snow blade front stabilizer

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

  I am just now mounting my first snow blade and thinking about stress loads. It sure seems like there would be a tremendous amount of side load if one side or the other of the blade would hit sometiong hard. I am thinking about mounting an inverted u shaped slot in the front of the tractor so the blade can be lifted ,yet be limited to sideways travel. Thanks to pullstart's suggestion on shimming the rear mounts, the blade has decent upward travel.

 i will give it a try and come back with piccs. Anyway I gotta show off those off road tires I got for $40.00 from the sale barn

[ebinmaine 62,953]

@pfrederi and @WVHillbilly520H both have good ideas on that as well. 

 

I'll be setting something up on both of our go-to plow rigs as well. 

 

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. 

[Mickwhitt 4,134]

This is my take on the frontbend stabiliser.  It fits in the front attachamatic bracket so it can pivot. The mounting on the plow frame is also a pivot point so that the shaft can slide easily up and down with no binding. 

Works really well and looks pretty good too with plenty of range of movement so I can put a scraper blade on which is much lower than a plow. 

Mick

[WVHillbilly520H 10,369]

I took @cleat's idea and that from the xi models and made one for my 520s. 

 Post #30 for the blueprints.

[cschannuth 3,795]

Here’s my take on it. I had this front hitch that I really never used so I just welded some round bar to it and put a plate on the frame. It’s very simple to install and it has worked well so far. 

[Ed Kennell 35,603]

Here's mine.

 

 

 

[cschannuth 3,795]

2 hours ago, cschannuth said:

Here’s my take on it. I had this front hitch that I really never used so I just welded some round bar to it and put a plate on the frame. It’s very simple to install and it has worked well so far. 

One thing I will tell you to be aware of is when I first built this I didn’t have my rod long enough and the first time I pushed  snow off the edge of my driveway my blade fell low enough that the rod was no longer in the guide hole and I couldn’t figure out why my blade wouldn’t raise and that was it. I ended up welding a piece of the rod on the end of my rod that I had already cut off to make it shorter. If I had just left it its original length it would’ve been perfect, ha ha.

[ebinmaine 62,953]

24 minutes ago, cschannuth said:

One thing I will tell you to be aware of is when I first built this I didn’t have my rod long enough and the first time I pushed  snow off the edge of my driveway my blade fell low enough that the rod was no longer in the guide hole and I couldn’t figure out why my blade wouldn’t raise and that was it. I ended up welding a piece of the rod on the end of my rod that I had already cut off to make it shorter. If I had just left it its original length it would’ve been perfect, ha ha.

That's good info right there. Thank you. I'm quite sure I wouldn't have thought of that until it happened to me.

 

We have several places around the yard or driveway that drop off so it would have been the very first storm.

[pfrederi 17,125]

I do not have front tachmatic on my Charger dedicated plow tractor.  Also wanted some front weight.    Note the hole you have in you r pow frame needs to be somewhat elongated front to rear as the plow goes up and down it shifts a bit.

 

 

[cschannuth 3,795]

7 minutes ago, pfrederi said:

I do not have front tachmatic on my Charger dedicated plow tractor.  Also wanted some front weight.    Note the hole you have in you r pow frame needs to be somewhat elongated front to rear as the plow goes up and down it shifts a bit.

 

 

 That is something else I forgot to mention. If you look closely at my picture from my post (post 5 above) you can see that my hole is elongated to allow for raising and lowering the blade. Thank you for the reminder.  I suppose if your pin is able to rotate front to back as the blade raises and lowers, elongating the hole would not be required. Hope all of this information helps somebody.

[ebinmaine 62,953]

21 minutes ago, cschannuth said:

helps somebody

I was actually about to post a thank you to all above who have put pictures and information here. There's several good ideas.

 

One of the things I like about this site the most is that if you give five of us a task it might get done five different ways.

It's great to see the individual ideas and figure out which one or a combination therein  works best for the environment that we all have separate from one another.

 

I'll be saving this post aside for sure like I've done with a few others.

 

 

[Ed Kennell 35,603]

I also have drilled 1/8" holes every inch along the height of my stabilizer rod.    When I am plowing snow on the stone road, I set the blade about 1" off the stones using a washer and hairpin clip to set the minimum height so I don't roll up the stones and push them off the road into the grass.   When plowing paved surfaces, I just move the pin to the bottom hole so the blade will scrape.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Ed Kennell

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

 Wow. I did not expect that so many other members saw the need for this and engineered a solution for it. I went to my go-to engineering pile of parts which relies heavily on bed frames and parts taken off recliner chair frames /metal moving parts. I actually found a couple of parts that bolt on the front end with no drilling. Its off to the shop to drill out the rivets and try my fix which requires no welding.  Not gonna promise anything as good as what has been shown, but we will see...................

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

Here is what I finally did. I just went through my reclining chair hardware, found a likely piece of steel, and ground off the rivets holding it to the suspension of the chair.. I also found a suitable piece that worked well to lift from the hydraulic cylinder. Then just added a piece of plywood to the front of the tractor to fasten the guide bars between the frame of the front blade. BTW, the tires were bought from a mini bike supply and were $20.00 each. The front brackets were a no drill direct fit right off the footrest suspension. Anyway, this will do for this season, and i have to get the seat situated and a bit of guide blocking so the adjusting handle does not rub on the tractor. This is a 520H with a 420CC Predator. no meaningful snows as of yet in SW Ohio, but I want to be ready

Edited January 23, 2021 by ohiofarmer

[ebinmaine 62,953]

Looks like that should work!

[ohiofarmer 3,156]

Just now, ebinmaine said:

Looks like that should work!

 

I hope so, but I am wondering about how much those front tires will get kicked sideways without ribs on them. Maybe some roller chains would help.

[ebinmaine 62,953]

4 minutes ago, ohiofarmer said:

roller chains

I'd HIGHLY advise them. 

[BeninCT 451]

These ideas are simpler than what I had in mind.  Ever see a panhard bar on a truck?  More like a linkage than just a single bar but would work well for this.   Didn’t need one for the plowing I did last night.  The actual snow was maybe this deep but I was out there.  Wife laughing at me of course.

 

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[lynnmor 6,762]

On 1/23/2021 at 5:32 PM, ohiofarmer said:

 

I hope so, but I am wondering about how much those front tires will get kicked sideways without ribs on them. Maybe some roller chains would help.

 

I used those tires for 30 years and they worked reasonably well, I don't want steel on my paved driveways.  This type came on my last 520H and they are rather useless, even in new condition.  I bought the original tread type to replace them.