Removing the snow plow

 "Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope." - Epictetus

 Wow.  Who knew Epictetus was a prepper?  Sounds like he is suggesting that you should be prepared for high seas.  Sound advice.

 I removed the snow plow from the truck today.  It's not that hard, and I've made it a lot easier on myself by no longer trying to man-handle the thing. 

Steps:

Install the jack on the plow.  The jack can be turned ninety degrees and left on the plow during the winter, but I see no need to expose it to the elements and road salt.  Since I drive to a nearby town to plow the church parking lot, the jack would get ice melter chemicals in it for no good reason, so I leave it off the plow during winter months.

The mounting for the jack at at the center of the plow and evenly lifts the back side (but not the blade) to take weight off the vehicle.  Once the jack is supporting the rear side of the plow, the retaining pins will be free to slide out.

 Below:  Jack is installed and extended to transfer the weight of the plow from the truck.

Once the plow is supported, the blue retaining pins should be free to pull out.  Pull the retaining pins on each side, and then rotate them slightly.  A second pin prevents the spring from forcing the pins back in place.

Unplug the umbilical.  It looks like a trailer plug, but it has a lot more electrical wiring than a trailer plug does.

Back up the truck.  The plow should stay put.  You might need to adjust the jack height for the plow to come free of the slots.  Below is an image of the mount that is attached to the truck frame.  The pins go in the holes on the right.  A thick bar on the plow goes into the slot at the bottom.  Unless the plow height is adjusted correctly with the jack, backing away from the plow doesn't always ensure the bar slides out of the grooves.  Sometimes it takes a couple of tries to ensure the plow isn't too high or low and hangs up in that groove.

Below:  Once the plow is free of the truck, I put a moving dolly under each side of the blade, and a third dolly under the jack.  Then I roll the plow out of the way for the warm seasons.  Up until this year, I've just lifted the plow up and kicked a dolly under it.  It was always a strain though.  This year I decided to lift it with a floor jack, and it made the process simple, safe, and painless.

After that, it's out with the sand bags.

And back indoors...