My question is, if you put one set of chains on a back axel, is this going to be hard on the drive chains as you now have tires that are different sizes. Should you have chains on both axles ? Running on snowy and icy, mountain logging roads. ?
With those road conditions I think it would be prudent to chain all four
Wheel circumference won't be the problem, the stress on the chaincase from that axle doing all the work will be. Question is, are the chains that expensive that you can't get four sets, or do you only have two sets and want to work like that until you get two more?
I think if you were in conditions that required chains it wouldn't make a lot of difference and you'd be going a little slower. 4 chains would be better and it depends on what type of chains too.
If you're planning on chaining the drive end, chain all four or none at all. You will experience chain, axle, or wheel bearing issues (* delete as applicable) if you don't.
Worked in a mine where we had 10% grades for haulage that would regularly get dumped on with huge amounts of snow. We had 16 M's with Bridgestone VSWs. The tires were amazing! We could routinely blade uphill equipped with picks. We had chains on the nose so we could steer. While the tire expense and possibly wheel expense make the price of chains look real good, it may be something to consider in the future
I ran an old 13e with chains on front right and left rear. It was only residential plowing, but I broke 4 axles on 7 years. Always the one with chains. They must have had them piled like wood somewhere because they didn't seem to care. I love my winter tires. I don't work in the mountains, but I have never had to back down a hill. We run snow tires on all the loaders, and they have paid for themselves a couple times over.
Thanks everyone for your replies. I know good tires really make a difference but there is no way the best tires you could buy, will go where I go with chains on. Last winter I ran with all four back tires chained up. I was always having problems with the front, so this winter I am going to try one back axel chained and run chains on the front also. I think there will be enough slip on the back axels that it won’t really matter the difference in tire size.
So why not just buy another set of chains. If you can't afford something that you need, then you are working too cheap
Ya I do agree with you cuttin edge. But when you are only the driver, sometimes it is hard to convince the boss of things like that. The set that’s on the front were new last year and I think they cost around 1200 bucks.
I see companies and even owners taking work so cheap these days. One phase of a new highway here, engineer's estimate was over 7 million. The bids were all pretty close. We were 5th place at 6.5. boss was hoping for 5 to 700 000. Lowest bid was 3.6. on the other end, going rate for a private driveway plowed is around 35 bucks. Young lad with a case backhoe is doing them for 15 and probably putting 40 miles a storm on to do it
Holy f#(/. Is he only spending about 5 minutes per drive??? If he's taking any longer than that, he's spending more in fuel than he's making.
I lived in an apartment several years ago and a couple guys showed up with an older skid steer to clear the parking lot. it was about -20C with a pretty good wind and they had no cab on the machine. They left their pick up running the whole time and switched back and forth every 10 or 15 minutes to warm up. What was worth is that they weren't scraping down to the pavement, they were just leveling off the packed snow. 2 days later it warmed up to where the snow got soft and people were getting stuck. They called a large paving company who brought a wheel loader to dig up all the snow. Did a much better job but it took 2 days to finish because the operator promptly quit at precisely 5pm. I have never seen another snow removal outfit leave a job when there's less than 2 hours to finish unless they had a breakdown. There was no breakdown, they drove the loader off site and brought it back the next day.
Despite the fact that everyone here has advised you not to do it that way and yet you're still "gonna give it a try". There will not be "enough slip on the back axels" (sic) when one is chained and the other one isn't. One will be spinning and the other one will be wound tighter than a clock spring....... Dear God, go out and buy another set of chains FFS. Even at $1200 they are going to to be waaaaaaay cheaper than the cost to fix the machine when it's stuck in a ditch somewhere with a popped drive chain or (even worse) a torn-up final drive that needs the complete tandem pulled off to fix it. Oh, and it'll have to be fixed right where it lies because it can't move. Good luck finding a mechanic who's prepared to work on it under those conditions........
We make all or own chains for our grader's it is way cheaper by far to do, as far as using chains it depends on the conditions, if its just snow and no ice than I put chains on just the rear tires for extra traction but do not spin your tires with chains on, if its ice or a combination of snow with ice underneath 4 chains always with 1 on the front to help with steering, I have not ad any problems with wheel bearings or breaking the drive chain doing it this way, but reading what Nige has said makes me wonder if this is what happened to one of our M series graders in our sister shops with a rear axel bearing gone on one of the tandems on the left side, the operator might have been running just one chain on that side last winter, Hmm.
Well after a bit of convincing I got the boss to order me another set of chains. Now I will have all 6 wheels chained up. We are in some pretty wild country here. The logging trucks are mostly tri drive trucks pulling B train trailers. They have all three drive axels chained, one axel on each trailer chained and most have one or two steering chains on. Not a place for new drivers to be starting out driving. 20/80 could you maybe post a pic or two of the tire chains you build ? Are they anything like the ones I am running or just the ladder style kind. Thanks again everyone for all your help.
I'm glad you got a result. Come back and let everyone know how it pans out once you've had some experience with chains all round. Refer back to post #6 above regarding tyre choice. Never a truer word spoken that tyre choice can majorly affect traction in poor conditions. Maybe your boss needs to get a bit less cheap on tyres as well as chains..?
That's right they are the ladder style chains that we make, we find that if you happen to break a cross link you can repair it easy in the field, the one's you are running are studded chain for ice pretty much the best you can get but would play hell on pave roads getting from one back road to another which we do a lot of, our roads are not far enough apart to justify taking them off, we used to run square link cross chains for ice back in the day they were harder and worked very well on smooth ice but cuts in the department they just buy regular chains for cross links now, I find keeping your chains tight on your wheels will save them and your tires, so put lots of rubber bungee straps or spider bungee to keep them tight, we had a operator on one of our loaders ruin a complete set of new tires spinning them inside the chains, very similar to your style of chains because of running them to loose, he does not work for us now.
I have to disagree with you a bit on this Nige. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate your input but I don’t think spending big bucks on the best tires and putting chains on them makes sense to me. If I was working in conditions where traction was just a bit iffy a lot then maybe good tires. But when it turns to winter here chains are a must, so I don’t see the benefit to spending big bucks on tires also. Once I put chains on they stay till spring. I’m sure glad for your advice, think it was your post that I showed to my boss, that convinced him to buy me that last set of chains.
I don’t use bungee straps. I keep my chains super tight with a chain jack. The net looking chain is connected in four spots on the face of the tire. I use what’s called a pin connector there, then I do up the side chains. Once I tighten the sides with the jack there is no slack at all. They do stretch a bit over time but I tighten when ever it’s needed. I can travel full speed on good parts of the road if I’m just high blading back to my pickup. But I don’t go on pavement. Like you say, I bet they would be really hard on pavement. We are thinking of putting on the carbit or stinger cutting edge as I have a hard time cutting into ice with the serrated ice edges. Just wondering if you have any experience with them ??
Weather man is forecasting 60 cm or 2 feet of snow here in the next 6 days. Let her snow, I’m ready now.
I'm not at all an expert on tires, but those look like some pretty damn good winter tires for a grader. Good work getting the bean counter to get that last set for you.
Our county grader gets chains all around with a lot of snow & ice . It's a no brainer . Chains getter done ! I do the same with trucks , farm tractors & daily drivers . Aint winter time great . LOL !
Chains look pretty serious as well
When he said ice pick chains that is not what I was thinking, those look like ice caulks or spikes like something on a steel wheel tractor from the 1920s.
I thought he was talking about the Sandvic style rotating tooth cutting edges
The county here used to have a couple sets of stingers for the guys to use. Damn things cut to beat the band, but they also ground up the rocks and destroyed the gravel. I would think they would work great on ice, not only would they cut but they would also leave a rough surface for traction.
I was wondering how you keep your chains tight, I use the stinger bits blade for ice blading, the type I see in your picture are the old type as we call them but work really well also but wear down quickly unless the tips have carbide inserts or carbide coated which lasts a lot longer, on my stinger blades I take every second bit out and replace them with a cut off stinger bit so ice won't hurt the holders this lets your machine push through hard ice a lot easier, use lots of angle on your blade don't try to bulldoze with your ice blades straight, your machine will cut the ice and pull some dirt up a lot easier with angle, sometimes I will articulate my machine abit to offset the pressure on the blade and keep your front end from sliding, with the chains you got on you should not have any trouble.
The stinger bits work great for cutting ice and mixing gravel in the spring the only real disadvantage is they are quite expensive but pay off in the long run We made a back blade for one of the graders to cut ice when we are plowing its not the perfect solution but its nice always having the option to cut without changing blades made a handy air hammer driver to knock the teeth in its really nice when the blades are mounted and your hammering upside down
Thanks for the grading tips. I had another person tell me that when there tips got worn down they would only replace every second one. I would think that you could break the holders easier then, when you hit big rocks ?
If we put the stinger edges on we would run them year round. If they break up the rocks that would be good, as most of the roads are mostly rock. We very seldom do roads that have crushed gravel on them. Just not sure if we would be breaking the tips and holders off ?
No you won't break a holder I guess it depends on the style of stinger blade you have, maybe a bit or two, we always hard surface the ends of the stinger blades that's where most times it will wear the most, in about a foot back and front and at the ends, I use the stingers all year round and I have gravel roads and I have nothing but rock and ledge roads and they work great, it just takes time to learn how to use them right, some older hands don't like them but they were taught with straight blade cutting edges and its hard for them to convert when running straight blades there hold career, using them right is the key, some cowboy hands in this area like to use them as rakes to hide their sins, this is why they sometimes they get a bad review, but if used right dollar for dollar they are far cheaper in the long run with a lot less down time then straight blades, I believe they cost around $ 3600 for a set comes with the bits, I look after mine and I have had them on now 2 and a half years and they are used 12 months of the year, changed all the bits once replaced the odd broken one every now and then, I have 60 roads to look after, my partner on a 140m series prefers the straight blades and has burnt through $ 10,000 worth this year alone he has 50 roads, he switches to stinger blades for the winter months.
Like I posted earlier, our county had a couple of sets, until they wore them out. I'm not sure how operating technique could affect the gravel, but I noticed a definite decline in the gravel on the roads that they were ran on by a couple of operators. We did a lot of graveling about 15 years ago, and it seemed to me like the stingers either powdered up the rock, or left the top so loose that the gravel would get slung off the road by the traffic. Obviously this is summertime conditions I'm referring to, but I just wanted your thoughts on it.
I used to also articulate the 16M a bit our haul roads were 75 to a 100 feet wide. The 789's were grossing 700,000 lbs. They just pound the ice into the road base. I found that at the expense of extra wear on the 3 outside picks as the blade "sawed" thru the ice it would bring the road base back up where it was effective again for several hours. 3/4 of a million pound trucks are excellent compactors. If we were in really bad shape at the top of a shift with polished ice, we would take the 994 (in Pewags) and sand with road base once then we would get on it, with both (stingers) blades with a 988 sanding the reported slick spots. The "swirl" if you would created by articulating the machine as the bits passed thru the ice and picked up the base material created a much less hazardous environment for our truck hands. We ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week we would replace about 20 bits a 24 hour day and a whole rack about once a week or two. The end holders would be replaced about halfway through the season and the entire holder was replaced going in to the season. It was expensive and it was done to keep the crew safe. When they are looking down a 10% in a loaded 793 or 789 ice covered haul rod carved out the side of mountain they had the right to be a little nervous. We did our best to make it as workable as we could at 11,000 feet
There was a good chance that those couple of operators you spoke of were just raking the road not cutting the road way, that's why the road top was loose, also if your gravel has no fines in it the road will stay loose also, no matter what blades you were using, as far as gravel getting slung off the road you are right, over time you would not believe how much will spill over the edge of the shoulders, last year I was asked to recover a road in another area, the operators in that area used straight blades always, when I started recovering I pulled about 700 ton of number 2 gravel per Km or mile on a 5 mile section, re crowned the road then ditched the road and back sloped all the junk away, cleaned out all the culverts and got the water running properly, the area manager could not believe the amount of gravel that was recovered, it was a huge savings to his area, all done with stinger blades, I do this with all my roads and have been shaking the gravel back and forth now going on 15 years, the picture I have on my page of my grader that road was graveled 14 years ago.
Hats off to you buddy, you are working in the most extreme conditions that requires extreme actions, love hearing about this kinda operating.
Well I sure do like having chains on all tires. Now we are putting on the carbide tips so I can make a bit more dirt show up. We don’t want things like this to happen again. Have never used carbits before so any tips on how to run them would be much appreciated.
I run Trygg SMT studded chains that have continuous pattern on the ground. I keep them tight enough that I run no bungee straps. I plow with a 143H all winter on steep mountain logging roads in North Eastern Washington/Idaho. I’ve found that as long as i keep my speed down a set of chains will last me for many years and never loose a chain off a tire. Any thoughts on the SHARQ P300 edges.. Re: cutting edges has anyone run Sharq P300 “Swiss cheese” style cutting edges in rocky terrain? This winter we have lots of ice and my flat cutting edges leave the road too smooth for the trucks to get traction. The dealer has stated that they are amazing to cut ice and leave groves for much better traction. Additionally he says you run with very little down pressure thus a lower RPlM and operators state up to 40% less fuel consumption. I heard that the city of Spokane and Spokane County just switched over to them. One account I heard was an operator cut 9-10” of hard parcked snow and ice out of a paved road in one pass in South Dakota.
There has been a few posts on here about those type blades not a lot of hands on experience though
Not to downplay what your saying but it can be easier to remove 9-10 inches of ice/hardpacked snow than to remove an inch or two depending on the surface underneath. I find removing ice from concrete is easier than removing ice from asphalt as it doesn’t bind as rigorously to the less porous surface. Here in Winterpeg we get some pretty severe conditions and I’ve seen graders take off a foot of buildup in one pass. One its starts peeling and if you can maintain traction it’s quite satisfying to see the heavy thick pieces of ice flying off the road. Its actually quite violent. I’ll have to take a video sometime. And just to note all this is done with regular hardened cutting edges. Those “swiss cheese” blades couldn’t take to side load abrasion of running against the curb surface. We use all different kinds of material for “curb runners” and used track pins are some of the best. Alternatively I just weld old blades to the new ones to effectively thicken the edge at the corners. I’ll try and find a picture.
We use 1 inch thick Cat flat edges for the most part in 4 foot sections for ease of handling. In the middle pictures I had tried Ardox pieces but found the old blades wore better and were to be scrapped anyway. Kind of crude looking but if we don’t bolster the ends a set of blades could be ruined in a shift. All welding done with 7018 1/8 rod at about 180 amps. Generally warm up the steel prior and peen after each rod is laid. They wear off before they break off. In the first one we’re using a curved blade as it’s what was in stock at the time. I’ll find a couple of pictures of what happens when we don’t beef up the ends. Cringeworthy.