Snow Attachments 9 Foot Snow Plow to 9' Snow Pusher/ loader mounted plow disappointment

Mysfyt · Sep 2, 2015

My Western plow has adjustable pads towards the ends of the blade to control the height so it won't 'dig in'. It will also rotate if I go into a snow bank hard with one side of the blade. I just click it back with the remote in the heated cab of my truck. Like you, no more plowing snow exposed to the elements!

varmint · Sep 2, 2015

I noticed the same problem with my smaller plow- the loader arms digging in when the vertical angle of the plow wasn't just right. If you are working on paved surfaces, then skid shoes should solve that problem. I forget what I did to correct that, but it was simple in that I just played with tilt until everything was happy- and I plow gravel surfaces. If no crossover relief, the plow shouldn't be rotating (xover is there to prevent bursting or bending- something isn't right).

RedNeckRacin · Sep 2, 2015

Mysfyt- I'm actually intrigued that your plow will angle on its own hitting a harder bank. Does it swing back when you would back away from the bank? The digging in I was talking about was from the loader arms and not the plow. I don't run plow shoes because the driveway gets alot of vehicle traffic and I try and get it dug down as much as possible to help it melt when the sun comes back out.

I mounted the tabs for the plow attachment as low as I could on the QA plate to try and keep the loader off the ground but the way my adapter for the loader is made, it rises several inches and negates most of the mounting height of the plow.

Right now, I took the a frame off, pulled all the springs out, and I'm going to use the swing frame to weld the QA plate to and put a spacer at the top to get a better angle.

skyhook · Sep 3, 2015

RedNeckRacin said:
The digging in I was talking about was from the loader arms and not the plow.

I did pick that up, so if you lift your loader arms up off the ground, the plow will now dig in because of the angle. You should really try and get a few pics up for us.

RedNeckRacin · Sep 3, 2015

skyhook said:
I did pick that up, so if you lift your loader arms up off the ground, the plow will now dig in because of the angle. You should really try and get a few pics up for us.

I'm also not running skid shoes on the plow because I want it to scrape as much as possible. The geometry seems to make the plow trip easier when the plow frame is above parallel with the ground., but trying to keep the push frame paralell to the ground is alot harder than it sounds with an uneven driveway. I would put pictures up but I already cut the mount apart and am in the process of covering it to a pusher box.

skyhook · Sep 4, 2015

Keep in mind that it's not the loader arms that need to float, but the plow itself.
You need enough play room between the loader arms or bucket (if the plow is attached to it) between the ground, this is where your plow will float, try adapting something where your plow will float separately from its frame, you may need a chain etc for this. It does sound like all the weight of the loader is now on the plow, causing it to dig in if you don't have that "just right angle".

CJONE · Sep 4, 2015

I plow with a 8' snow pusher. I have a 9'6" v plow that just sat for 2 years so I finally sold it. It was great on a pickup but the pusher works better [for me] than the plow did. If I had a couple of miles of road to keep open the v plow on the truck would be better [as long as it wasn't too deep] but as long as you have places to stack the snow the box works very good. CJ

Ford850 · Sep 4, 2015

skyhook said:
Keep in mind that it's not the loader arms that need to float, but the plow itself.
You need enough play room between the loader arms or bucket (if the plow is attached to it) between the ground, this is where your plow will float, try adapting something where your plow will float separately from its frame, you may need a chain etc for this. It does sound like all the weight of the loader is now on the plow, causing it to dig in if you don't have that "just right angle".

You nailed it. If you try to float the whole FEL weight on the plow, it's too much weight and makes it much more difficult to control things. Float the plow attachment so you can raise the fel slightly, and it should work great. Mine does. Much less stress on the FEL and plow.

RedNeckRacin · Sep 4, 2015

Ford850 said:
You nailed it. If you try to float the whole FEL weight on the plow, it's too much weight and makes it much more difficult to control things. Float the plow attachment so you can raise the fel slightly, and it should work great. Mine does. Much less stress on the FEL and plow.

Thanks fellas but that was not the problem at all. The ears on the plow were free to rotate on the mount and I did have a chain for the plow to float freely up, I even went so far as to roll the QA plate a little bit forward to make sure there was enough slack. That's why my plowing problems were so frustrating, I was spending more time adjusting things it felt like than I spent plowing. When I get back to a computer I'll uploaded some pics of the progress.

CJ-thanjs, that's what I was looking for. I have never used a pusher box before and I don't know of anyone who has that I could ask. I have gone ahead with the conversion from a plow so we will see how things turn out this winter. I already like how much closer the face of the plow is to the front of the loader.