42 Inch Snow Plow Blade Power Angle and Conversion for Super
 

Here is my conversion of a 42 inch plow blade for use on a super garden tractor, along with the addition of power angle. Pretty much everything that makes a SGT different had to be addressed; wider, taller, longer, and push to lift. The plow mount had to be lowered to maintain the blade pivot geometry with the ground. The mount needed to be longer to be able to attach to something. A 42 inch blade would only really work correctly plowing straight ahead on a SGT because pivoting it results in the blade being inside the wheels, so it needs to be widened to at least 54 inches. And finally something had to be devised to lift the blade other than the pull to lift on the regular GT.

Measuring the difference in distance to the ground when mounted to a GT vs. a SGT I found it needed to be about 2 3/8 inches lower, so I cut the front hangers and added steel bar to lower the mount.

On the 982 I am building this for, there happens to be the rear mounts for the Haban push blade left on the tractor from a previous owner, even though the Haban blade didn't come with the tractor. These mounts made it a little easier figuring out how to mount it in the rear (otherwise I would have had to fabricate something similar). I added steel bar to the end of the original mount to reach the Haban mount plates, maintaining the angle of the mount the same as on a regular GT, and added a crossmember for stability and strength.

I could have used slots in the rear like the original but wasn't really comfortable with this being mounted solely by the quick attach. Drilling holes for use with a 3/4 inch rod provides for a much more secure mount of the plow on the tractor.

To widen the blade I used .090" sheet steel and some 5/16" bar. The lower support for the sheetmetal is at a 135 degree angle so it was easy to make by cutting the bar stock at a 45 degree angle with a circular saw and then flipping the piece and welding it together. I made it 54" because that's standard for other Cub Cadet blades, but after finishing it I thought, why not go even wider like maybe 60"? Oh well, maybe next time.

For the power angle I started with drawings found on another Cub Cadet enthusiast's forum, http://www.cubcadetcollectors.com/fo....php?f=4&t=977 .

I got the closest cylinder to the one in the drawing from Surplus Center. This cylinder had 3/4" holes on both ends, so I modified the brackets accordingly. To make the front bracket, I used 2 pieces of angle iron welded together instead of a solid block of steel. My cylinder is slightly longer than the original so the rear mount pin needed to be mounted outside of the bracket instead of the inside to make it work right.

I originally built the rear bracket at the 95 degree angle in the drawing but found when trial fitting that this angle was way off. This angle is very important as if it is not correct the cylinder will pull the plow apart instead of pivoting it. I found that the correct angle was closer to 105 degrees which was accomplished by adding a piece of a structural I-beam type beveled washer (about 10 degrees) to the 95 degree angle I had made the bracket.

A note on the hydraulic couplings. There seems to be a lot of misinformation on the various forums on which couplings fit. There are 2 basic hydraulic couplings generally available in most hydraulic or farm supply stores and neither type is what is used on these Cub Cadets. The Cub Cadet male coupling is a Parker D-202 and the only place I was able to find them was on eBay from 1 seller, other than from Cub Cadet at twice the price.

For the lift, I originally thought it would be a simple matter of flipping the lift bracket on the plow and making a rod of the correct length to push it to lift. The geometry was all wrong for this. I'm sure it could be done, but more fabrication would need to be done to make a bracket and push-rod that would work; possibly also lengthening the push arm on the tractor. Since this tractor has a 3-point hitch, I decided to use that instead. Using 3/16" cable and some pulleys I kept it a pull-to-lift configuration. The cable had to be routed to keep it under the brake pedals and over the front axle. The spring tensioner should keep the cable on the pulleys when the blade runs up a snow bank.

And here it is mounted and ready to go. All the parts came from a local farm supply store, Surplus Center, and McMaster Carr. Cost is about $300, so if you had to buy the 42" plow, it wouldn't actually be a savings over buying a Haban plow for a super. But that wouldn't be any fun at all and the Habans don't come available all that often, at least not within any reasonable distance.

This plow is for use at my Mother's house and we got the first plowable amount of snow last week. I was out of town so I didn't get to try it out, but my brother tells me it worked great.

Nice work! Looks great all painted up! Lots of good information there too. :beerchug:

Bill

Simply awesome work done here, and thank you for sharing! :beerchug:

Next year I think you should skip 60" and go straight for 72", I bet it could handle it!! :biggrin2: That would give you the biggest blade ever mounted to a Cub, so definitely elite bragging rights would be in order!