B series with quick attach snow plow lifting question

[mike paulson]

I plow mostly gravel but some asphalt and at times the tractors wheels lift off the surface. I'm looking at putting schedule 40 3inch diameter pipe along the cutting edge. Anyone else having this problem..
I'm kinda sorry I traded my frame mount plow which never had this problem for this QC setup.
Any pointers??

 

[KennyG]

Loader mounted plow? Are you plowing in float?

 

[alkabo]

I have an L4400 with the same setup and always plow in float mode with no problems. I have an 8 ft Western plow on the front.

 

[BlueKnife]

I plow mostly gravel but some asphalt and at times the tractors wheels lift off the surface. I'm looking at putting schedule 40 3inch diameter pipe along the cutting edge. Anyone else having this problem..
I'm kinda sorry I traded my frame mount plow which never had this problem for this QC setup.
Any pointers??

I'd look into trading back. Loader mounted plows kinda suck on light tractors. Putting pipe on the cutting edge will help prevent the edge from digging in. It will also pack down a thin layer of snow each time you plow. When you get a thaw and then freeze, this layer becomes a nice sheet of ice.

 

[CH4Ohio]

Too much weight on the blade and angle-of-attack is wrong. There's another thread that's been active for the last week or so about snowplows and FEL's. In fact, there are LOTS of threads on the site about snowblades and various related issues.

 

[mike paulson]

Loader mounted plow? Are you plowing in float?

Yes loader mounted and I do plow in float

 

[DK35vince]

I never had any luck putting my loader in float with my loader mounted plow (doesn't work IMO)
To much weight on the plow, and once you start pushing any amount of snow it starts taking weight from the front tires.

I let the loader down till the plow is lightly on the ground and go, I do occasionally need to make some loader adjustments, but it works fine.

 

[mike paulson]

What about putting stroke limiters on the lift cylinders to prevent them from collapsing when in float

 

[BlueKnife]

What about putting stroke limiters on the lift cylinders to prevent them from collapsing when in float

Not gonna help. You'll just lose some of your control of the blade angle. If you had float capability on the curl cylinders, that might help, but I've never heard of that being a thing. You pretty much just have to keep your hand on the loader lever and make regular, little adjustments. I've used 4 different loader mounted plows, on 5 tractors (that were all a lot bigger than a B series), 2 skid steers and a wheel loader. They sucked on everything but the skid steers. It just puts too much leverage out in front of the machine, pushing it sideways or digging in. With the blade that far in front of the machine, the tiniest dip of the front wheel is magnified greatly at the plow and float in the lift arms doesn't lighten it up enough to help very much. All of this changes completely once the road surface is frozen hard. Then things get lots easier. I wasn't joking about looking into trading back to the frame mounted plow. They work lots better on any tractor, especially a lighter tractor.

 

[ruffdog]

I never had any luck putting my loader in float with my loader mounted plow (doesn't work IMO)
To much weight on the plow, and once you start pushing any amount of snow it starts taking weight from the front tires.

I let the loader down till the plow is lightly on the ground and go, I do occasionally need to make some loader adjustments, but it works fine.

Yeah, the geometry is all wrong when using a plow on a FEL when in float. When a plow is mounted on the front of a truck, the force of pushing goes straight back to the truck's frame because both are parallel to the ground. When using the plow on the tractor (float), the pressure from pushing goes up at a angle to where the loader is mounted to the tractor. When you push, that upward angle is what is raising the tractor. Good designed plows have the float feature built into the plow itself so the loader adds weight on the front tires.