The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

I am on the hunt for some snowchains for my Dexta and am struggling to find them anywhere.

The closest I have come is my neighbour who said "I used to have a set for a Dexta ............ but gave them to to scrap merchant a few years ago". I wish he hadn't told me that!!

Does anyone know where to get them? I'm in Scotland but I guess most places in Europe could be persuaded to post them.

Tim

To me, it has nothing to do with which tractor you have, you only need the size of your rear tyres. Try suppliers like
https://snowchains.co.uk/snowchains/Com ... l+Tractor/

Thanks I did see them and have e-mailed them but they were the only people that I could find that do tractor chains.

I guess with 4WD being standard in tractors nowadays, less snowy winters and farmers no longer getting contracts to clear snow from roads that there is very little demand for chains in the UK.

Most of the snow-ploughing of roads here is done by farmers or contractors with 4wd tractors, big snowploughs on the front linkage and usually some weights on the back? Having plenty of weight seems to be key, it's not often they are defeated by deep drifts even without chains.

As an aside.. when my dad was a mechanic with the council, he had to service this beast: https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationP ... tland.html a WW2 Mack 6x6 truck, I read that it was converted to diesel and a later cab (and power steering ) fitted, I don't know if he did the conversion but I remember him saying it did under 4mpg on petrol. Sadly I can't ask him if it used chains on its wheels?

Good day,
That is a 1942/45 NM 6X6 6ton Mack beautiful truck . The Australian army had about 80 of them and used them mostly as artillery tractors.
Ken

I worked for a small bus company in the 1990's and they had one as a breakdown truck, with the original petrol engine and big cab with wooden lining inside?

This is a family member who lived 1000 feet up at the edge of the Cairngorms, he reared pigs and had to keep his road passable all winter for feed and livestock trucks to reach him, this was what he used, again plenty of weight, and again he is also no longer with us so I can't ask him about wheel chains:



Ken Smith you will get me thrown out of the forum for going off-topic but you are obviously knowledgeable, interested, and have the same name as my cousin - so I'll show you this, one of my dad's photos from his time in the REME in the Korean War, I made another thread about this somewhere else on the forum and I think he was on Scammells so this probably isn't 'his' truck but it's a good photo anyway:

Good day Blackbob,
A name the same as mine he must be a jolly nice fellow. The picture of the US army wrecker is very nice, they are very pleasing to the eye.
Our Fordsons have never needed chains on the tyres in sunny Queensland and as I dislike the cold intensely I hope they never do.
In your picture it looks like the tractor has to reverse to push the snow is that correct. I know nothing about snow or shifting it.
Ken

Yes that's right Ken. That particular Massey 185 didn't have Multi-Power or power steering either, so it would have been fairly slow in reverse gear, although I would guess there wasn't much weight on the front wheels so steering it manually wouldn't have been too hard. And of course it had no heater, and that horrible draughty flexi-cab... He replaced it with a 4wd 3080, which, like most modern tractors, can do 40kph/25mph in either direction

Yes Ken, without a front linkage we plough snow backwards.
And yes, you get a sore neck before long.
Using the Dexta I also find that the steering is not as precise as it could be when you are reversing a snowplough.

Well I've received one quote for a set of chains, £750 (including tax and delivery) which is a bit more than I can justify!

If you search in swedish "snökedjor traktor" you will get some alternatives.
For example https://www.bonnet.se/slirskydd

You can email. Most understand english.

I ended up ordering a set from a shop in Estonia for about €250 including delivery. They are just basic ladder type chains but they seem pretty heavy duty, in fact I have now discovered that there is not enough clearance under one of the wings for them so I will have to make a few adjustments (although the clearance on the other wing is no problems - I hadn't noticed that my Dexta was lop sided before!

Now I have chains, of course, it's a certainty that it will he the mildest winter for years.