Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Newbie plow tripping

[sailfast]

It will work best in float one everything is lined up and adjusted properly.
Springs. Angle. Shoes. ... then float. Should be no problem except in gotcha spots which you will figure out how to work with.

 

[RNeumann]

Well thank you guys for the advice. I went back out this morning and made the suggested adjustments. I got the A frame level by adjusting the feet up and moved the springs out to the point I could only get about 3 threads started before I needed a wrench to continue tightening it. IT MADE A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!! The thing does great- even with the loader in float- BTW my loader has separate controls for up and down float and curl. In other words I can move the curl while floating the blade. Thank you guys again!
Mahindra 1538 snow blade/plow setup - YouTube

 

[Fallon]

With that rigid plow setup, putting the loader in float.....what keeps the skid steer frame from just dropping to the ground and pitching the plow upward?

Keeping the A-frame of the plow level is the goal with any plow. As you have it pictured, you need to raise the loader a few inches.

I just dont see how that style of plow works well at all. You really need a float mechanism for the plow itself that doesnt rely on the float of the loader. All that weight of the loader on there aint helping your constant tripping issue.

4shorts uses a fixed blade & floats the loader apparently & likes the setup. He built skid shoes for the back of the A frame so that takes some of the weight off the blade. Personally though, I'm looking for a floating plow again on my next plow. Loader float just made a mess of thing on my previous floating plow as you would expect.

Ridged loader & floating plow worked great. Around here we deal with so much freeze & thaw cycles we are often dealing with soft ground that isn't frozen solid. Need to put as little weight on the blade as possible or you are plowing dirt & gravel.

 

[LD1]

4shorts uses a fixed blade & floats the loader apparently & likes the setup. He built skid shoes for the back of the A frame so that takes some of the weight off the blade.

Thats the key right there.

Without that, there is no way to control the height of the SSQA plate.....and thus no way to control the angle of the a-frame. No control over that and it wont stay level when angled

 

[RNeumann]

It's nice the loader float is up and down only and the curl can still be adjusted on the fly. I can go from zero to over an inch the way it is set up now. I've never used the bucket level indicator but with the blade it is nice as it doesn't take much to change the depth significantly. I agree that this setup style won't work without the feet.

 

[skyhook]

Nice, and "if" you find it still trips too often, you can now add another set of springs in the old position.

 

[RNeumann]

Nice, and "if" you find it still trips too often, you can now add another set of springs in the old position.

Good point. I found a set locally and could easily add those. Seems like a lot of blades have 4 springs so I don't think it's too much.

 

[nybirdman]

Thats the key right there.

Without that, there is no way to control the height of the SSQA plate.....and thus no way to control the angle of the a-frame. No control over that and it wont stay level when angled

4shorts is plowing asphalt and concrete exclusively;for gravel or dirt "floating" the blade seems to work better.

 

[4shorts]

4shorts is plowing asphalt and concrete exclusively;for gravel or dirt "floating" the blade seems to work better.

There seems to be some confusion to why I put the skids on the blade. Yes most of my plowing is on asphalt but most of our back property is gravel. When I originally did the plow conversion my goal was to get the blade as close to the FEL as possible. Because it was moved back meant the rear of the blades "A" frame could have gouged out the pavement so I simply added those rear shoes to keep the rear frame up. Incidentally I seldom use float mode. I have much more steering control without it and the only time I will use it is on straight pushes if I use it at all.

 

[DK35vince]

There seems to be some confusion to why I put the skids on the blade. Yes most of my plowing is on asphalt but most of our back property is gravel. When I originally did the plow conversion my goal was to get the blade as close to the FEL as possible. Because it was moved back meant the rear of the blades "A" frame could have gouged out the pavement so I simply added those rear shoes to keep the rear frame up. Incidentally I seldom use float mode. I have much more steering control without it and the only time I will use it is on straight pushes if I use it at all.

I did the same thing.
My A frame and cylinders are under the loader arms to keep the plow close to the FEL.
I only added skids to the back to keep the cylinders from grinding in the dirt.
I never use float. Can't steer.