Boss Plow Quick-Attach Adapter

[Katahdin]

Has anyone mounted a Boss RT3 Push Beam to a skid-steer type quick-attach plate? This is what I'm planning to do to phase out my 93' GMC plow truck. I'd like to keep the plow stock as I bought it new and have kept it in excellent condition over last 8 years. I plan to use the Boss 12V pump and controls to operate the hydraulics, maybe mount a second battery to take the load off the Yanmar's battery.

Seems straight forward, some cutting, welding, and maybe put a few grade 8 bolts through the push beam for extra hold strength, and reinforce the plate with angle iron as necessary. I picked up a push beam yesterday that I can hack on while leaving the one on the plow truck intact. Just curious if there's any other setups like this out there, I've been through the entire snow weapons thread and didn't see anything like it.

 

[cschulz]

Pictures would be good. I have a Boss plow and can just about picture this. But pics would help for sure.


Chris

 

[Katahdin]

Here's a quick diagram of the modifications I'm thinking of making to the Boss Rt3 Push Beam. Certainly I can post pics of my progress. :thumbsup:

I also plan to reinforce the plate that the bolts attach to with angle iron, and weld in a Reese trailer hitch receiver tube and D-ring to make the adapter a little more versatile.

 

[cschulz]

Now I get it. Simple and clean design. I might suggest that you go with a nice thick QA plate to help spread the load for your tractor arms and I very much suggest a second battery. What size alt. does the tractor have? Keep me posted.


Chris

 

[Katahdin]

Good question about the alternator, its a paltry Denso 40amp model. Looks like a second battery and throttling up the RPMs will be a must. FYI, for my purposes I'm just doing one 400 ft driveway. I can keep the extra battery topped off with a charger in the garage and put in a switch to isolate it from the starter battery.

 

[cschulz]

40 amps is small. Denso's are great pieces. Will you be doing a lot of angle changes? As for the lift that will come from the FEL right? Also keep in mind if you are plowing at night and need extra light. I would for sure go with LED's for less draw.
My truck has 2 batteries and a 140 amp alt. Never had a problem even doing drives with a lot of angle changes.

Chris

 

[Katahdin]

Not sure if I do a lot of angling or not, I don't have anything else to compare it too. I think with the tractor I'll be using the electric pump less, I plan to use a box blade to pull snow away the buildings and from the pile at end of the driveway that the town plow leaves. I'll also use the box blade to push into back-in spots where I turn around, which I'd normally need to make by plowing from the front.

On my GMC I've never had more than the stock 100 amp alternator and one battery, I've used both yellow and red optimas without any problems. The first year or two that I had the plow, and before switching to optimas, the dashboard low battery light would come on when operating the plow pump, but it was an older battery that I started with.

Typically my truck plowing is low-rpm and I never leave the driveway. I think the output of the 40amp alt, with throttle set to a higher RPM, would put out a comparable output to the lower operating rpms of the GMC alternator. I've never measured alternator amps before, this project would be an excuse to get out the multimeter and take some readings to compare the two alts and record the battery voltages before and after plowing. I don't plan to go too wild on the lighting, I think the front tractor beams would be fine and add on one or two 55 Watt halogens for the rear. I'll probably take the light bar off the plow once I retire the GMC--19 years and 310,000 miles, its had a long life.

I should also note my Boss plow is a full-trip standard duty plow, its weighs a little less than the heavier duty trip-edge plows.

 

[cschulz]

Everythings sounds good. Im with you in thinking the alt. and battery will be fine with the rpm's up. Good luck and post up some pics during build and try out.


Chris

 

[catdozer]

Sorry for not seeing this sooner. We used to have a boss v-plow VXT on a Bobcat T190. We had the RT3 bracket to the plate and it worked very well. ONLY THING don't weld the bracket directly to the plate!!!! Reinforce the plate!! We did a 2inch square tubing frame around the plate and directly down the center horizontal. Now for the RT3 bracket do cut the back plates off and weld it on the plate, place it up against the square tubing. For the control we had quick connects on the plow hoses that had a T. and 7 pin attachment control kit that We mounted to the plate. We drove up, hooked up to the plow and hooked up 2 hoses one for each side. When used on the bobcat we did use a chain for the lift cylinder on the plow but it was not needed. So we could still use the plow on a pickup with out heavily modifying it. We didn't get much use out of it any more. I sold it the plate on Craigslist for $700 as you could hook up any plow to it. I had about $400 in it. Sorry no pictures as I never thought it would be needed

 

[Katahdin]

Thanks for the info catdozer, I'm glad your adapter worked out well!

Yes, I think we're all in agreement the QA plate needs to be reinforced. I'm thinking angle-iron on the rear because I have a bunch of 3/16" scrap on hand. I imagine if I had square tubing lying around instead that I'd want to go that route.

Here's a pic of what I'm thinking with the angle iron, just imagine the QA plate is sandwiched between the Rt3 Push Beam and the Angle Iron. The QA plate I've ordered is 5/16" and the angle iron is 3/16", so the total thickness of the four reinforced areas would be 1/2 inch. For comparison, the two hooks being inserted into the plow frame are 1/2" thick.

 

[cschulz]

How have you been making out with this??

Chris

 

[Katahdin]

I've had to deal with few distractions these last two weeks, but I managed to put in a couple hours yesterday. I grounded down the welds on the back of the RT3 Push Beam so it was flush with the quick attach plate and started blasting the old rust and paint off. The push beam just barely fits into my little Harbor Freight blasting cabinet.

Here's some mock-up pics. The Yanmar CL600 loader attaches to the far edges of the QA plate, so I'm not anticipating any clearance issues with the angle iron and bolt fasteners that will be on the back side. So far so good!

 

[cschulz]

Wow! Look it fits like a glove. Should be pretty straight forward hookup.

Chris

 

[Katahdin]

I'm very happy with the fit of the QA plate, got that off Amazon.com for $138.00 shipped to my door. The seller was Titan distributors.

Got a few more hours in this weekend until forward progress was stalled by a bent 3/4" drill bit. I cut the angle iron to size to make the ribs for the back of the plate, and drilled holes through the push beam. FYI, the push beam steel tube is 1/4" inch thick on each side. Add that to the 5/16" QA plate and 3/16" ribs, the 3/4" Grade 8 bolts will be fastening a full inch of steel, not including the washers.

The grade 3/4" grade 8 bolts have a shear strength of 40,000lbs each. I'm tempted to just bolt the push beam on, it would make it easier to paint and take off should I find another bolt-on use for the QA plate.
.
Not using any fancy tools to this point, a harbor freight 4.5" electric grinder with a cut-off wheel made easy work of slicing the 3/16" plate to size. A Skil tabletop drill press was used to drill the holes through the push beam tube.

 

[Katahdin]

I finished up the welding and drilling today and mounted up the plow manually. By manually I mean I didn't use the electric switch on the plow that operates the lift cylinder to mount the plow onto the push beam, Boss plow owners will know what I'm talking about. The push bar is only bolted on in these pictures, I'm going to leave it like that for now.

It hitched up pretty easy once lined up. I had never hitched the Boss plow without using the electric switch before, but all you need to do is drive in, flip the on/off actuated pin levers, and push the light bar towards the tractor until the spring-loaded pins pop into place. The lift cylinder must always be in float mode when its not being used. Removing the plow from the mount manually was just as easy. It didn't take much effort to push on the light bar to actuate the pins. However, I imagine I can just leave the QA plate attached to the plow once I've retired the truck.

I drove the plow up and down my 400 foot driveway to see how it handled, I'd say it handles better than my half ton GMC, especially in two wheel drive. I did need to be gentle with the loader controls, the plow really sticks out there so you don't want it to shake while lifting and dropping.

Existing tractor lighting seems adequate.

For wiring I'm thinking now I'm just going to wire in the pump solenoid and controls to actuate the right/left cylinders. I don't think I'll add a second battery now, but I'll probably swap out the factory Yanmar battery for an Optima red top or similar.

Onwards to paint and wiring!

 

[cschulz]

Awesome job!! You made it look so simple. It was a great idea to use the skid steer QA. By the way your plow looks to be in great shape. I guess it never had any commercial time just home time. And heck the lighting looks good enough that you might as well remove the lights from the plow.
I acually just purchased a set of wings for my 8' Boss. Ill be doing a couple lots this winter for a friend of mine. The one last thing I need is some rear lighting so Im not running into things. Like I have in the past.

Chris

 

[Katahdin]

Getting back to this, yeah the plow is 9 years old and has pretty much only done the 400' gravel driveway and been garage kept. It must have been made during one of the first years for the Rt3/Smart Hitch2 models. I'm glad Boss has stayed pretty consistent with the design, it makes finding parts pretty easy. The plow needs a new hose that got pinched and a little paint touch up and a fluid change, but not much else. I did manage to destroy my original drop stand by not raising it during use before I learned my lesson there.

The quick attach parts have been painted, I used gloss black Majic tractor and implement paint from tractor supply, it came out nice and is a pretty good match to the Yanmar gloss black on the loader. I'll use this paint also to touch up the black on the plow. It a takes a little while to dry during early December in Maine, even with paint hardener!

I've got all the electrical parts ordered including the factory connectors to interface with the plow, I think it'll be a clean setup. I think i can get the solenoid and 4 gauge pump wire installed without any permanent modifications under the hood. For controls I'm going to run about 15 feet of 8-conductor 13 gauge speaker wire along the hydraulic lines. The speaker wire has a nice all weather rubber sheath for protection. I think I only need 6 of the wires to operate all the controls (up/down/left/right) with two leftover for lighting if I choose to pursue it. It'll be easy to detach the control wires along with the loader. The two 4 gauge pump wires will come directly from the battery compartment and can be coiled up and stowed on the loader guard when unused during the winter season. Two other 14 gauge wires will be used to activate the plow pump solenoid and power the controller. A 10 amp fuse will be added inline to the controller power. It'll be pretty much just like the truck setup minus the relays for the headlights and directionals.

One thing I really like about Boss is their documentation (attached), its readily available and well written and illustrated. It'll make my efforts to duplicate the wiring a lot easier.

 

[Katahdin]

Quick update, I finished the wiring tonight and the plow controller stick and all the functions work! This includes the smart-hitch2 switch that hydraulically connects the plow to the push beam. The float function works too! No wiring modifications were made on the plow side.

Here's what was needed for wiring:
6 plow control wires between the control stick and the 13 pin plug (up, down, left-in, left-out, right-in, right-out)
2 solenoid control wires (one from the control stick and the other from the smart-hitch2 switch through the 13 pin plug)
+/- for the control stick
a solenoid and heavier gauge +/- cable through the solenoid to the plow (for running the pump). I used a short 4 gauge to the solenoid and the power out to the plow is 6 gauge.

Unfortunately it'll be a couple days before I can play with it, but I'll definitely be plowing snow around the yard with my tractor this weekend!

 

[panchohughes]

Awesome! I really want to do something like this. However I only have a BX so I think i need to be careful about how much weight i have sticking out in front with only a single (mid) bucket cylinder. I think I will end up looking for a used ATV plow to keep the weight down. Really nice job with the QA plate. Can i ask a stupid question tho? Where does one find steel plate to buy? I can only find some angle iron, channel iron and some square tubing. I am planning on going to a local scrap yard this week to do some 'picking'. But if I wanted to buy some plate... where would I find some nice steel like you have on yours? Or did you buy the QA plate and just weld an existing bracket onto it?

 

[Katahdin]

I bought the quick-attach plate off Amazon.com for $138 delivered. I'm very happy with the price and the fit couldn't be any better:

Amazon.com: 5/16" Mount Plate for Skid Steers or Front Loaders (516MP): Home Improvement