10" Simplicity Moldboard Plow Retrofit

After sandblasting all the parts, it appears that the frog was not welded back together in the past. The dingleberry welds I was seeing on the inside of the frog are actually from where the outside of the two parts were MIG welded together at the factory and their wire ran through the gaps between them. I ended up MIG welding the seam on both sides of the frog as the factory welds were pretty thin. I shouldn't have any issues with it breaking in the future.

My research on the landing adjustment brought me to a Cub Cadet page with this info on the landing adjustment for a Brinly plow. It looks like a tab welded to the standard that's threaded for a stop-bolt to adjust the angle of the landslide. Easy enough to add to my plow.



I took some 36-grit sanding discs to the share and moldboard and got them cleaned up. There's a lot of surface pits still and I hope they don't cause problems. I dressed the cutting edges of the share to a chisel point and they should slice nicely.

I finally got the plow done after a week of putting time in on it after work - mostly drinking beer though so productivity was lost 😅



In order to get the width of cut where it needed to be in relationship with the inside of the right rear tire, I cut the receiver tube off my drawbar and modified an Amazon bolt-on receiver so it could be moved anywhere on the drawbar. The receiver was made to bolt onto RV 4.5" square tube bumpers. I drilled another set of holes for my 2" tube and used shorter bolts. For the plow beam I welded shim plates inside a 2" tube, hammered it on over the plow beam, and drilled a 5/8" hole through it all for the hitch pin.



To get the beam to be parallel with the ground, I shortened the depth adjuster by 1/2" per side. This raised the coulter mount with the beam so at the coulter's deepest setting it may only have 1" of penetration in the ground. I'm going to try it as-is but I have a feeling I'll be making a new longer coulter shank to get it deeper.



As discussed earlier, there was originally no provision for landing adjustment on this plow so I added one. I drilled and tapped a 3/8" piece of flat stock for a 1/2" bolt and welded it to the standard. With the bolts loosened that hold the standard to the frog, I can adjust landing by backing out the bolt (into the frog), tightening the jam nut, and retightening the remaining bolts to rudder the plow to the right. If it needs to rudder to the left, I'll have problems.




I have it setup so the geometry is good on 6" worth of blocks. I added another lift pin to my drawbar so after I make the first pass, I can just move the left lift arm to the higher pin and move the top link over to the next slot to compensate for being down in the furrow without having to mess with adjusting the lift arms themselves.




I'm sure I'll be playing with adjustments on it's maiden voyage but it appears to be setup correctly so far. If the forecast is accurate, I'll be breaking ground this weekend and I'll have some more pics to share.

I took today off work to get some uninterrupted garden time. I staked out the garden plot and got started with the tractor.

The first pass was digging to China at 12" wide and 9" deep. After much adjusting, making it worse, then making it better again, I got some nice cuts. I was fighting the TCV relief off and on and figure either the relief needs to be adjusted or plowing sod in my soil is just that difficult. I tried narrowing the cuts down to 6-8" but the sod wouldn't turn over, it would just turn it on it's side and sometimes fell back in the furrow. It seemed to like cutting 10" wide so I put it back and adjusted the depth to a consistent 6". After getting the depth right, it was difficult getting the plow to suck into the ground when starting a new pass. I got a technique down using downpressure to get it started then letting float take over from there. The landing adjustment made a huge difference and got it trailing straight behind the tractor after two adjustments. I wrapped up with squaring off the edges of the plot with the plow. Final measurements come in at 40' wide and 60' deep. Should be way more than I need.

Before:



After:



Quick vid: