ATV Snow plow

[trainer]

Here's a snow plow I threw together for my quad out of inventory from my scrap collection.
The blade is an 6 gallon old air compressor tank that I cut the ends off, then cut into thirds lengthwise, and welded up to make a blade.
I made a reciever mount for the front of the bike and used a drop hitch for the mount. I'm out of pocket for about $15

Everything is welded together with my trusty AC-180s lincoln welder using 7014 and 6013 electrodes.

I think i may line the blade with some plastic material from a krazy karpet so the snow doesnt stick, and an angle mechanism may come later.

 

[Bondo]

I think i may line the blade with some plastic material from a krazy karpet so the snow doesnt stick, and an angle mechanism may come later.

Ayuh,.... Lookin' Good,....

I'm debatin' buildin' myself 1, outa a 55gal. plastic drum...
Frame it in steel, 'n use the drum as the skin...
I figure by cuttin' the drum in 1/2, I can build an adjustable V-plow...

 

[toyville]

The only issue i see with the length of the arms from the pivot to the blade. Warn ATV plow for years have had a center mounted plow push tubes. But because its a difficult for some people mount and dismount the center mount plows http://www.warn.com/atv/plows/how_to_order_standard_plow.shtml they came out with a front mount kit. http://www.warn.com/atv/plows/provantage_how_to_order.shtml The issue with these units and the same thing i believe you may find is they dont float very well. instead they just want to dig its even worse if you have over size tires or a lift kit as you cant correct the angle. You may not have this issue but as you custom built it for your quad.

Also because you dont have the blade spring loaded forward pivot incase you run into some thing solid like curb you may want to really watch how fast you plow.

 

[cammok5]

not to trash your idea but i see two things that might be a problem.
the 1st is if you hit something with the end of the blade there will be alot of levrage on the ball mount and could brake your welds.
secound is there is no give incase the hole blade catch's on a crack or lip of driveway or something. could brake your winch line or bend/ brake the hinges or angle iron there mounted to.

i have a quad boss plow and even with it being spring loaded and has the mounts on both sides instead of the center i still bend stuff

 

[Big-Foot]

not to trash your idea but i see two things that might be a problem.
the 1st is if you hit something with the end of the blade there will be alot of levrage on the ball mount and could brake your welds.
secound is there is no give incase the hole blade catch's on a crack or lip of driveway or something. could brake your winch line or bend/ brake the hinges or angle iron there mounted to.

i have a quad boss plow and even with it being spring loaded and has the mounts on both sides instead of the center i still bend stuff

X2 on all of this.. I have the Cycle Country plow on my ATV and I have tweeked the plow and frame brackets a couple of times now... If you are really going to plow with this, you better be on good pavement with no cracks or go really slow...

Good luck and I applaud the effort!

 

[AirJunky]

I have started a similar project, a snow plow blade for a lifted golf cart, and am currently at the point where I need to get the spring loaded, tilting, swiveling bracket built. Here you can see the blade I made from a big plastic barrel cut into 3rds..... it's about 57" long, which is just a hair wider than the cart's tire width.

And the arm mounted underneath the cart.

And extended out underneath the IFS on the cart.

 

[Hghgrad]

For the OP, DEFINITELY work on getting a trip spring setup. It'll save you a lot of damage on the machine and your body.

I built a little setup for mine, and its way more fun than shoveling or pushing a blower around.

 

[kunkernator]

For the OP, DEFINITELY work on getting a trip spring setup. It'll save you a lot of damage on the machine and your body.

I built a little setup for mine, and its way more fun than shoveling or pushing a blower around.

This.

Work on a trip spring. If you hit a curb, or even a chunk of ice, you could do serious damage to your ATV.

 

[Silver6.0]

ive caught the edge of my grass coming off the pavement and damn near flew over the handlebars. Mines a polaris plow with trip springs. quad nor blade was hurt but I had a stomache ache lol

 

[trainer]

It's supposed to snow over the next few days so I'll see how it performs. I thought about trip springs, but this was thrown together on Sunday afternoon with no budget.

I've got aworking snowblower, so i'm not really relying on it to dig me out if needed.

If i decide that it doesn't work well. then I may make a loader-type bucket to replace the blade on this frame and go back to the drawing board for the plow setup.

I've also got a rear winch on this quad, so a bucket on the back and blade on the front may be a neat setup for a bit of road work and landscaping at the camp. It may even evolve into a back-blade configiration.

 

[Silver6.0]

my blade set up isn't all that heavy I mean I can move it around whens its off the quad but for some reason your blade looks awfully light. You might find you don't have enough weight to keep the blade down and end up "floating" on top of the snow. I could be wrong but ive thought about adding a heavier scraper blade like 3/8" thick strap to keep it from floating up.

 

[Hghgrad]

The loader bucket comes in handy. Built this on one from some scrap last year.

 

[joshmodelskidoo]

if your plowing smooth asphalt you will probably be ok.even cement with a seam would be bad. if i were you i would just adapt a lawn tractor plow. your going to need skis on it so it doesn't dig into the dirt from a thawed ground and take the skis off once you have a layer of ice. also a wearable cutting blade so you dont wear out your blade like an old used shovel. i also see your hinges and frame bending even if you had the plow hinged for hitting something. i hade an atv with a garden tractor plow that worked well. i used a single square tube that made a T under the atv with some angle welded to a piece of flat stock that used U bolts to hold it to the frame. that was my second hand at a home made plow and it worked good till the one side caught a rut and bent the hell out of it. copy a prefabbed plow as much as possible. i now have a 6ft junk yard found meyer plow on a geo tracker. laugh all u want but when the heat worked it was awesome. still works good and warmer than an atv. it has a single bar hooked to the plow mount frame that goes all the way back to a cross member for more support. had a friend weld it since i wasn't a real great welder yet. no issues with anything but the old falling apart plow once i got all the hydraulics hooked up right

 

[trainer]

We got a foot of snow last night so I got to try it out today. It worked pretty well, but it needs a few tweaks . It needs some more height on the blade and it definately needs an angle mechanism.

It's not really clear from the photos, but with there's room for the blade to fold under a bit and lift the front of the bike if it hits an obstruction. It sort of eliminates the need for a trip spring.

I've got a big heavy ATV ( Arctic cat TRV) , so i can plow slow enough that i wont damage anything or hurt myself if I do hit an obstruction

 

[Hghgrad]

This is my angle setup, hydraulics are from a f body mustang convertible. They hold fairly well, I don't have a locking pin mechanism on anymore.

 

[Big-Foot]

Sweet! Nice job HGHGrad!

 

[oldsfan442]

Hghgrad, how are you driving the pump for the hydraulics? Would love to know more about how you built that. Thanks.

Bryan

 

[Hghgrad]

It uses the factory pump from the mustang, electric.

Only had to swap lines on the one cylinder to reverse the action. Pretty easy to set up, and it only draws on the battery while you're angling the blade. I'll see if I've got any more pictures as that one is a little older and I've had to make some slight changes in the past few years.

Had the pump and cylinders already in the garage, so this didn't cost me anything but a few $ for some relays and wiring.

 

[Bubbles]

You need 2 springs so it flops when u hit something,
Mines home made and bolts to my foot pegs.

That setup is gonna cause u to go over the bars, sorry all else is good but u need those springs

 

[quadrider65]

Some great ideas here...!Will definitlely check some of them out...