snow tires

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Pat

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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