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Snow Plow for My Zero Turn with video

Posted by nycjsw 22030 (My Page) on
Wed, Feb 3, 10 at 12:54

In early December I bought a snow plow for my Ariens 1840 Zero Turn. My Ariens ZT is a few years old and at the time was the same as the Gravely model with IZT hydros and a fabricated deck (now Ariens is more light duty).

Anyway, I got the snow plow from a company called Country Wide Manufacturing out of Ohio. It came within a week and was about $450 with shipping for the 48" plow. It weighed about 130 lbs and was very solid. I got the universal clamps and was able to mount the clamps to the bumper of the ZT (no drilling in the frame). It took about an hour to hook up. All I needed was snow.

Last week we got about a foot. The plow was a beast. I plowed about 4 driveways that were 50 ft long. All of the driveways were aggregate concrete and the plow did not harm them (it has skids). It took me a little while to get a good technique. Like if I had a huge 4 ft wall of snow I learned to chip away at it and that it was quicker to do 1/2 passes - pushing all the snow to the end of the driveway rather than try to do a full pass and have a huge pile form in front of the plow. The main limitation was not the plow but my mower. I would get wheel slippage on occasion. I did not use chains and I would say that the slippage was minimum (ZT has heavy engine over drive wheels). I plowed twice during the foot snowfall to make it easier. The few times I got stuck was b/c I either backed onto the grass into really deep snow or tried to hit a big mound of snow with the plow raised and by mistake road on top of it too much.

Here is a video of when I first plowed.
http://vimeo.com/9089055


Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: Snow Plow for My Zero Turn with video

I made a snow plow for my ZTR by attaching a 4' x 4' angle iron to the front caster wheel of my mower. It works very well on three different ZTR mowers. It just cost a few dollars. Below are some photos.

http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1033088028/a=2124729028_2124729028/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Here is a link that might be useful: Cheap snow plow for ZTR


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RE: Snow Plow for My Zero Turn with video

That is a nice start and is cheap but I don't see it working too well for the following reasons

- it is not high enough - as you plow, the snow in front will go over your short plow
- it is not mounted in the center of the mower so you have a lot of sideway push thus putting more force on your hydros to balance out the mower to move forward.
- you can't lift the plow


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RE: Snow Plow for My Zero Turn with video

Most snow in this area is under six inches. I also have a Gravely with snow blower and have not used it in several years on my 300 foot driveway. I can clear this driveway with six inches of snow using the "cheap" ZTR plow in a few minutes.


 
 

 

 


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