This is not exactly on topic, but I think it's pretty cool anyway! This guy e mailed me a long time ago looking for more info on this thing. At the bottom of his webpage, he has an actual brochure for it that someone sent him. In the brochure, you can see they offered the hoe, a front blade to backfill the trench, and even a trencher instead of a backhoe for the rear of it. <IMG SRC="http://www.snowplowing-contractors.com/images/cj5dig.jpg"> Like I told him back then, I WANT ONE! Just to play with of course http://www.yourinter.net/dig101/index.html ~Chuck [Edited by ChucksChevyPages on 10-04-2000 at 03:10 AM]
Chuck, My Great grandfather-in-law had a old Willys jeep with a snow and bucket loader attachment. I think the attachments are still around, the jeep went to the gravel yard.
When I was a kid we had the one with the trencher,my dad was not fond of it but then again hes not big on trenchers.The hoe looks interesting, we also had a hoe mounted on like a 53 ford two ton. Not quite like the 416c's we use today.
One thing I find interesting about this thing is where the front plow mounts to. It attaches to the Jeep frame, but not up front like snow plows. It's an "official" Jeep approved accessory, so to me that says something. What I'm getting at, is look where the blade attaches. Mid chassis. If you look under the drivers door, you can see the brackets. Now I know it would really be a pain to hook up a snow plow there, but...... A few years back I bought a CJ 5 with a Western 6.5' plow. After plowing only a few times with it, I couldn't sell it fast enough. I was very disappointed. Why? Well a friend had a CJ with a Meyer plow, and it plowed like a dream. I figured the Western would do just as good. The more I plowed with it, I soon found out all plows are NOT created equal. This is one time I have to ask "WHAT THE HECK WAS WESTERN THINKING?!?!" If any of you ever had a CJ with a Western plow, you know where this is headed. It seems Meyer designed their plow undercarriage to mount to the Jeep frame. Common install, just like pick ups. Western had a not so brilliant idea of mounting the plow undercarriage to the Jeep's FRONT SPRINGS! As soon as any resistance built up in front of the blade, all control of steering was lost. I would drop the plow and do a 360 in the opposite direction the plow was angled! If the plow was angled full right, the rear of the Jeep came around to the left. This happened even when there was only 3" to plow! I looked like a complete idiot plowing with it. I hit a fence, a chimney, and a house all at one residential account in less than 5 minutes. THAT was the last time I plowed with it. I didn't do any serious damage, but did have to fix the fence. I knew about the lack of steering control, so I took it easy plowing. The hits were light ones, but the plow did a number on a chain link fence. I thought some moron made their own brackets to fit on the Jeep, and the undercarriage was bent when I bought it. Not bent bad though (now I know WHY it was bent). My brother was picking up parts for his plow one day, and he called to see if I wanted him to buy Western brackets for me while he was there, to mount the plow frame "right". I said yes, since they were less than $100. When he got home I was floored! They were the exact same leaf spring mount brackets I had!!! I replaced them, but didn't replace the cracked leaves in the spring packs that I found while doing it. It seems the articulation of the axle, and the strength of the plow worked against each other, and twisted the plow mounting undercarriage. It also cracked leaves in both spring packs. Ok, putting away the storybook now, ~Chuck
Another Western oddity Well now, that Jeep mount sounds a whole big bunch like the mount that came with my old GMC 5500. The truck had a Western 10' Heavywieght plow on it when I got it. The mounting frame was hung off the front springs and went back, behind the cab, to two heavy plates where it was pivoted. I originally thought that was some sort of homegrown contraption but have since learned that it was a standard Western mount arrangement from the early 70s. I hope to ahve the plow on again this winter, but NOT on that goofy mounting frame. The thing is heavy, and hangs down so far the there might be 4" of ground clearance, if you're lucky. There's a couple lengths of 4" junior beams about 8' long and some pretty serious plate as well. I can do better than that!
