Adapting Plow to Tractor

[KennyG]

I have a 3 point blower for my JD 2320 but I've found that we tend to often get only 2-4" of snow at a time lately (although we get 80 to 100" a year) and it's not so efficient. I"ve been looking for a snow plow to fit to the tractor and finally found a good candidate. It's an Exmark plow, I suppose from a zero turn. It's 64" wide which is a good match for my 60" box blade and my 48" tractor tire width. Also, the A-frame is relatively narrow and close to the tractor frame width, so that worked well. I wanted to keep the blade close to the front tires to minimize sideways push since I don't think there is enough clearance for front chains on the 2320.

I removed the original manual angle system and added a hydraulic cylinder for angle. I built a subframe to go from the front mower mount on the tractor to the plow A-Frame. I built another bracket to mount to the front weight bar to hold a lift cylinder. I'm using a direct lift with chain.

We got about 18" of snow over a week or so in early December and the system worked very well. Nothing bent or broke. No problems with traction or side push. Clearing went very quickly. Of course, when we get a big snow I can put the loader and blower back on.

 

[RNeumann]

I’m betting the blower gets used less and less- unless you run out of room to push snow. Nice work on the mod!

 

[LouNY]

Nice looking blade hookup, you said that was your mower front mount?
Most blades run a sub member back to the main frame to absorb the push
force and impact when an immovable object gets in the way.

 

[KennyG]

Nice looking blade hookup, you said that was your mower front mount?
Most blades run a sub member back to the main frame to absorb the push
force and impact when an immovable object gets in the way.

On the John Deere the front frame extensions are used to support the front of the mid mount mower but are also used to support the JD front blade. They are quite beefy. I had originally thought to run supports farther back on the frame but after looking into it, it seemed these brackets will be adequate. When I started using it, I purposely snagged the blade a couple of times to make sure it would trip and it didn't seem to stress anything on the tractor.