42" blade - worth the trouble?

[ravenseye]

Hi all,

Had this blade hanging around for a while but never wanted to get into fixing it up and getting the right / missing parts to fit it onto my 782. Now, the wife is telling me that she wouldn't mind pushing some snow with it if I can make it happen. The pictures tell the story. Someone used it a long time without the scraper adjusted on the bottom. Ended up grinding the blade way down. And, as you can see, rust got to the blade bottom as well. Additionally, it has a crack in back of the blade and I can see where a similar crack on the other side had been repaired before.

I don't even know if it'll fit my 782 (I think this one is for a narrow frame) and I'll still need the handle assembly to pull it up or lower it down. I was thinking of having a welder attach a strip of steel starting about 1/3 of the way up the blade and all the way across even if it looks a little strange. That would take care of the rusty bottom and give me a surface to attach the metal strip again. I'd have the welder fix the split and check the old repair. I think I'd then need a different subframe, a lifting lever and lots of clean up / painting. FWIW, the metal directly above the rusty edge on the bottom is solid. In other words, once you get above where the bottom strip used to be there's a lot left to work with.

Is it worth it or should I be looking for something in better shape? As always, many thanks in advance!



Ground down bottom


Rusted out bottom


Crack - the other side is identical but had been welded

[Lincolnmania]

if you are handy with a welder and have some time on your hands sure, if not find a better plow

[drglinski]

That could be fixed yes, but it is in pretty poor shape, plus you need different parts to make it fit a wide frame 782. You'd be better off IMO looking for the correct one via craigslist, auction, flea market etc, and using the current one for parts or scrap.

[jimbob200521]

Pretty rough shape, to be sure. Even if you can get it fixed up at a decent price, you're still going to need a new sub-frame so you might as well keep an eye out for a complete WF setup which can also have its own pitfalls. It took me several months of patient searching around my parts to find a used 54" blade with WF sub-grame and even then, I had to buy a tractor to get it YMMV on finding a WF blade, but it's going to be even harder to find JUST a WF sub-frame. Chances are if you find the sub-frame, you'll find the blade, too.

[rweaver]

I scrapped better looking plows 2 weeks ago they are still in my steel dumpster the v part is the hardest part to find in good cond

[ACecil]

I's worth fixing up. Here's what I started with a few years ago.



Finished product.

[zippy1]

It's crusty, but hah, anything can be fixed if you want to take the time and do it.
There's pride in taking something rough and bringing it pack to operational.

[J-Mech]

Have you measured that? Looks like a WF blade from my chair.....

[ravenseye]

It's 10" wide near the plow end. I think it was about 13" on the far side. Didn't measure the length.

[jimbob200521]

Originally Posted by J-Mech

Have you measured that? Looks like a WF blade from my chair.....

The blade in the op?