I'll chime in here....
I have not witnessed any such damage, and don't have experience with FEL plow, but have plenty of experience plowing and I'm also a mechanical engineer....
I'm thinking the chance of bending FEL arms is slim, but would be greater under certain circumstances. Main difference between loader bucket and plow, is the side load imparted to the arms when you are plowing with plow on angle. With the bucket, you are just pushing straight ahead, and that's what the loader arms are designed for.
When plowing, depending on the snow conditions and height adjustment of your plow shoes, the plow can catch in the snow and imparts a strong side force, with a truck you normally start going off the road when it catches. So on your tractor, all that force, while your tractor tries to continue straight is putting a high lateral load (side force) on the FEL arms that is not exactly what they were designed for.
This would be exacerbated by having front chains on the tires, because instead of the catching plow forcing the tractor off the road (while the tires slip) they would tend to track straighter, putting more side load on the FEL arms. It would also be exacerbated by having downforce from the loader! Truck-mounted plows like Western, Meyers, etc are designed to float, so if you change that design so that you can add downforce the plow will catch more often.
A large tractor or medium tractor with an 8 foot angled plow, I would not worry about at all. The FEL arms are so beefy for lifting a large bucket, that the force applied by the plow would be negligible.
But, on a smaller tractor, with front chains and the same 8 ft angled plow? I could see how under all the wrong circumstances how it could bend something, especially if you add downforce with the plow angled.
To make it safer in such circumstances, I'd probably use a 6 ft plow on a smaller tractor to avoid a problem. AND, make sure that the plow can fold when necessary, i.e. not a rigid-mounted plow on a smaller tractor, as well as, only use downforce on the plow when it is straight ahead, and not angled to the side.
We have a Kubota
L2250, I guess that's a small tractor by some standards, and a medium by others. I'm planning to attach a 6 foot plow to it this season, for piling snow and benching the banks when they get too high. Still planning on doing the bulk of the plowing with our old truck and 8 ft western.
In general I think having an FEL plow would be the bomb to do the things the truck can't. Just think a little care on smaller tractors can prevent the damage.
CM
