Making a dozer blade for my 100........

I'm in the process of making a dozer blade for my 100 and am curious as to how big I can make it to where it's not too much to where it overcomes the tractor.

I'm running 2 pieces of 3" heavyweight tubing from the forward implement lugs on the inside of the final drives extending out past the front axle. I cut out two brackets that bolt up to the inside of the final drives and hinged them with a bolt to a plate I welded on the ends of the two 3" pieces of tubing.

Now I have these two long pieces of pipe running under my tractor that extend past the front axle about 2'. The plan is to attach them via U-bolts to the lift bars so that I can pick my blade up and down. I'm thinking of attaching nylon limiting straps to the front axle that loop around the bars so the blade can't dig any deeper than what I set it at.

Anyway, that's the setup so far. I'm to the part of splitting the section of casing in half for my blade and I have two choices to choose from but I'm wondering if the width and length I have planned is too much for the little 100.
I have two 8' sections of 13 3/8" and 20" heavyweight casing to make the blade from. The 20" seems right but I've been seeing these itsy bitsy blades on cubs and Super A's that just don't seem to look like they would be very effective in moving much soil at all. Are these blades designed this size to prevent excessive strain on the tractor?

How large of a blade is too much?

I'm building this attachment to use with landscaping some property I have. I'm not going to be pushing up much topsoil but instead will be spreading dirt from some big piles of fill soil that I have on my land. I may scrape a little of the land but I doubt much. Just need to fill some holes plus I want to push up a mound to put the foundation of my shop on. I want a good square elevated mound to plant my 40X60 shop on. That's basically all of what I'll be doing.

Here is a illustration of the setup I've built so far. This is an old pic of my machine that I paint shopped because I don't have an actual image yet. Sorry :(

• Illustration

Hugh is right on with his reply. The 100 should handle a 6' 20" high blade just fine for the work you describe. This is my cub with a 54" wide blade and blade extender for height. The center blade is 6' wide and will level a load of top soil in short order, "SURPRISED ME" I have recently added some remote hyds. with additional cyls. to control these blades. Dan Robertson

• Dans Cub

Mornin Pat, Here is what I have done so far for a snowblade on my Super A. I have a rear frame that I built that bolts inbetween the final drives. The front frame attaches to the rear frame through two pins. The front frame attaches to the cultivator mount and the blade pivot is below the steering box. The blade was originally from a Cub 54" that we extended 7" on both sides to make it 68 " overall. The piece that goes from white lifting frame to the blade is only temporary. I plan on making another piece that goes from the front frame to the white bracket for a better pivot and lift arrangement.

scotty

• Super A Snowplow

The frist two winters I plowed snow with 130, I had Canadian ring chains. gene may not think these little tractors are a bulldozer, however with ring chains on hard ground, one would be hard pressed to see the difference. I once tackled 4' of hard frozen snow pushed up in earlier storms. With ring chains 130 would take 1/2 width of blade with little effort. I did get rid of the ring chains for 3 reasons; hard on my new concrete floor, they give a rough ride on 24" tires and I was afraid of breaking a final drive. I did break one with ring chains hauling fire wood on a set of bob sleds designed for 300, way back in the mid 60s.

Marg. has a photo of me in 1965, with 130 and these same sleds, coming from the bush. We had a rack for piling 4' wood crossways, rack is 16' long with 42" stakes on either end. The load is piled 6' deep in middle tapering off to 3.5' at each end. A scaler put it at 2.2 cords. Softwood spruce and fir run 4,400# per cord or roughly 9,680# plus sleds. 300 was in for repairs that winter and I hauled 158 cords from the bush in 113 loads, with 130 and ring chains. Average 1.4 cords per load. We didn't do so well until we got snow beat down on trails and frozen. Actually I broke the final drive breaking out trails in deep snow with less than 1/2 cord on sleds. My most serious problem was holding back load on one slight hill I had to come down loaded.

Plain and simple you are in a different ball park. I will post a photo in tractor photo gallery, the pile of snow behind 130 was piled by the 130. When I started that morning, snow in yard was min 2' and up to 4'. My driveway is 400', yard I plow is roughly 60'x40'. That particular morning it took about 90 minutes to clear the entire area. My biggest problem pushing snow, is pushing so far snow falls behind blade, so much so that sometimes I can't back away. I have to watch that one.

Your idea of pushing from the final drive is good, but you've got to have the blade push arms pivot almost directly under clutch housing. This allow the blade to lift higher, quite important when you out in dirt or snow. Get rid of he idea of lifting blade with those cultivator lift frames. I've seen a lot of those broken from lifting blades.

If your interested send me an e mail, I have about 6 photos scanned detailing blade and how it is attached to the tractor. I have a frame that runs from final drives to just behind front axle and hooks into casting that cultivator lift frames mount on. It also has an upright from it bolting it to side of clutch housing. The benefits of having it bolted to tractor in those 4 places takes presure off individual castings. On the bottom side of that frame directly under clutch housing is where my blade push beams pivot.

The hydraulic lift mechanism for my blade is a hinged mechanical linkage from rockshaft to over front axle using chain lift much like pickup plows. I intend to change that to a remote hydraulic valve and an external hydraulic lift cylinder. I find the blade is just too much weight for touch control hydraulics via the rockshaft. I've seen a good many tractors with snow blades having hydraulic oil stains down over torque tube and clutch housing.

As I said send me an e mail, I'll return those photos, outlining the mistakes I made down through the years. No point in both of us making the mistakes.

What I initially plannedon doig as far as attaching the blade was to weld or bolt the booms way down on the blade either flush with the bottom of the blade or 1/4" from it so I would have some room to pick it up.
To reinforce the top of te blade I was going to make struts of angle iron, welded to the top of the blade angling back down to the boom.

I'll surely scratch this and go with yours if you think it will be a better setup. :)