Pickup Truck Snow Blade Digging In

Good Evening Gentlemen, we have moved recently and consequently have a new driveway to plow. I'm still very close to home so we still use my fathers equipment to plow with. I have been using a 3pt blade behind a Ferguson TO-35 and was having trouble with the backblade digging in too much on the new driveway. As per your suggestions, we attached a piece of pipe to the cutting edge of the back blade and this solved the digging in issue. My father uses a pickup truck and push plow for his primary snow removal machine. His plow uses what I would call the "ski" type shoes to keep the plow from digging in. We tried using this on my driveway but the "ski's" seemed to sink into the gravel and then the blade would dig gravel. Have any of you ever attached a piece of pipe to the cutting edge of a push type blade and taken the shoes off? Would this work?

put a piece pf pvc pipe on the cutting edge and raise the skis up a little so they dont drag the ground. i have that set up on my shop plow truck .

I "think" I replied to your other thread. Anyway, my plow truck is a 2001 Dodge ext. cab, 4x4, 1/2-ton with Western poly plow with ultra mount. I don't even have my skid feet attached! ...But I think I know where they are. *lol*

Anyway, the plow has a piece of 1 1/2" galv. steel pipe on the blade. This offers much more "dig-in" protection than the skids. In soft (unfrozen) ground, you will likely need to add some additional surface to what I call the Turf Bar (the steel pipe) to prevent it from scraping up unfrozen dirt and gravel. We have such a short amount of the season where the ground isn't hard-frozen that I don't worry about the additional surface area, but then many places south of us might have to consider that option.

To attach my Turf Bar, I scribed a straight line down the length of the pipe, then used an angle grinder, and I think maybe also an older circular saw with metal-cutting blade, to make the initial cut. Then used the angle grinder to open the cut enough to where it was a snug fit. Then, with the blade and Turf Bar resting on concrete blocks, I measured from the Turf Bar to the lowest bolts on the plow, on backside of plow. Cut some pieces of steel, drilled holes, removed the nuts and added the new pieces, then welded these new pieces to the Turf Bar. If memory serves, I made 4 such brackets; 2 near the end (about 6"? from end) and the other 2 equally spaced in between. ....There might have been a 5th tab in the middle - can't remember.

We don't have any gravel or pavement, so this setup has been working beautifully for the 5 years I've been using it. Once the ground is solid, I can plow over any part of the yard without fear of the plow digging up soil. However, our ground is VERY soft, and the truck tires will still make indented ruts in the soft ground. Makes it a "B" to mow the following year!! Hope this helps.

Sounds to me like your driveway is loose stone. That's going to be tough not to plow off and not have one big mess. Another suggestion is plow it off good and get it froze up good. Another would be to pack the first snow down so the gravel is covered.

This has been talked about more than once. The split pipe works real good. Pretty easy with a plasma cutter-Good Luck---Tee

Angle your blade and back drag it

I have a 3" heavy-wall pipe on my 8' Meyers plow on my 1984 Dodge D350 dually with no shoes. First year I put this on. So far this year we only had the dry fluffy snow and it works slicker than snot.

During the twenty plus years i plowed commercial what i learned about snow plows was Westerns cut what you set the pads to cut as back then i had a lot of gravel lots drives and lanes and on the old western plow i would set it for about and inch and a half above the surface as back then PEOPLE could drive on a couple inches of snow and never once did i ever roll gravel with the Western plow . Then i got this hair brain idea in my head i wanted a NEW truck and put my 73 up for sale . Not knowing that it would sell so fast as i don't think the ink was dry on the paper the phone was burning up with calls and i told each and everyone the same thing first one here with CIF in hand owns it lock stock and barrel and maybe it was and hour later a guy and his wife showed up walked around the truck looked under the hood sat in it started it up shut it off walked back and looked at the plow and five more people showed up when Jennel reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad and handed it to me and said SOLD as these other people were walking towards us . One guy got a little huffy about this and i told him i said FIRST ONE WITH CASH OWNS IT . Only thing i had to do was drive the truck down to his place on my tags and he brought me home . Then i was in a panic for a plow truck And i bought a 78 Ford F250 Snow Patrol pkg with a Myers plow , What a piece of junk plow . It had the fancy ski shoes and i don't care what you did or how many washers you stacked on them to raise the cutting edge the min it saw a gravel lot it would bit in and start shoving gravel , i added a third trip spring thinking that would help redid the mountings for the skids so they fit tighter added in two double acting hd shocks and all it did was shove gravel and constant problems with the electric lift unit . So IMHO if ya have gravel / stone / slag drives /Lots best truck mounted plow is a Western . Now i can say how the new commers are Like Boss , Fisher, and any of the others out there as i have not tried them.

I had the same problem with my plow wanting to dig into the gravel. I solved the problem by welding a flat plate of steel under each shoe so there was a bigger surface for the shoe to ride over the gravel. When the gravel is not frozen the weight of the plow pushes the skinny shoes down into the gravel. The steel plates are about 8x10 inches square. I bent the front of the plate up to match the front slope of the shoe.

How does the pvc pipe hold up. I would think the cold and any raised hard spots or ice would break it.

Even if the PVC doesn't break, it simply won't hold up well. But, my guess is it'll break.