Brought 57 cub home today

[wolc123]

I’m looking forward to trying the Cub on some slightly heavier snows this weekend. We are supposed to get a foot or so of “lake effect” from the coming storm. I put a 6 volt tickle charger / maintainer on the battery because it cranked a little slow last time.

I thought about
Making the blade a little wider, to cover the wheel width when angled, but I think I’ll leave it alone for the rest of this winter at least. It’s kind of nice being narrow, because it’s just about the same width as our front porch sidewalk. I can use it to back drag the snow off of that, saving me some shoveling.

I’ve always got the bigger blade on my bigger tractor available for heavier snows, if necessary. That cuts down too much on the “fun time” for lighter snows though.

 

[wolc123]

The Cub got a good workout today. I’d guess we got close to a foot of lake effect snow from the current storm. There is lots of blowing and drifting so it was bare in spots and over 2 ft in others.

I struggled a bit on our two driveways, unable to get much traction on any uphill grade. It worked well the other day, before the ground was froze, but not so hot now that everything is froze solid.

Putting the chains on the rears corrected that traction issue. After that, I plowed out the neighbors on each side and around back of our barn to the woodshed. There’s no stopping that little Cub now, with the chains on the tires.

It started up real good and it’s about 15 degrees out there today. The 6 volt battery trickle charger/maintainer seems to be helping there. I much prefer a gas tractor over a diesel in the winter.

Maybe I won’t even need my larger 4wd diesel this winter. I don’t see any temperatures above freezing in the long range forecast though, so I’m guessing I’ll need it for the loader to push back the piles at the ends of the driveways.

Most of my plowing is in the dark and I’ve yet to see how the lights on the Cub are going to work for that. I might find out tomorrow morning though, if the wind keeps up, even if we don’t get more snow.

 

[wolc123]

Some spots got pretty drifted in from the high winds and we got a couple more inches of snow so I plowed again tonight with the Cub. It was a little colder today and it didn’t start as good as it did yesterday.

The lights worked good. I used the headlights on high beam most of the time and the red tail light when I was out on or near the road.

Once again, I did both of our driveways and the neighbors on each side. The 1” pvc pipe fell off at my aunt’s next door. It probably saved me 6 hours of raking stones out of the grass in the spring so it was worth the 15 minutes that it took to make and install.

It got a little damaged, so I’ll probably cut another new one if we get a thaw this winter. I’ll drill a few holes thru it and put in 3-4 1/4” bolts to hold it on. It would probably last a full winter with those.

If we do get a thaw, I’m also going to remove one of the chains and weld up one of the hooks on it. The hook is slightly damaged on the end and likely to pop open and release the chain on that side. I wrapped some copper wire around it but I’m not sure how long that will hold it together.

Both chains held on real good tonight. I put (8) bungi straps on each side (2) inside and (2) outside of the rims, to help keep the chains tight.

It will be interesting to check the fuel usage. I filled the tank (took about 4 gallons of ethanol free gas) and ran it (2) hours yesterday and an hour tonight. There’s about (5) gallons of 1.5 year old stabilized ethanol free gas in my generator, which I’m going to transfer to the Cub. I’ll pick up (10) gallons of fresh stuff, and stabilize it, in another week or two.

I’ll leave that in my (2) 5 gallon plastic cans for use when and where it’s needed. I use only ethanol free gas in the Cub, my generator, wood splitter, (2) chain saws, power washer, and (4) boat motors. I’ve not had a single carburetor issue since I’ve been using that.

My Ford 8n tractor, pickup truck, (2) suv’s, van, car, and (2) lawnmowers all get cheap 87 octane regular gas. Don’t have carburetor issues with them either but they are used more often and/or don’t have carburetors.

 

[wolc123]

Fuel usage for snowplowing seems to be a bit less than 1 gallon per hour. I put about another hour on it a couple days ago, plowing the deep snow to open up the driveway to the woodshed in the back of my pole barn, and clearing about 3” of wet snow from our two front driveways tonight.

We are getting a good thaw now, so I am going to cut a new piece of 1” schedule 80 pvc for the bottom of the blade and screw it on. Since the ground will thaw, I’ll need that again, to keep stones out of the grass. I will probably weld repair the damaged tire chain hook too.

This Cub really works well for snowplowing, since I added the rear tire chains. Hopefully, we will get some more snow this winter. I’m impressed with how smooth that little 4 cylinder gas engine runs and its fuel economy. It hasn’t missed a beat or even came close to stalling.

 

[wolc123]

I cut and slit a couple more pvc pipes for the bottom of the blade, but no luck trying to drill holes thru the cutting edge to hold it on with bolts. It was way too hard to drill.

Oh well, even if I have to replace the pipes (3) times each winter, they will still save me lots of time raking stones in the spring. It only takes me 10 minutes to cut, slit and install the pipes and I have enough on the pile out back to make about 40 more if I need them.

 

[DJ54]

If you notice on mine, I used the existing holes in the moldboard to bolt the tabs I welded on.

Any of your buddies have a plasma cutter & welder..?? Pretty easy to make if you can get a piece of pipe. This was used and something I had I picked up somewhere for free. Tabs I already had too, just leftover flat strap leftover from a previous build. I used an inverted piece of angle iron as a straight edge to cut the slot.

Drilled and cut the front tabs to fit, then welded on. Tabs on the back side were welded on, then drilled through from the front so they would align. Bolted on with Grade 5 bolts.

Material usually isn't that hard to find if you have a metal sales or fab shop close. Both usually have cut-offs/drops they sell pretty reasonable. I seriously doubt I have $5 in this including material and consumables to cut and weld it up.

Considering what I've pushed with mine, it should last me the rest of my life. Now that you see how well it works you can get by this year with the PVC and have a whole year to come up with materials, and someone to cut & weld up something permanent.

 

[wolc123]

I’ve got a welder, plenty of steel pipe in various sizes and scrap steel. Maybe I’ll just slit a steel pipe with a 4-1/2” cutoff wheel. It’s only 53” long so it won’t take that long.

 

[wolc123]

When I slit the pvc pipes on my table saw, I marked them with a chalk line on top, to help keep the cuts on the bottom straight, and I set up a rip fence. It was super fast and easy.

I’d probably use the chalk line to mark the steel pipe before cutting the slit with the angle grinder. I need to take off the blade in the spring anyhow, to weld some side supports on the plow frame, which I’m going to use on my front trailer hitch in the summer. That will be great, with the offset engine and hydraulic lift, for getting my boat back into the barn after a day of fishing.

I’ll slit and weld tabs on the steel pipe (probably 1-1/2” size) while I have the blade off of the plow frame. I’ll have all summer to do that. Maybe I’ll make up two of pipe and tab assemblies. I was surprised how much the schedule 80 pvc wore down on the bottom after plowing with it just two times. I’m thinking I might get 2-3 years out of a schedule 40 steel pipe.

 

[lilranch2001]

When I slit the pvc pipes on my table saw, I marked them with a chalk line on top, to help keep the cuts on the bottom straight, and I set up a rip fence. It was super fast and easy.

I’d probably use the chalk line to mark the steel pipe before cutting the slit with the angle grinder. I need to take off the blade in the spring anyhow, to weld some side supports on the plow frame, which I’m going to use on my front trailer hitch in the summer. That will be great, with the offset engine and hydraulic lift, for getting my boat back into the barn after a day of fishing.

I’ll slit and weld tabs on the steel pipe (probably 1-1/2” size) while I have the blade off of the plow frame. I’ll have all summer to do that. Maybe I’ll make up two of pipe and tab assemblies. I was surprised how much the schedule 80 pvc wire down on the bottom after plowing with it just two times. I’m thinking I might get 2-3 years out of a schedule 40 steel pipe.

I would think steel schedule 40 pipe will last virtually forever unless you wear it a lot more than I expect

 

[wolc123]

I would think steel schedule 40 pipe will last virtually forever unless you wear it a lot more than I expect

I’m not so sure of that after seeing how fast the schedule 80 pvc wore down after just two uses. Limestone is pretty tough on plastic and soft steel. The plow edge piece is hard, high carbon steel about 3/8” thick and that is showing some wear. I’m thinking I’ll be lucky to get (3) years out of a schedule 40 steel pipe, before I wear thru the bottom. The wall thickness on that pipe is only about 1/8”.