Front Hitch Bracket and FEL Snow Blade

[DonDC]

Hi All, I am a newbe to the forum. My son recently bougth a 7 acre farm and a Kubota B7001 with RS1000 tiller and 48" FEL. I have been helping him get started and found a 42" snow blade from a small Ford tractor for $100.00 and decided I might be able to modify it to fit his Kubota. The blade needed a push point that would allow the blade to float as his FEL bucket has a HYSpec two lever controller which does not have the ability to float the bucket. So I made a clamp on bracket with chain to keep the blade straight when it is articulated left of right. For the push point I created a combination trailer hitch with cross bar to attach the push bar. I will try to post some pictures in case anyone is interested. Please forgive my lack of welding skills but I feel I have a legitamate excuse as I am a 75 year old grand father and have never welded anything in my life before. I inherited a stick welder from my father-in-law a few years back but never had the urge or need to try it. I had a lot of trouble getting a weld going and a friend suggested that a mig welder would be easer to start with. So my welds are not pretty but I think I got enough penetration that it will all hold together.

 

[DonDC]

Here are the first pictures

 

[DonDC]

Here are the remaining pictures.

When I made the front bracket I thought it would be useful to include a trailer hitch bracket as there are several things that can be put on a hitch besides a trailer ball, ie. small winch, tow hook etc.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

Not to bad at all, easy on easy off and not a whole lot of complication!

 

[RD Gray]

Can you see ok with the bucket at that position with the blade. Nice job at the engineering.

 

[DonDC]

Yes RD you can see the plow over the bucket provided you keep the chains very short. Thanks for the comments.

 

[gpreuss]

I like it! You've come up with a simple solution to the biggest loader problem - pushing with the blade tries to lift the front wheels. This is super, and would be easy to adapt to a skid steer QA frame!
Welds look like they will hold.
GOOD JOB!

 

[Eric McCarthy]

I'm wondering if maybe you welded the grab hooks to the bucket and then roll the bucket over to hook the chain then maybe you could have eliminated the need for the clamp on hook bar.

Kind of a late after thought...

 

[DonDC]

Yes Eric that would probably work however in our case the bucket doesn't roll far enough forward to use the chain hooks that he has on the top of his bucket without the chains catching on the lower lip of the bucket. I suppose the alternative would be to weld the chain hooks to the lower edge of the bucket.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

Well you have a good thing going on now. If it works and your happy no need to change things!