Articulated "Belly Blade" Mounts On Pickup

Articulated "Belly Blade" Mounts On Pickup PICKUPS Accessories 30-2-27 How the heck did you ever figure that out? That's the question Gerald Manszewski often hears when people first see the home-built, articulated "belly blade" he mounted under his 4-WD pickup. The blade can be automatically angled from side to side and also tipped up and down to change the angle at which it enters the ground. The Lowell, Mich., man mounted the blade under his 1987 Chevrolet 2500 3/4-ton pickup. The blade measures 10 ft. long and 10 in. high and was made from a length of 30-in. dia. gas line casing. A 6-in. high reversible cutting edge bolts to the bottom of the blade. Manszewski built his own articulation point, which consists of a 2 1/2-in. dia. steel pin through an upper and lower steel plate. The lower plate is attached to the top of the blade and slides onto the upper plate. To change the blade angle, a pair of hydraulic cylinders are used to push or pull on the lower plate. Two more cylinders raise and lower the blade. Power is supplied by a hydraulic pump, which mounts under the hood and is belt-driven off the engine. The pickup rides on 33-in. high, 12-in. tires. Manszewski raised the pickup another 6 in. in order to make room for the articulation point and the blade. "It really does a good job. I use it all the time in my custom grading business, both to scrape roads and driveways and to push snow off roads," says Manszewski. "I spent a total of about $1,000 for the hydraulic pump, cylinders and control valve. I got the idea when I saw a belly-mounted articulated blade on a 5-ton truck that was operated by our county's highway department. Building it was a real challenge. It took me two weeks to get it to work just right. "I often use the belly blade with a front mount snowplow. I built a heavy duty custom frame for the front mount because my pickup is so high. "Sometimes there are big chuckholes on the roads I work on, but when I'm done grading it looks like someone had just put fresh gravel over everything. A big advantage of a belly-mounted blade is that I have a better view of the blade below me than I would with a front mount plow. I usually angle the blade so the driver's side of the blade is up front. When the blade is at its maximum 35 degree angle, the ends are even with the tires on both sides so that the blade doesn't stick out too far to one side." Manszewski uses a switch in the cab to engage the pump, and a control valve to control the angle of the blade as well as to raise it up and down. "Because the hydraulic pump is belt-driven off the engine, I can hear whenever the engine lugs down and get a good feel for how far I'm digging down. I have better control of the blade than I would with an electric-operated blade and can apply as much down pressure on the blade as I want. I often move up to 6 or 8 in. of gravel at a time." The blade is secured to the plate it's mounted on at five different places to provide maximum support. "If I hit a solid object such as a tree stump, I'll know right away - it gives me quite a jolt," says Manszewski. "I bent the pickup frame twice when I accidentally hit stuff that I couldn't see. Finally I installed shear pins on the cylinders that raise and lower the blade." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gerald R. Manszewski, 11760 Wheat Lane, Lowell, Mich. 49331 (ph 616 897-5324).

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