Putting tire chains on the garden tractor

[Glanceblamm]

I had never done this before and my tractor is only a couple years old but I figured that it was high time to use it for winter snow removal.
 
The first chain went on without too much trouble as I only had to keep it straight to start with making sure that the cross chains were at good right angles to the tire and keeping it that way as I massaged the chain to the max amount of slack at the point of the inside hook and outside locking link.
 
I did not work too long with that second chain when I realized that there was no way that it was going to go on the tire. Did they sent me the wrong chain in the package?
 
Long to short, I took that chain back off and layed it out straight again. Careful examination reveled that three of the cross chain hooks had been clasped to the wrong side of the side chain that runs parallel to the tire. The appearance of these errant hooks was that the hooks appeared to run through the side links instead of laying flat on the floor. Corrections were made with a hammer and flat chisel and it was easy to open up the open sides of the hooks to free the link and get it oriented correctly. After this was done, I was able to get the chain on the tire quickly.
 
This is really elementary but I thought that it might be worth posting if someone was having a similar problem as a first time installer like myself.
 
My thoughts are that If I had grabbed that chain that had been put together wrong first, I may have possibly been on the phone accusing the manufacture of sending me the wrong set?
 
Unrelated: My wheel weights came from Sears for this sears tractor. They are a very good fit in the inner hub but do not allow access to the valve stem.
              The chains were made by ARNOLD but were selected via a Craftsman part number.
 
 

[bilmac]

I have a new Craftsman too. Have you decided on a blade yet? I expect I'll spring for one but I haven't done a lot of research yet.

[freetrapper]

 Onething that I have done sometimes is to jack up the rearend of the tractor and let some air out of the tire and put the chains on than reinflate.

[bilmac]

I haven't put chains on my tractor yet, but it sounds like the accessory chains made to fit, fit way too good.  I've put chains on pickups too many times and it isn't a big struggle. You can slap them on even when the truck is sitting in a mud hole. They always had a few extra links so you could fasten them loose and tighten them later if necessary. They make rubber band type tighteners if you want to run them at a higher speed.

Thanks for the heads up, I for sure won't buy made to fit chains. I'll make my own out of old pickup chains.

[Glanceblamm]

They do give you three or so extra links to get everything hooked up and held together while you take up the slack and then are able to advance link by link.
 


 
No store blade for right now as I had two 42" long pieces of 1"x14" yellow pine. and least I think that it is yellow pine. They came from some old school bleachers and are very tough allowing some give with some serious weight on them.
 
Wood for a plow?...Yes, it has the weight and strenght that the light metal Sears blade does not possess. When I looked at the Sears blade, It almost seemed like something you could make out of a cut in half trash drum.
 
I have some heavy guage sheet metal on the front side of those two pieces of 1"x14" wood which are bonded together with glue and screws. They are reinforced even more by those twelve carriage bolts that run straight through and are bolted to floor flanges on the back side. I have 3/4" galvanized piping threaded into those three floor flanges and they are then held to the frame arms via "U" bolts that allow the pipe to swivel for raising the blade. The frame arms came from a street sign that the DOT gave me after a motorist decided to run it down. This is 2" square tube steel and is very strong.
 
The whole "blade" project cost me $0.89 per pound for hardware (just bolts and nuts) as everything else was on hand or free scrap. Paint is needed on exposed metal and wood. It works great but I have only used it once. I did have to pay for those wheel weights and chains but was armed with the part numbers when I entered the store which saved them a lot of work. After some polite haggling, they gave me the Internet Price which is often 15% less than store price.

[bilmac]

Nice work Glance. I expect I'll be making my own too now that I see what you did. I haven't even seen a factory job so I didn't know where to start.

[Glanceblamm]

This is where my idea started.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGon5iCN4g
 
It proved to be workable but I wanted something heavier on the support frame. My own design needs modification as the "U" bolts are kind of stiff and I need the floating bracket at the base to keep the blade from tipping forwards under load. The guy in the video is very respected in the RC field but I would never leave the deck on or even consider running the blades.