Snow Snow Plow skid shoes and adjustment question

[danbike]

OK, so now that I have the snow plow on the tractor, what are the popular opinions on how to adjust or use the skid shoes? Some people are telling me to not use them, others are saying adjust them to the minimum clearance. I'd like some opinions from the people who have already addressed this issue.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Woody_NH]

That would depend on your driveway surface and conditions.

On my gravel driveway, I set shoes so the plow is up about an inch or more on level ground at start of winter. This helps (somewhat) with the problem of the plow digging in and plowing the gravel. Later on when the ground is frozen solid and there is a layer of hard pack snow/ice, then the shoes could be raised some (plow lowered), trial and error here. I usually leave them with the plow up a little all winter.

If your driveway is level pavement, you may not even need shoes. Others here have had ideas on techniques for getting all the snow off of pavement with rubber material on the cutting edge and probably no shoes. I have no experience with pavement.

 

[danbike]

Thanks for pointing out that I didn't answer one important question. The driveway is asphalt with concrete near the garage and barn.

 

[keeney]

I like the clean-scraped look and run without any shoes on my concrete driveway. I use a plastic (UHDPE) wear edge to avoid leaving any marks.

The shoes on my JD front blade were completely worn away when I got it used, and I never bothered to replace them.

- Rick

 

[danbike]

Where did you get the wear edge made from a plastic compound?

 

[reich]

I took my skid shoes off, welded the bottom of them using a hard surface welding rod and reinstalled them. They will never wear out.
Rod.

 

[earthly2]

keeney how did you attach the plastic/poly to your snow blade and what size did you use? How would attach this same material to your Front End Loader Bucket?

 

[keeney]

The plastic simply replaced the steel wear strip which was held on by about ten bolts through the lower edge of the blade. I replaced the nuts with the nylon-locking type, though, because there is no way to tighten the bolts on the plastic enough to keep them from vibrating loose with conventional nuts.

On the loader, you would have to drill holes in the front lip which may be a lot of work and may not be to your liking.

Maybe you could get a thicker piece of plastic and cut a deep groove down the edge (using a table saw) so it could slip over the FEL edge and be held on with a couple small bolts through just the ends.

- Rick