Snow plow adapted to 3 point hitch

[knucklehead]

I have followed with interest the various ideas others have had to adapt truck type plows to their tractors. My Father and brother had adapted an old 7.5' Western plow to replace the bucket on his 1976 L-series 2wd Kubota. We noticed the loader on my 79 Ford 1700 was exactly the same as the old Kubota, meaning the brackets on the adapter fit, so I bought it after he upgraded to a L3010.

The first Winter I used it, the plow seemed to throw the tractor around in deeper snow, probably because 7.5' is a lot of blade for the weight of the tractor. I had to "roll" deeper snow by pushing it up & over the bank using the loader lift until I worked an area wide enough, and angling was not always effective either. Since I bought an older truck with a hydraulic plow, I sort of parked the rig on a pallet for a couple years, until the old truck started having regular maintenance problems. Now I have a nice modern truck, no bucks for a "minute mount", and absolutely no desire to cram the older pump, reservoir, control valve, and heavy control cables into a 2002 Dodge, much less bolt the cumbersome in-cab controls under my smooth spiffy dashboard.

As it got colder, my pallet queen started to look prettier & prettier.

I thought it would be neat to have the versatility of both the plow and bucket, so I did some head scratching and decided to see if I could rig something up to mount the plow on the 3 pt hitch. Because I have had some other projects going on, I wanted to get this squared away quickly with minimal time and money. A few days ago, I had some extra time so I went down and hauled the old rig up next to the garage, backed the tractor up to it, and started to use the old vernier eyelashes on things.

I knew I wanted some sort of A frame to allow the plow to be pinned to the draft arms and the top link. My biggest problem was the time and equipment involved in cutting, drilling, bending and welding a big enough hunk of steel, and for that matter the time it would take to run after stock and draft pins and so forth. Then I had one of those "light bulb" moments. Of course, since the best designs are simple, I had been looking to steal ideas from my other attachments, including my bush hog. That's when the bulb flashed on....why not just take the stuff I needed from the bush hog?

A little grunting and groaning with a wrench, scrounging up a piece of old chain, and fiddling with the chain hookup, and I am ready to chase a few flakes around. I noticed right off that it would be hard to angle the blade with the chain where it was, so I re-rigged it back a bit, which also took the strain off the blade/sector itself so it was easier to manually angle.

What do you think?

Western Plow

Closer look at adapter

Rigged with robbed bush hog parts

Chain relocated

 

[RonMar]

Looks like it will move some snow. Hope you don't bend the 3PH arms when you run into something(especially with blade angled). Those arms are better for pulling and lifting than pushing. I think you will find they push to the side pretty easy when the blade is angled and pushing snow.

What might be better is to extend the frame on the plow so it is long enough to reach the rear axle on the tractor and fabricate brackets to attach it there(better place to transfer impact stress to) Then the 3PH arms would only be called on to lift the thing.

Just about anything beats shoveling Good luck.

 

[knucklehead]

Hey Ron - I thought about that and even have read some other conversation about push vs pull on the draft or lift arms. I checked the diameter of the pins where the other end is attached under the axle, but they undergo the same magnitude of force whether pushing or pulling.

I always tighten and check the tie rod - type braces on the arms to keep things relatively solid.

The thing I wonder whenever that comes up is: why isn't that ever discussed when we talk about reversable rakes, landscape blades, or scrapers? I guess the general answer is to go easy on anything. I'm not a slam-type snow plower, anyway. Slow and easy, feeling the ground as I go is the best way.

 

[Slamfire]

I have a couple of bent stabilizer arms that I got trying to load my pond scoop, while backing up. There are even some gouges on the tire's sidewall. Enjoy! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[beenthere]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( ..............: why isn't that ever discussed when we talk about reversable rakes, landscape blades, or scrapers? I guess the general answer is to go easy on anything. I'm not a slam-type snow plower, anyway. Slow and easy, feeling the ground as I go is the best way. )</font>

It has been brought up, many times. And there have been some pretty ugly looking 3pt arms mangled and bent with questions about buying new or trying to heat and bend back in line. The sway chains/bars/turnbuckles only hold the arms about half way back, or less, and when the attachment hits something solid, sometimes the force will bend the end of the 3pt arm. Which is better than breaking a casting.
If you are going easy enough, then likely nothing will happen. Just hope that nothing does.

 

[jdgreg]

Mark, I had Ford 1700. Had it for about 17 years. All that time I mainly push snow backwards. Cant tell you how many times I hit something solid that stopped me cold. Even busted several of the hitch pins that secure the arms to the tractor. So many times that it warped my BB pretty bad. Maybe I just got lucky, but I never bent a 3ph arm, or did any other damage to the tractor. Those 1700s are pretty tough!!

Enjoy your creation this winter, looks good. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[crazymike]

I wouldn't worry too much about damage so long as your tripping mechanism on the plow still works. If it doesn't all it will need is some greese and new trip springs.

I have a 8'6" western on my dodge ram 3/4 tonne and I've hit more curbs this week than I care to talk about. But as long as the plow trips you just get a jolt and move on with it.

 

[knucklehead]

I thought the same thing when I looked at the draft or life arms. They are pretty solid steel - half inch if my eyeballs don't fool me. I think I'd worry more about the pins, myself.

Those three springs in the photos are the trip system. Those of you with Westerns know they trip the whole blade, which is hinged at the bottom. It can actually start to fold over pushing a big load of wet snow sometimes. The springs are pretty closely sized, I think.

Again, with manual steering, a geared transmission, and a tractor that is 27 years old, I'm not going to be slamming anything. I wouldn't with a new one, either.

 

[Maineiac]

Knucklehead: I must be another knucklehead from Maine too, because I just rigged EXACTLY the same set-up for my little Kioti with a 6ft Fisher plow someone game me. Robbed the parts off my rear blade, too!

Did you get some snow last Friday? We got 7 inches, and by some weird coastal fluke, we're getting 6 or 7 more today. Another chance to try out my rig. So far, I couldn't be happier; it works great. I'm planning to go pretty slow--never out of first gear--and I know my driveway and road pretty well so I don't think I'll hit anything too hard. Famous last words, right?

Anyway, good luck. Great minds think alike!

 

[scott_vt]

Mark,
It looks good to me, and like you stated it has the trip springs to avoid any serious trouble, especially if your going real slow. You also have the added benifit of all that weight hanging there for added traction, plus the utility of your FEL. I say if your happy with it, thats all that counts /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

scotty

 

[Deerlope]

Good lookin set-up. It will sure beat shoveling.

 

[knucklehead]

Maineiac - we may be outnumbered, but we ain't outsmarted, huh? I'm closer to Augusta, and we got 5-6 inches of powder.

The boys scooped it out of the driveway and cleared our older neighbor's walk, but when I got off work Monday, I couldn't stand the sight of the stuff in his gravel driveway or my road down to the shed. It had turned cold and the ground hardened up a bit, so I decided to fire up the old double-ended monster and see what it would do.

It worked great on the granulated sugar we had - plus, being able to see the plow working and jig it up/down just a hair makes it a lot easier to keep grass on lawns and edges of driveways. As long as I don't mind the half cheek twist riding stance (4.5 from the Russian judge /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif), and whatever is falling/blowing getting on me I actually think I like it better than being in the truck and only watching my whips.

How did you make out yesterday - did you get left with any snow? We had 4-6" and rain/sleet on top - a thick crust. We went out at 19:00 after it tapered off and cleared everything - I really have to get my rear lights working! As I suspected, the 2500lb tractor (plus, what - another 1000-1200 for the loader and plow?) doesn't like pushing heavier stuff up much of a hill.

The only hassle I found is the loss of traction and having to get off to angle the plow. 7'-6" is a lot of plow for a 2 cyl, 25 hp diesel.

More weight, being close to the plow, being out of the elements...I think I need a Unimog.

 

[knucklehead]

I forgot to mention that the trip springs work great - going slow, the edge is more likely to catch rather than bounce over things like frozen muddy tire tracks. The plow bends over easily but doesn't dump its load - only a small, thin line of stuff about 2" deep and the width of the plow over the obstruction, which lets me know where it was on the return trip.