Loader vs snow plow thread re-visited

I recently picked up a plow blade and noticed it had ends so snow cannot glide off. So I found out it was a dozer blade that came off a tractor or dozer. Its 6' long approx and 2 ft high. Very HD. We slid it into the back of my 3/4 ton plow truck for weight. Strapped it in so it does not slide around. I'll post pics of it when it thaws out. Then I found this thread and "Old" was talking about v plows. This past fall I helped a friend get his buddies 1984 518 Cat Skidder going and the rd it was on was blocked by this giant v plow that fits the skidder. I could hardly see over it so had to just raise it up slightly to see where I was going. We then dropped it off in a meadow by this sea can. You can see the size of the v plow in comparison to my Suzuki king quad 300. Up here in the northern Cariboo of BC, Canada the snow may total 15-20 feet in a given winter which settles to about 50% of that. So this is the plow they use to keep the last 10 kms or so open to his cabin. It was my first time driving a skidder and the blade seemed so huge. I felt like the Canadian "Mad Max" lol. The skidder had been on a spur rd off the main rd so there was lots of trees it mowed over and then the plow did the last 300 feet of mowing down saplings that were leaning in over the rd the past few winters. I'll post more phtos when my uploading cooperates.

Yep many many years ago I built a V plow which was not as easy easy as it look to do. It works very well for what snow we get here in Missouri U.S.A.

Here in west mid MN I use a blower, 8' on a tractor. Got a tlb and dozer as a back up!

Rick

Looks like the v blade used on a road grader or tandem truck to plow snow on public
roads, the snow will fly off quite a ways with a bit of speed and a shiny blade. Ben

That plow is designed to mount on graders or big Oshkosh 4X4 trucks that are high enough for the operator to see over the plow. If you mount that plow on something else, make sure that the ground is frozen and/or the front shoe is adjusted correctly or you will find yourself sitting on top of the plow with it's nose in the dirt. The front shoe is the one that is hard to reach to adjust so people try to get by without adjusting it. I've seen frame rails on new Oshkosh trucks bent straight down from such incidents.

Most municipalities around here still own V plows but a lot have not been used for a few years

Never used those to take snow down to road just to get it down to about 3 inch then used belly blade to take it down farther.

I don't think that 4 wheeler will handle it very well

There is a place in Greely that builds a neat snow
blade that will also fold in the middle to make a
plow.

Check this video out
Untitled URL Link

(quoted from post at 07:43:23 12/23/16) Most municipalities around here still own V plows but a lot have not been used for a few years

Click to expand...

Most all "V" plows around NNY sit in front of a county or town highway dept. garage with the name of the county or town painted on it.

Those V-plows are from 60-80 years ago. Back then the roads were mostly dirt or if paved, nowhere near as smooth as today's roads. Roads were not kept bare through-out the storm like today, the crews just made their rounds as well as they could at 10-15 MPH. This means that it was not unusual for snow to accumulate deeper than a conventional truck and plow could push. Even if the truck had the power and traction, trying to push that depth of snow would push the truck to the left. When this happened the Vee plow came out. It was mounted on a good sized crawler or a big 4x4 like an Oshkosh or Walters. They would move along slowly but open the roads up after a day or two. In 1974 heavy March storm had our road closed for two days.

Awesome video of snow plowing in 1939! I guess fuel back then was very cheap! Anyone know when snow blowers first came out? I know they use a pretty big highway truck snow blower on the Coquihalla highway here in BC Canada. BC used to use a gas turbine powered plow trucks yet phased them out due to fuel costs.

Here is a photo of the 1984 518 Skidder I used to move v-plow. Like the fellow using an upright shovel walking ahead of the v plow from 1939, the rd that the skidder plowed was on a mountain side so a person could see the rd between the trees. Yet I like the idea of a fellow guiding me. Big steep drop offs on side of rd and if skidder went over edge it would cost a fortune to get it pulled back up. Plus operator may not live to tell about it. Winch on skidder was not operable so hope to help them fix it in spring 2017. I know from getting stuck with my 3/4 ton truck plow is not much fun. I stripped the spider gears in a dana 44 while running chains on all four wheels. I got stuck and impatient. I just prefer to run chains on rear with lots of weight in rear and use 4 low or 4 high when needed. If I put chains on front and get stuck I take my time to shovel and winch myself out. I rebuilt my dana 44 with used parts and don't want to rebuild it again. I have a 1 ton 4x4 with dana 60 yet its still a work in progress.

Side view of 1984 518 Skidder. We used my larger compressor to top up tires yet buddy insisted on using his wee compressor then shortly gave up lol.