Back Blade for snow removal with horse mat

[OrangeKrush]

Nice.. I may have the same blade, were you not able to find any bolts like that locally? Glad to hear it worked well, I was just thinking of going to TSC to get a mat and bolts.

 

[ayak]

I would have thought those bolts would have been easy to find, but as remote as I am and having been to 3 places already, it was easiest just to order in some a little longer than the originals so they could reach now thru the mat as well. And that’s a 72” RB1672, so not a real heavy one, but I’m still going to keep the rubber up off the ground when I’m done after plowing.

 

[OrangeKrush]

I would have thought those bolts would have been easy to find, but as remote as I am and having been to 3 places already, it was easiest just to order in some a little longer than the originals so they could reach now thru the mat as well. And that’s a 72” RB1672, so not a real heavy one, but I’m still going to keep the rubber up off the ground when I’m done after plowing.

Ok thanks for the info, I tried TSC around my area and their All sold out of the horse mats.. 4 in my surrounding area.. guess word got out!

 

[sheepfarmer]

I am guessing the stall mats alone would work well for fairly light blades, but another suggestion is a piece of Trex or similar plastic 5/4 board drilled and installed to replace the steel blade. You might be able to find that if you can’t find a stall mat.

I got a free piece of board and it is still in place 3 years later. I needed to make sure the steel blade didn’t gouge up an alley that was sloped to form a V shaped area about the width of my tractor the length of my barn. Works well and has the side benefit that I can plow parts of the lawn if needed. You may

have to find new bolts though, mine were designed to work with square holes in the steel blade, and I didn’t have the right tools to make square holes.

 

[orangetractorkid]

I tried the pvc and it lasted about two minutes and the rocks wrecked it. I took a stick of metal plumbing pipe from the hardware store and welded two tabs on the side. I put a few holes in the tabs and removed the screws for the cutting blade, while leaving the cutting blade attached, and attached the pipe so it sits underneath the cutting blade. The round pipe doesn’t dig up the gravel driveway or grass. I haven’t used it for a couple years as it just didn’t seem as effective as the snowblower.

 

[sam24and48]

Final build is done. I'll be working on the other side tonight. I know some of the guys were asking where to find the plow bolts, I as well had a horrible time finding them and settled on bolt depot dot com. All the rest of the bolts, nuts etc I sourced locally. So the difficult part was making sure I had enough clearance for the wheel to rotate so that's why you see so many unistrut stacked together. I could have had someone fab me something with square tube but I had a bunch of unistrut so that was easiest and cheapest for me.

I also had to be careful how far the bolt on the bottom stuck out and had to cut some of the "curled" part of the strut out to be able to tighten the 5/8" plow bolt down. One other thing I added was a carriage bolt to hold the top bracket for the trailer jack to give me a little more confidence in it holding tight. Oh I also had to reem out the strut holes just a bit to get the 5/8 bolts through.

I was going to paint it to match but will probably wait till it comes off in the spring and then add that final touch.

If I was to guess I am probably $130-$150 in this project. Probably 1/3rd of that was ordering extra plow bolts not knowing the exact length I would need for the bottom of the strut. I also had spare strut so there was no cost there.

 

[OrangeKrush]

Nice.. I called TSC yesterday and was told they had some coming today so I went and snagged one. Now for the bolts.. I forgot to take one off before going, carriage bolts but not sure of the diameter. I thought they might have been 1/2” but wasn’t sure so figured I better wait. I think all they had was zinc plated which I’m not sure are strong enough, grades 5 & 8 were not in carriage bolts so I may have to do regular bolts with washers. Thoughts on the zink plated bolts? It’s only a 60” blade and with the rubber mat it shouldn’t be too rough. I’ll get the hardened bolts if they have them in carriage bolts but doubtful.

 

[sam24and48]

My biggest concern with not going with grade 8 would be longevity/rust build up. Other than that I would think even the zinc bolts should be strong enough might just be rusted up after a number of years.

So my biggest concern with this setup is the wheels. With the gravel drive I think they will wear pretty heavily over time, but i had a feeling that might be the case going into this. So just have that in the back of your mind if you go with a similar setup. Probably will do some research on some better wheels, maybe with grease built in at some point, if they make that for something this small.

The picture of wear was from a test run of just a few passes.

 

[Papadiver]

It is cut lengthwise and then use a mallet to pressure fit it on.

There are some youtube videos on this.

I checked out a youtube tube and then tried it on the 48” blade on my ATV setup. I cut the PVC 1” longer than my blade then cut the slot with a table saw. It worked great! It solved the problem of digging into the gravel. I was skeptical about if it would stay on or not. No problems at all. I was pushing 8” of snow. I am working on my 72“ back blade on my tractor now. I have some stall mat and some PVC. Trying to decide what to try first.

Ron

 

[OrangeKrush]

Finally got er done! Had to use regular bolts and washers on the face.. grade 8 bolts. Funny TSC did not have the correct sized washers for their bolts in that grade., they were plenty large enough for sure, too large, more like a 13/16”hole, bolts are 5/8” I had to go with the zink for the almost right size washer. I had 4 that fit perfectly, go figure! Anyways that’s why the difference in color and size.

It came out nice and I’m anxious to try it out. I cleaned it up underneath where the blade and cutting edge had surface rust and coated them with some Wd40 to help with that. I’d like to thank @sam24and48 for posting this thread.

 

[sam24and48]

Finally got er done! Had to use regular bolts and washers on the face.. grade 8 bolts. Funny TSC did not have the correct sized washers for their bolts in that grade., they were plenty large enough for sure, too large, more like a 13/16”hole, bolts are 5/8” I had to go with the zink for the almost right size washer. I had 4 that fit perfectly, go figure! Anyways that’s why the difference in color and size.

It came out nice and I’m anxious to try it out. I cleaned it up underneath where the blade and cutting edge had surface rust and coated them with some Wd40 to help with that. I’d like to thank @sam24and48 for posting this thread.

No problem! I just used it yesterday to clear a few inches off our concrete and then the asphalt millings drive. It worked 100x better than the setup last year. Flipped the wheels to the side to clear the concrete. Then put them back in place to do the rest of the drive with millings with no gouges in the surface. VERY HAPPY!!!

 

[sam24and48]

Just a mid winter update for anyone that tries the trailer jacks like I did. If you get the harbor freight ones, zip ties don't keep the wheels from floating up or down. As they spin from use they will adjust. Usually this isn't a huge deal while plowing, but I do reset the height for a fresh run. I think i will paint a permanent line on the shaft to easily see my set mark once the season is over. The drive is finally frozen and i'm not using the wheels as much. But before freezing they continued to exceed my expectations for keeping from moving gravel into the yard.

 

[OrangeKrush]

This rubber mat has worked great for me on the concrete and does really well on my other gravel driveway turned backwards.

 

[ayak]

This rubber mat has worked great for me on the concrete and does really well on my other gravel driveway turned backwards.

Agree 100% on ‘turned backward’ -I was getting a sore neck and also needed to go down a 6-7 degree grade on my driveway, so I drive forward down the slope and pull the snow behind me, angled to the side.