# Skidsteer Plow?



## landscaper3 (May 2, 2000)

Can you make a regular 8' plow go on the bucket of a skidsteer? We are opening a 1000sqf shop and a local equipment rental company wanted to leave some equipment at our new shop (his shop is 2 town over 20miles away) our deal is we can use the equipment whenever we want. I have an old 8' blade and would like to know if it can be used? We have 2 shopping centers and 2 driveways all next to eachother and was going to use the Bobcat to cut down my plowing time (would put one of my employees in it ) and for final cleanups at condos and ect as needed. Thank you for your imput!


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## GeoffD (Dec 21, 1999)

You can use a old snow plow on a skidsteer. However they will not work very well, nor stand up well do the abuse it will recieve.

A real skid steer plow is worth the extra money. The reason a truck blade doesn't work well, it a skidsteer will put down pressure on the blade. The other problem is I don't think the trip edge will work when there is down pressure on the blade. This means you will scrape very well, however will end up damanging everything you plow. 

A skid steer works well, with a heavy duty full trip blade. We use the bobcat brand blades on our bobcats, and they work very well.

Geoff


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## diggerman (May 19, 2001)

I've been using a regular truck plow on my skidsteers for about five years,and it works fine.You have to be careful not to go bucking any pile but they do work.The blade I am using is a northman and is a little heavyer than any of the other pickup plows out there and is most certainly heavier than several of the skidsteer plows I have seen.We started out using it on a case 1845 and now use it on a 90xt.It started out in the snow bucket but we eventually made a mount for it,and it has been much better as far as convenience and visability.If you are interested in making a mount bobcat sells an attachment plate you can weld to anything you want.


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## John Allin (Sep 18, 2000)

We buy up old (junk) meyers moldboards and turn them into snowpuhsers (aka pro-tech). We pattern them after pro-tech (but don't exactly copy them). We put a (homemade) bobtach arrangement on them - and have a half dozen of them (in addition to several pro-tech models), and they are very productive. No trip edge - but with the skid plates on the sides we don't do any damage to lots or grass. We have a sub in Pittsburgh doing a Home Depot with them and he's outstandingly productive.

We find that a regular full angle plow blade is not very productive on a skid steer and repairs are ongoing as guys try to use them to stack snow too.

Go get 'em !!


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## capital (Sep 26, 2000)

*Boss Bobcat Blade*

We plow with our bobcat and we are using for the first year a Boss Snow blade that was designed for use on a bobcat. It is a V-Blade with its own controller which was easy to install. Also the blade is designed for grading work so you can use it the rest of the year. We havent used it yet for grading but so far our clients love the blade since it takes the pavement down to pavement even in heavy wet snows.


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## Michael F (Oct 18, 2000)

John, I read your post about the pushers you make, found two fisher plows(blades only) for $ 250-300, how much do you put into it in steel? We have a welder, ect. Do you have a picture?


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## DanG (May 20, 2000)

John,
How long did it take you to make them up?
I thought about buying some old blades and making up something for a backhoe.
If I welded them together it'd be 14' wide & would push some serious snow.
Mounting it to the bucket would't be hard but where would you hook the Ram hoses to so the blade would angle?
The hoe that I'd be putting it on is a JD 4x4 which has one ram for tipping the bucket.
If I put quick connects on that Ram and on the hoses would that work? 
It seems that I'd be able to use the bucket controller for everything then.
I'd still be able to raise it off the ground And stack snow with it but the bucket wouldn't dump when the rams were hooked up to the plow.
Does that seem feasible?
There's 2 7' meyers blades right near my house that I can get for $100 for both they both have all the cylinders on them and the push frames are there too.

Thanks,

Dan


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## Gordon (Jan 3, 2001)

Dan wrote:
<<The hoe that I'd be putting it on is a JD 4x4 which has one ram for tipping the bucket. 
If I put quick connects on that Ram and on the hoses would that work? 
It seems that I'd be able to use the bucket controller for everything then. 
I'd still be able to raise it off the ground And stack snow with it but the bucket wouldn't dump when the rams were hooked up to the plow. 
Does that seem feasible? 
>>

If I were going to do something like this I would add a remote in the front of the tractor on the loader frame. This way you could angle the plow as well as angle the bucket as you raise it up to stack snow keeping the blade level if you choose to. Plus you could also run any other hydraulic add on up front then. A hydraulic post hole digger, pavement breaker---etc.

Now how to go about doing it. First look and see if your spool valve on your loader has a power beyond port. It will have a plug in it more than likely. You would run a hydraulic line from the P.B. port on that spool valve to the spool valve that your adding for your front remote. Then on the return side of your new spool valve you tie that into your existing return line to the sump. Now just run two hydraulic lines up the loader frame for your remotes. Piece of cake. So for a few hundred dollars you would have a much more usefull piece of machinery. Actually a much more productive machine than just having an angle adjustment.

If you didn't want to add another spool valve then you could also add two electronic solinoid valves at the dump cylinder and tee into your lines. Each valve would have one input and two outputs, one output to the dump valve one output to the added remote for plow angle. Add a thumb switch at the existing spool valve handle then when you hit the thumb switch you could angle the plow. Let off the thumb switch and you could dump the bucket.

Something important I forgot to add--If you bucket has a regenative dump circiut then you could have some valve chatter when dumping in full dump mode. A regenative circiut puts pressure on both sides of the dump cylinder when dumping to get quicker cycle times. Sounds crazy but it works. In a worst case you would have to change the dump spool on the valve to a non-regen or only dump with the lever part of the way over.---easier to add another spool valve when it's said and done I guess. 
Hope this helps
Gordon

[Edited by Gordon on 01-06-2001 at 03:37 PM]


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## SLSNursery (Dec 21, 1999)

*Crossover relief valve?*

I also seem to habitually collect plows and plow parts. We have a blade all set to go onto our Case 1840 skidsteer when needed. I just can't find the time to finish it off.

I have an FFC 3 point hitch adapter plate that mounts onto the skidsteer in place of the bucket. By the way - this mounting plate is very useful for other stuff like putting a log splitter on the skidsteer, or towing stuff around. The fisher plow mounts onto the 3-point hitch plate with the upper chain providing slack just like when its on the front of a truck in a normal set up (this way I don't think down pressure will be an issue like Geoff says). The two ears pin right up to the bottom of the hitch plate. According to my dealer the only exception I needed was to use a cross-over relief valve for the plow angling hydraulics in order to adjust for built up hydraulic pressure caused when an angled plow hits an obstruction. This would otherwise cause damage to the control valve in the skidsteer. If your tractor is already set up correctly you might not need one, but otherwise I would check it out with a competent guy at the dealership. The part was cheap, and I'm sure a replacement valve for the skidsteer is not cheap.

I just picked up a couple of Meyers blades from a friend. I intend to torch an weld up something with them for the skidsteer too, like John mentioned. Maybe a couple of wings for the fisher blade or a recycled plow pusher-box. This will just add more time to this already ongoing project.


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## plowguy06 (May 13, 2001)

I dont know about skidsteer plows but wouldnt the bucket work? I would also suggest a Bombardier or MT Trackless (Sidewalk plows)


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## john r (Jan 3, 2001)

Dan, Are there any e60 pumps with those two plows? I'd be interested inpurchasing one.


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## columbiaplower (Feb 16, 2000)

the whole purpose of the skid steer plow is the down presure. like Geoff said most truck blades are not used with a down presure system so putting them on a skid steer is going to tear them up. i would just get a protec and be done with it. from what i have seen they are well worth the money and are alot less of a hassel. also they hold the snow as they drive thus making them much better (in lot use) then a regular plow on a loader/skidsteer


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## John Allin (Sep 18, 2000)

One of the biggest problems with sno pushers is training the operators NOT to use down pressure. The pushers are for pushng snow, not cutting snow pack. The skid plates on the side pieces effectively stop the down pressure from being effective. On skid steers, use the float position.

As for how long it takes to make one ?? Depends on just how good a fabricator you are. If you have a mold board, you'll put in around $500 in materials. It now takes our guy (and he is very good) about three days to fab one up. And, we are using flux core wire on a semi-automatic feed welding unit to speed up the welding process. Larger ones take much more time and you need the ability to flip the unit around to be able to flat weld it instead of trying to weld verticle up or overhead.

I also think you're making the process too complicated. The pushers don't use hydralics and they hook right up to the bucket. 5 minutes (tops) to hook it up to the loader, less with a bobtach arrangement for skid steers.

Extending a 7.5 ft. mold board out to 14 foot isn't something I'd suggest (from experience). LOTS of addditional work in beefing up the rear of the unit with channel (5" minimum). We built one 14 footer and one 20 footer ourselves. Most of the ones we built were 10 footers using old street plows. On the larger ones we used old diesel tanks that were 24 ft. long. Cut the moldboards out of the steel tank. Got two tanks for nothin and made a bunch of pushers out of them.

Incidentally, we just put a urethane edge on the 14 footer we built (and refirbished recently). The urethane edge works real well. We did have steel, and that caused problems when the operator hit a manhole or went over in imperfect parking lot. You'd be amazed at how well them things peel up blacktop !! We're going to change over all the ones we built from steel to urethane.

All in all - for larger ones.... buy them. From experience.... it's less aggrivation.


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## GeoffD (Dec 21, 1999)

John.

The whole topic started when Landscaper 3 asked about useing a regular 8' blade on a skid steer. I don't think he has any plans of building a pusher.

Thats how people started talking about Hydro and down pressure. Only thanks for the info your provided.

I am currently useing skidsteers to plow a condo project. However the drives go straight into the garage. So for this application a blade works much better.

Geoff


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## landscaper3 (May 2, 2000)

Ok all I mean the follwing----- I DO NOT I repeat I DO NOT want buy anything !!!!!! we have access to a Bobcat whenever we want and we have an old 8' blade I thought would be nice to put on, I do not want to buy a blade from Boss or Bobcat or whoever when I can buy a whole F-250 with a plow for the same price what I wanted was to know if a 8' blade will work, If i confused you on my post I apoligize I only wanted to know if it would work. Thank you.


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## columbiaplower (Feb 16, 2000)

ok im sorry i brought pushers into this. i didnt mean to imply they use down presure, i ment blades use down presure


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## SCL (Jul 27, 2000)

I think Mr. Allin hit on a really good point here and that is that you can get a Bobtach adapter plate for well under $100 bucks and weld it right on in an hour. Also, he mentioned the "float" position and this would alleviate this down pressure problem. I don't know of any other skids that have this feature other than Bobcat though.


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## diggerman (May 19, 2001)

I'd give my self an afternoon or at least more than an hour.


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## Henry (Jan 1, 2000)

My Joohn Deere 240 skid steer has a float position for the lift arms and the Bobcat attachment plate fit right on. 

What's the deal with these urethane edges?


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