When do you drop your tiller for pushing?

[Tom400CFI]

Like the title says, what is your condition that triggers dropping your tiller for push projects?

[Canadianbombar]

Dropping as in removing???

[Tom400CFI]

Yeah. For example, if you're going to doing an all day push project (8 hours of pushing), would you drop (remove) your tiller?

How about if the project was 4 hours? Only 1 hour?

[admin]

For me it's not so much a matter of how long, but what sort of pushing project it is. My decision to remove the tiller would be predicated on how much stress I'd be putting on the lifting frame. For example, I'd leave it on if I'm doing an 8 hour push that primarily involves straight forward/backward heavy grading. But I'd prefer to remove it for a hard 1 hour push that involves a lot of turning/jerking that would really torque the lifting frame.

Obstacles are the other consideration. If I'm doing a big park build/teardown, I'd rather not have the tiller on the machine. Too many other pieces of metal and large snow piles into which the tiller may find itself, uh... implicated..

[Tom400CFI]

That all makes total sense. That is exactly how I would approach it too. Now....if you're writing a policy for staff to follow...how do you word that? B/c if you leave it up to staff (in some cases, not all) "stress on the lift frame" is too subjective. Some people will think it's fine when the tiller is whipping around, left and right, even though others know that it's not O.K.

[Canadianbombar]

Kind of a tough question. I had lift frame snap in half on me out of the blue due to fatigue....and I don't think the tiller had EVER been removed from that cat for a push job of any kind. Mind you it was a western resort with a minimal terrain park and no snowmaking. That resort had no maintenance shop.....the cats just sat outside all winter with a fix only what you have to attitude and then they wondered why their cats were having problems.

I would say for a resort the size of Mount Snow....I would have half the fleet sitting with the tillers off at the start of the season for pushing and slowly dwindle that down to 1 or 2 at the end of the season which are dedicated push cats. Send them out to push out the man made runs and the runs requiring major rebuilds. Given that philosophy ...If you must write a policy I'd write policy that tillered cats can only push for a maximum of 50% of a shift or a push cat should be called in/tiller dropped. I think rather than written policy in that respect though....it would be up to you Tom or the shift super to know how much pushing needs to be done in an area and assign the correct equipment and experience level of operator accordingly. I think you guys get new equipment fairly often and retire it before 5 years/6000 hours is up?? If so...you don't have much to worry about in terms of lift frame fatigue/wear. If not...I'd be utilizing the older cats for pushing.

[Tom400CFI]

That all makes sense. No more 4yr/6k hour turn over here though. The ASC days are gone, and we have 3 cats over 10k hours and our newest cat is at least 4 years old; bought used from the last Olympics.

I'm thinking of writing a policy (to go into the dept op manual) which would be used as a guide line (not a hard and fast rule) that would be something like; if the push project is going to take Y times more time than dropping and re-installing the tiller, drop it. I think it's safe to say that you should be able to drop a tiller in 10 minutes or less. So if we say any project that takes 3x longer than dropping/connecting, that would be an hour or longer. I know damage can still occur in less time than that...but to me, that is a separate issue of abuse or not paying attention.

I pushed out a trail a few weeks ago with a BR350. I dropped the tiller in about 5 minutes. Totally worth it. Pushed for about 3 hours, picked the tiller back up, cleaned everything up and was out of there. Every time I do it (drop a tiller) sort of re-discover how not-a-big-deal it is. I feel that the only reason why people don't do it is they just don't want to get out of the cat and do it. I don't know....it's not hard,

Thanks for the thoughts on the issue.

[Canadianbombar]

I might have operated your "newest" cat when it was with Vanoc and actually new...lol. It boggles my mind where I've seen those cats turn up. Mount Snow isn't THAT big of a stretch but I know of another over in Scotland! Hmmm....I thought you guys bought at least 1 new cat a year. The Bullys DO seem to have lift frame issues. I had one snap in half on me and I know of several others. I've never heard of/seen the same happening on a BR/PR....have you??? I actually prefer the PB product though....at least in western snow.....not sure if I would in the east but likely. The reason I say dedicated cats for pushing is it does take time....more time still when it's -20 out....and yet more time if you're not that used to it. On the PB's the electrical connection to tiller can give you a lot of problems as well....which would be accented I think with a lot of connects...disconnects. It might possibly be hazardous as well if some fool decides to drop one on icy/pitched terrain and slips and falls. I'd get that writin in there as well....to be dropped only on the trail edge on flat groomed over terrain. Trail edge in case the cat goes down and patrol has to stake off the tiller for a morning. Sometimes you have to teach common sense. I would be far more apt to drop a tiller on a PB given my experience with the lift frame failure...however dropping a BR tiller has less opportunity for connection problems. I don't know of any of their lift frames failing....so even though dropping the tiller on the BR is likely not to give me any headaches...I don't know of any that could be caused by not dropping it other than say hitting a tree or something with it if you're not weary of your tail swing.