Plow Modifications?

Anyone in here customize or modify their plow instead of buying expensive factory parts?

I bought an older Meyer 7.5' that was in an accident when the previous guy rolled his F-250 with the frame on but plow itself detached. He painted it all black for some reason, had punched holes in the plow with rocks, and wore down the wear bar enough on one end to eat away the corner of the plow. Not a bad deal for $800.

Here is what I did.

1) Modified the A-frame with angle iron to stiffen and straighten it. Did a little work to the frame mount and bolted it to my truck.

2) Went to the surplus store, bought a roll of 3/4" thick by 6" wide by 7'6" wide stiff rubber, mounted it to the top of the plow to curl the snow.

3) Got a free wear bar from a Colorado DOT county tandem axle dump truck. Wear bar weighs 100 pounds or so alone! It is 3/4" thick and grade 8 steel

4) Touched up the black paint.

Now I gotta patch the holes, add a spring and rib here or there to stiffen it up and I am good to go.

Lemme know what you have done.

 

The only problem I see with what you did could be strengthening the A-Frame too much. The components of the plows are designed with weak points so that in the unfortunate event of running into an unseen obstacle, the plow will bend & fail instead of your truck frame. Be careful of over fabricating plows. As for the holes in the mold board, you can buy one of those plastic plow shields from any of the online suppliers and glue it on. I put one on a plow with holes in it and it worked great for around 130 hours of abusive plowing. It threw the snow better than any of the painted steel moldboards I've used so it was worth it to me to keep that plow in service a while longer.

 

I refer to mine as Western + Custom since I bought it used, abused and in pieces. The only thing I reused was the moldboard, everything else I built from scratch. My truck mount is also custom fabbed, the lift cylinder mount is incorporated into my bumper. I use a Monarch control box, built a pedestal for it in the cab.

BRL is right, you have to watch you don't go t-o-o strong with the A-frame since it's a lot more expensive to fix your frame than your plow in the unfortunate event something gets damaged.

For the snow deflector, same idea - belting across the top of the moldboard, I used a piece of stainless flat bar as a clamp plate complete with stainless hardware.

I may check into one of those shields too, BRL, since although mine didn't come with holes punched in it there were a number of dents!

 

I understand about your advice but the only thing I did to the A-frame was weld a piece of angle to the rear most part where the flat piece of steel used to be. Someone cut a chunk out of it and I had to put back a fabricated piece to ensure my pins would line up everytime. So yes, that is the weak point, everything else is factory.

Nick

 

Nick - forgot to mention, I painted mine all black too. The face of the moldboard I used red for, and on the ribs and a couple of other raised areas I highlighted them with red also, using the side of the brush. Simple to do and sets it off nicely - kind of an easy form of "pinstriping"

Good info at http://www.snowplowingcontractors.com too, if you haven't already seen it.

[Edited by 75 on 03-10-2001 at 03:52 AM]

 

Rob

You forgot to mention the Acorn nuts.

Bruce

 

LOL

 

Bruce - how could I forget to mention those? I must be slipping!

Seriously Nick, I did use acorn nuts to "dress things up" a bit. The main reason for using stainless fasteners in the first place, though, is to avoid having to struggle with rusty hardware when you want to unbolt something - my blade guides & deflector come off in spring and get stored inside.

 

I brought this thread back up since I now have a pic of the plow freshly painted. Much as I'd like to keep the paint intact, I'd rather make some $$$ with it - paint can be touched up!

 

WOW-

That is one awesome plow!

I'm afraid it would make my trucks look shabby though!

 

Amazin' what a bit of paint can do! I like to paint it once a year, "whether it needs it or not". (Of course, it always needs it)

I didn't do a very good job scanning the pic (should have used higher resolution I think) but those ARE stainless fasteners (and acorn nuts ) on the corner markers.

 

Rob nice paint job! I really like the red accent on the mold board supports. What kind of paint did you use? Western?

 

Actually, I "cheaped out" on the paint: Good 'ol "Black" and "Fire Red" rust paint.

The red accents were easy to add, after the black had dried I used a brush to paint the face of the moldboard red and just used the side of the brush to highlight the ribs and a couple of other spots. My bumper/plow frame has the same paint treatment.