DIY Snow Box

chim · Feb 10, 2014

To clear snow from several large areas at work it seemed we could use a snow box / pusher of some sort. The work load in the weld shop is a little thin now, so I wandered around looking for some parts and pieces that could be used to make one. First of all, there was a spare 7-1/2' snowplow (minus some hydraulics and part of the frame). It was cleaned and painted a few years ago and instead of finding the missing parts we bought a new Blizzard plow for a Tahoe.

Next was a set of forks on a QA mounting plate that was a purchasing mistake. When we bought a Montana tractor about 4 years ago someone thought the forks would be a good idea. We never used the forks on the Montana. There are 8 or 9 forklifts, 2 yardlifts and generally at least one of the three Gradall telehandlers we own is at the shop.

I told the guys to get the forks and the plow inside. We swiped the moldboard from the plow and the QA plate from the forks. First up we welded and reinforced the moldboard to the QA plate. Then we added 4" channel uprights to the ends of the moldboard and 4" channel "skids" for the rig to ride on. The front ends of the skids have half slices of 4" pipe so they ride over obstructions. The cutting edge is 1-1/2" above the bottom of the skids. An old tire was sliced so the tread could be used as a wiper that will be about 1/2" lower than the bottom of the skids. It will be clamped in place by sandwiching the rubber between the factory cutting edge and a new piece of flatbar. We have a similar wiper on the rear scraper blade and the guys love it.

Here's the progress so far. Tomorrow we should be able to skin the sides with some 16GA and add a couple reinforcing struts. The bottom of the 4" channel skids will have some sacrificial strips of flat bar stitched on in case there's wear. In that event the welds can be ground off and the strips replaced. Hope to post pics of it finished tomorrow. If the weatherman is right I can follow with action shots by the end of the week.

notme · Feb 11, 2014

go over those sacrificial flat bars on the bottome of your unit with some hard facing rod and u will never have to replace them!! what are you going to push this with? I see lots of htem around here pushed with big payloaders buthere usually a lot bigger then that. usually there on a quick attach and left in each parking lot so the payloader can just unhook and travel to the next one (there too wide to travel down the road) you wont have this issue ;-)

chim · Feb 12, 2014

We're going to try it out on a Montana at work. Here's the welder doing the last of the fab yesterday. We tried it out on some frozen banks and it wasn't too impressive. Hope it works better on the fresh snow we're getting tonight / tomorrow.

Winmac · Feb 12, 2014

I've got a old 8ft fisher blade that I may well do something similar with, so I'm interested to see how it works out.
Not sure if its the pics but the side scoops seem awfully long, perhaps cutting them back to the upper brace would be more appropriate.

aczlan · Feb 12, 2014

Winmac said:
I've got a old 8ft fisher blade that I may well do something similar with, so I'm interested to see how it works out.
Not sure if its the pics but the side scoops seem awfully long, perhaps cutting them back to the upper brace would be more appropriate.

I agree. They usually work best on loose snow and if they need to push banks, they drop the pusher and use the bucket...

Aaron Z

chim · Feb 13, 2014

Winmac said:
................
Not sure if its the pics but the side scoops seem awfully long, perhaps cutting them back to the upper brace would be more appropriate.

You may be right. They look long in real life. This is something we cobbled together and I said if it doesn't work too well we'll chop it down some.

Grunt0311 · Feb 13, 2014

Nice job. It looks good. I would agree that the sides look a little long. It seems like that would be a lot of material if it fills up.

notme · Feb 13, 2014

don't chop it u made it to move powder snow from rolling over the blade. no plow will move hard banks that's what loaders are for... use that for powder then build a loader and make sure you start a thread with lots of pictures of that build!