Allright, finally time to update this. By the time I had time and got around to working on Casters to help guide the broom depth better, the season was done. No biggie as it will help next year in any case. So I put them in about the same place as the factory option but made mine adjustable and mounted them differently. I ran into some issues along the way...
First off, my CAD model of the broom was made with a tape measure and eyeball and apparently not very accurate. Not terribly surprising but the first iteration came in too short to do any good. This is interesting as the factory option would be even shorter. I think it has something to do with how this is mounted on the SSQA plate and the loader geometry being different than a skid steer. The only way to get the casters to make ground contact required rolling it back too much so the "feet" on the loader would be dragging. Well that wouldn't work so I extended them.
Here is the initial design. The adjustment is 2" hitch stock inside 2.5" receiver stock with a 3/4" Acme screw for the adjuster.
That little wood stand you see the broom sitting on later becomes part of my storage dolly. But like I said this was too short, so I extended it. Unlike wood and the mythical board stretcher, there is such a thing as a steel tube stretcher! And here it is!
After welding that out and grinding flush, they were ready to go. Yes, the joints were beveled fully to allow full penetration welds.
So here it is extended in the trial run. It appear to help but is not a perfect solution. But anything that makes controlling the height adjusting better is very welcome given how touchy it was to do manually. I also tweaked how the float springs worked by shortening the chain a bit to help the casters be more effective
Oh yeah, I also made a little retainer to keep the adjuster screw from moving once I get it set right. The tape was just temporary to keep the loose pin in place while I was sorting things out: