My son and I just put a large piece of cardboard behind my Kodiak and rolled it up on it's tail to install the plow mounting plate. It didn't hurt anything and sure was a lot easier than laying on our backs.
Tusk Subzero Plow and Ebay lightbar
I purchased both of these this past month to get ready for winter, and finally managed to get them installed over the past weekend.
The light bar was an Ebay special. Nothing fancy, but is 12". I didn't want one too large because I wanted to use the 12v outlet on the machine for the power source. I'm getting lazy as I get older and didn't feel like wiring switches, fuses, etc! The outlet is 10A maximum, and the light bar Pulls about 9. Finding a plug to go into the outlet was a bit of a challenge. Most have internal fuses that are only 2.2A. I was drawing a blank for awhile where to find the plug, and someone told me to check at the local Truck stop for one. Sure enough I got a replacement CB power plug for $15. It got cut to length, wired on and I used shrink wrap over the connections, and Works great! If you go this route, Please make sure your Light bar isn't going to pull more that 10A and your Plug is Rated at 10A also.
I did alot of research on the Plow. I wanted a 60" mid mount plow. I found this on Rocky Mountain ATV It was by far the least expensive at $329 with free shipping, but I couldn't find a bad review anywhere on the website. The reviews and ratings sold me on it. I looked into even more, wear blades are redily available, as with all replacement mounting hardware, and the plow also has feet for plowing over gravel, and they also are replaceable.
It showed up in 3 days in 3 seperate boxes, the Mounting plate was in one, the Plow in the other, and the push tubes in the last. There was a really good instalation video on the website which made assembly alot easier. I will caution anyone interested in buying this, you will need a 10mm allen key. 2 of the bolts require it for assembly. The Plow and push tubes assembled pretty fast with the help of the video.
The Mounting plate was fairly simple also. We put the Kodiak up on blocks. Just some 8" blocks under the tires to make it easier to access the skid plates. If you used a jack or ramps they would have been in the way trying to access the bottom of the machine. The center OEM plastic skid plate is removed, they give you some bracket extenders to reconnect and secure the front inner fenders were there were tied into the center plate.
The snow plow mounting plate was a heavy guage steel, and it mounted very easy with the provided hardware. The bolts are all case hardened, and the plate mounts to the frame with u style straps. All seemed very heavy duty. We used a automotive floor jack to lift up the plate to the bottom of the frame to hold it in place so we could get all the straps and bolts finger tightened to hold it in place. Centered it in place when it was loosed, then tightened it all up and tried to mount the plow for the first time.
The Plow mounts really easy to the plate. You could do it yourself if needed, but it was easier with 2 people. The one thing I don't like is the mounting pins slide through the plate and push tubes and have about 3/4" of gap between the end of the holes and the cotter pin. I'll probably make some type of spacer to eat up the slack. That's the only thing I can really find that I wasn't to crazy about.
When It snows in a month or so, I'll give a preformace update on it, but I'm pretty sure Its going to be fine. Anything is better that using a snow shovel after a long day at work! Here are some pics of it mounted to the Kodiak. Hope this review helps some guys out that are on the fence about buying a plow and Light bar.
The light bar was an Ebay special. Nothing fancy, but is 12". I didn't want one too large because I wanted to use the 12v outlet on the machine for the power source. I'm getting lazy as I get older and didn't feel like wiring switches, fuses, etc! The outlet is 10A maximum, and the light bar Pulls about 9. Finding a plug to go into the outlet was a bit of a challenge. Most have internal fuses that are only 2.2A. I was drawing a blank for awhile where to find the plug, and someone told me to check at the local Truck stop for one. Sure enough I got a replacement CB power plug for $15. It got cut to length, wired on and I used shrink wrap over the connections, and Works great! If you go this route, Please make sure your Light bar isn't going to pull more that 10A and your Plug is Rated at 10A also.
I did alot of research on the Plow. I wanted a 60" mid mount plow. I found this on Rocky Mountain ATV It was by far the least expensive at $329 with free shipping, but I couldn't find a bad review anywhere on the website. The reviews and ratings sold me on it. I looked into even more, wear blades are redily available, as with all replacement mounting hardware, and the plow also has feet for plowing over gravel, and they also are replaceable.
It showed up in 3 days in 3 seperate boxes, the Mounting plate was in one, the Plow in the other, and the push tubes in the last. There was a really good instalation video on the website which made assembly alot easier. I will caution anyone interested in buying this, you will need a 10mm allen key. 2 of the bolts require it for assembly. The Plow and push tubes assembled pretty fast with the help of the video.
The Mounting plate was fairly simple also. We put the Kodiak up on blocks. Just some 8" blocks under the tires to make it easier to access the skid plates. If you used a jack or ramps they would have been in the way trying to access the bottom of the machine. The center OEM plastic skid plate is removed, they give you some bracket extenders to reconnect and secure the front inner fenders were there were tied into the center plate.
The snow plow mounting plate was a heavy guage steel, and it mounted very easy with the provided hardware. The bolts are all case hardened, and the plate mounts to the frame with u style straps. All seemed very heavy duty. We used a automotive floor jack to lift up the plate to the bottom of the frame to hold it in place so we could get all the straps and bolts finger tightened to hold it in place. Centered it in place when it was loosed, then tightened it all up and tried to mount the plow for the first time.
The Plow mounts really easy to the plate. You could do it yourself if needed, but it was easier with 2 people. The one thing I don't like is the mounting pins slide through the plate and push tubes and have about 3/4" of gap between the end of the holes and the cotter pin. I'll probably make some type of spacer to eat up the slack. That's the only thing I can really find that I wasn't to crazy about.
When It snows in a month or so, I'll give a preformace update on it, but I'm pretty sure Its going to be fine. Anything is better that using a snow shovel after a long day at work! Here are some pics of it mounted to the Kodiak. Hope this review helps some guys out that are on the fence about buying a plow and Light bar.
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Since I bought this plow, we have only had 1 snowfall with any accumulation! That's a good thing, but not when I wanted to play with my snow plow!
I finally got to use this Wednesday evening. I hooked it up by myself when I got home from work, and off to plowing I went. I started off with my Driveway and my parking pull offs, 4Wd and High range was all I needed to move the 6" of snow off of it all.
As the quote said, I quickly became a celebrity in my neighborhood. I ended up plowing out 3 people on my street, My Mom's, the parking lot across from her house, her next door neighbor, and the elderly lady that lives behind her.
All in all, The Tusk plow moved some snow, no problems. I had to make a few adjustments to the feet, blade angle etc....but its all part of the learning curve of what works for me.
The Kodiak did great, I had fun untill I got cold, and I helped a few people out. It was worth all the trouble
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