the tractor to swing a rotary cutter or such at full 540 PTO speed with the engine purring at just 1700 rpm). So I went with the new 5220 straddle mount, roughly the same as the now extinct 5210. The 12X12 PowerReverser you mentioned is a great tranny with no need for a creeper, but does not have the 540E PTO option the SyncShuttle has. My 5220 purchase finalized about 2 years of researching this CTB, thanks to all of you for your input. Though I've worked professionally daily with farmers and ranchers for 15 years in vegetation management, their expertise (and there is a lot of it) is with larger equipment and I could not find the answers I needed to make informed decisions for compact tractor application and purchasing, hence the importance of these boards. In my area (s. central Idaho), JD and NH are dominants, with only 1 distant Kubota dealership. And so it went, after many hours of on-the-lot tractor measuring, meticulous comparisons, and restless nights, ended up with the 5220. What I really learned was that no matter how hard I tried (and just ask anyone around here how hard that try was!) no one tractor was going to do it all for me. Two or more tractors could, but the CEO said only one tractor for now. Looked very hard at the JD 4700 12/12 PowerReverser and came inches close to a TC45 ShuttleShift, but the numbers and my farm situation (mowing shelterbelts, landscaping a home, tilling gardens, subsoiling for new tree plantings and irrigation systems, growing, chiseling, discing, and seeding corn/sunflower/grass wildlife food/nesting plots, and snowblowing all on 6-foot widths, plus the option for custom hire mowing and tiller work, etc.) favored the 5210/5220 which among other things had 1300 pounds more steel on it than the 4700 and TC45 for the same size tractor. Given R1's for all three tractors, the 5220 tractor itself has a longer wheelbase yet is actually 2 inches shorter than the 4700 and only 1 inch longer than the TC45, though I suppose turning radius must be larger due to the 24-inch front tires on the 5220. All 3 rigs were the same width at 65 inchs with R1s. Yes, they do call the 5210/5220 utility ag tractors, but with the same dimensions as the upper-end compacts and extra weight these units truly add to the meaning of "compact tractor". Indeed, to a regular farmer whose machinery can do it all for their purposes, a 5220 is just a compact tractor. Or, as one farmer politely said to me as I showed him a picture of a 5220, "Now isn't that a cute little thing!". ....
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