snow tires

Hi Carl...

I live in the mountains backwoods of western Montana. My wife and I live sixteen miles off the paved road and six miles past the end of the plowed road. We have three 240 wagons, a 240 sedan and a 122. Our primary daily drivers are the 240 wagons, my wife commuting 50 miles in one direction and I go about 20 miles in the other direction using a back access logging road for as long as the season will bear.

After a lot of trial and error we have found the best results for our travel are to fit four non-studded snow tires and add two tubes of sand directly next to the wheel arches on the bed of the wagon. For the past four years we have used Bridgestone Blizzaks, but on her care switched this year to Michelin Arctic Alpin due to need for replacement. I also carry chains, folding shovel, grain shovel and come-along but doubt that you would require the latter. The grain shovel moves snow more easily from under the car and the folding shovel makes it easy to break the sand bags and distribute sand under the tires. The 240 pan tends to be rugged enough to float the car up on a center berm so I have replaced the plastic air dam with an aluminum replacement that I built at home with hardware store stock. This is sturdy enougn to push snow to the side.

The 240 is not a great snow car but I rarely have problems. The last problem, though, caused me to pay a great deal of attention to this issue. Beign a MANLY MAN I ignored the sposal warnings and attenpted to make it up the last big hill w/o chains. The ditch beckoned seductively and I then assisted the lovely Mrs. Hayes and two fat black labs on a lovely stroll for three miles through a howling blizzard. Refreshed by our moonlight stroll I slept with dogs pondering a solution while wondering why the lovely Mrs. seemed to have lost her ability to speak to me in anything other than four letter expletives.

Hope this helps

Pat Hayes

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Pat
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