Whoops, titled it wrong. Its a SW-48 DA...
Since august, the issue of a snow plow for this winter has been on our mind. Last year, we had a Yanmar V4-3 loader, but somebody came along and offered us about double what we paid for it, so off it went . Before that, we had an old Ford Ranger beater, but it needed some major work soon, so we sold it. We needed something to plow for the winter, but we didn't want something ordinary. We saw a few SW48's on craigslist that looked interesting, but they seemed a bit overpriced.
So one day we were at an equipment dealer, looking [dreaming] about some new equipment. And there, hiding in between two enormous excavators, was a SW-48 FA. It was in pretty rough exterior shape, but upon further investigation, we learned it had brand new full rubber tracks, and the entire thing was in great shape. It also had a Perkins Inline 4 diesel, which was icing on the cake since all the rest we saw were gas. A few days later, we went and picked it up. We've got a '97 Ford F-350 7.3L truck, and a big flatbed gooseneck tilting trailer that we just refurbished, both of will become very helpful in the future of this project (along with all past projects!) .
So this how we bought it:
Apparently it had been used as a sidewalk plow for the city of Manchester, NH. Buying from the government isn't the best on one hand, because it's clear from all the dents in this thing that it didn't have the most careful and responsible operators... But you can't really blame them. Not their machine... But on the other hand, government machines do have great maintenence schedules. We decided not to take the sandbox on the back, since we don't sand and all... But everything internal worked great. Brakes, transmission, bogies, hydraulics, etc. were all perfect.
So when we got it home, we gave a good test in the woods and mud and then gave it a good washing and began the restore. We removed all the lights, and began sanding the paint, removing labels, straightening dents, priming bare spots (dark green paint), etc. Basically just preparing it for new paint.
We never planned on using the 48" V-plow, so we found a 7.5' Fisher power angle plow on craigslist for about $300. We picked that up with a bunch on hydraulic plumbing.
So today, we took the old V-plow (so they could use the mount from it on the new plow), the new Fisher plow, and the machine down to our local welding shop, who we've been dealing with for years. They were pretty excited about the project, and happy to do the work. It's nice to be able to drop off three parts, say "Make this big plow go on that machine, using this mount", and know that they will figure out what needs to be done and do it right without worrying about it.
We also plan to put a ton of lights on this machine. 6 high power white LEDs on the front, 4 on the back. We also didn't want to have to pay a premium for lights with brush guards, so we came up with an idea to extend the front eyebrow 4 inches, and then mount all the lights under it. Hard to explain, so heres some pics.
Before:
After:
So the lights will mount there under the overhang.
The hood is pretty beat. Its got a bunch of dents, and some of the dents even have kinks in the metal. It must've been hit pretty hard, because this whole thing is built like a tank, and the hood is no exception; it must be 1/8" steel. So we're going to see if we can find a good body shop that can beat these dents out of it. We've taken it off to go to a body shop tomorrow.
How it sits now:
That's all for now. More updates tomorrow!
Since august, the issue of a snow plow for this winter has been on our mind. Last year, we had a Yanmar V4-3 loader, but somebody came along and offered us about double what we paid for it, so off it went . Before that, we had an old Ford Ranger beater, but it needed some major work soon, so we sold it. We needed something to plow for the winter, but we didn't want something ordinary. We saw a few SW48's on craigslist that looked interesting, but they seemed a bit overpriced.
So one day we were at an equipment dealer, looking [dreaming] about some new equipment. And there, hiding in between two enormous excavators, was a SW-48 FA. It was in pretty rough exterior shape, but upon further investigation, we learned it had brand new full rubber tracks, and the entire thing was in great shape. It also had a Perkins Inline 4 diesel, which was icing on the cake since all the rest we saw were gas. A few days later, we went and picked it up. We've got a '97 Ford F-350 7.3L truck, and a big flatbed gooseneck tilting trailer that we just refurbished, both of will become very helpful in the future of this project (along with all past projects!) .
So this how we bought it:
Apparently it had been used as a sidewalk plow for the city of Manchester, NH. Buying from the government isn't the best on one hand, because it's clear from all the dents in this thing that it didn't have the most careful and responsible operators... But you can't really blame them. Not their machine... But on the other hand, government machines do have great maintenence schedules. We decided not to take the sandbox on the back, since we don't sand and all... But everything internal worked great. Brakes, transmission, bogies, hydraulics, etc. were all perfect.
So when we got it home, we gave a good test in the woods and mud and then gave it a good washing and began the restore. We removed all the lights, and began sanding the paint, removing labels, straightening dents, priming bare spots (dark green paint), etc. Basically just preparing it for new paint.
We never planned on using the 48" V-plow, so we found a 7.5' Fisher power angle plow on craigslist for about $300. We picked that up with a bunch on hydraulic plumbing.
So today, we took the old V-plow (so they could use the mount from it on the new plow), the new Fisher plow, and the machine down to our local welding shop, who we've been dealing with for years. They were pretty excited about the project, and happy to do the work. It's nice to be able to drop off three parts, say "Make this big plow go on that machine, using this mount", and know that they will figure out what needs to be done and do it right without worrying about it.
We also plan to put a ton of lights on this machine. 6 high power white LEDs on the front, 4 on the back. We also didn't want to have to pay a premium for lights with brush guards, so we came up with an idea to extend the front eyebrow 4 inches, and then mount all the lights under it. Hard to explain, so heres some pics.
Before:
After:
So the lights will mount there under the overhang.
The hood is pretty beat. Its got a bunch of dents, and some of the dents even have kinks in the metal. It must've been hit pretty hard, because this whole thing is built like a tank, and the hood is no exception; it must be 1/8" steel. So we're going to see if we can find a good body shop that can beat these dents out of it. We've taken it off to go to a body shop tomorrow.
How it sits now:
That's all for now. More updates tomorrow!