So, I've made it to about mid season plowing with no problems except for many broken j-bolts. Snow wasn't too deep, about 7 inches, plow into a snow bank, hit the "in" button on the bars and "SNAP"!!!



I read about repeated verticle lifting with a plow will eventually lead to cable wear. Guess so. Anyway, just got done ordering some synthetic rope and more j-bolts from Montana Jacks.

I guess I'll pick up some 3/16 cable clamps tomorrow to band-aid the problem until my order arrives. Need to finsh the driveway/road before it all turns to ice!!!

Had a wire rope setup on mine with a hawse fairlead. The cable crimp wore due to repeated hits against the hawse while plowing.

I used the u-bolt cable clamps to finish up the work.

I've since replaced the hawse with a roller fairlead and synthetic rope. I'll see how long this lasts.

The same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't really surprised when it broke because I noticed one of the bundles of wire was already broken. I probably should have fixed it then, but I was hoping it would hold until I finished plowing. No such luck. But I have the tools to cut the cable back and crimp on a new sleeve. 5 minutes later and I was back in business. My roller fairlead is in pretty rough shape and I think that is what caused the cable to break, at least this time.

I'm told some folks use only a short "sacrificial" cable length for plowing, replacing with a full-length winch line when plowing season's over.