Berco Blower part 2

 I might as well finish up the story of the Berco snow blower install. The cold weather has minimized any good riding and soon enough snow will prevent it.

 Our first thought was to just bolt the winch on the front of the tractor frame and sandwich our drop plate behind it. That would have left the winch pulling on the bolt threads rather than relying on the strength of the bolt to support the load. This is our second design for the winch mount plate. It sucks as well because we miscalculated how high the winch needed to be in order to lift the way we wanted. You'll see in the video that the blower needs to roll back and once it binds against the push plate (the piece with the wheels), the whole push arm will come up for travel down the road. I shaped the lift plate (below the winch) to align and hold the push arm so it would stay snug while bouncing down the road. Not shown is a rubber pad where the push arm meets the lift plate and a limit switch that Greg added. The switch prevents the operator from "over winching" the system and potentially bending the shit out of everything.

 Here you see the revamped winch mount. You may also notice we ditched the weak chain and turn buckles that came with the blower. Everyone that worked on the project felt they were going to fail so we made that change.

 On the back side you can see the "quick attach" system. Ignore everything hanging off the three point lift, our attachment is just the standard trailer coupler on a 2" ball.

 Besides what I've shown you, these installs also include mounting controllers to run the blower, additional lighting and all the wiring, breakers, fuses and switches involved. Every unit is just a little bit different and each customer has different needs. I guess that keeps it interesting.

Later.