Product Review - Winter Beater

Testing a Generation II Eagle Plow

Written By:

Staff

Next to a roof and a windshield, snow blades are one of the most popular accessories for UTVs and ATVs. It’s a natural fit actually. An ATV or Side x Side can maneuver through tight areas much easier than a jeep, a pickup, or tractor, and unless you’ve got really deep snow, they do a great job of clearing the drive or walk. If you already own an ATV or Side x Side, it’s a no-brainer to use it as a winter tool. There are a lot of plows on the market, some we like and some we won’t recommend, but one plow we installed late last season was a Generation II Eagle Plow from American Manufacturing.

There are Eagle plows for about every major model of utility ATV on the market, and we installed our plow on a Suzuki King Quad 750. One common feature of practically every plow though is that they require a winch for lifting, and if you’ve already got the winch installed, you’re ahead of the game. On our Suzuki we installed an Eagle winch as well. Here is a quick recap of the plow frame and mount installation process.

LAY OUT THE PARTS - It helps with the installation if you’re already familiar with the parts

INSTALL THE WINCH IF NEEDED

INSTALL THE PLOW MOUNT BRACKETS - This was easy enough, but rather than use the 5/16 inch bolts that came with the kit, we used 8mm metric fasteners. It’s a metric machine – use the same fasteners.

One trick we always use whether bolting a skid plate or any other part onto our frame is to install a little rubber vibration strip between the two mating parts. On this project, we split a small piece of old radiator hose and captured it between the plow mount bracket and the frame. This helps isolate any vibration and protects the frame.

MOUNT PIVOT FRAME TO BLADE - Most plows ship unassembled so they can be shipped by common carriers like UPS or FedEx rather than by heavy truck. It saves a lot in shipping, but it means you’ll need to do a little assembly. That’s OK. We like our tools.

Bolt the pivot frame to the rear of the blade and install the large tension springs. The tension springs allow the blade to rotate down and over any unseen obstacles buried under the snow. They really protect you, your ATV, and the plow from damage.

MOUNT PLOW PUSH FRAME TO PIVOT FRAME - Bolt the pivot frame to the blade push frame. This allows you to pivot the blade to either side. The blade should rotate smoothly when you are done.

INSTALL THE WINCH CABLE STOP - Reel out enough cable for the hook to grab the hook mount on the push frame, and slowly reel it back in while the blade rises. You must stop before the plow frame hits the bracket! After you stop just short of that point, install the cable stop on the cable. CONTINUING TO WINCH AFTER THE PLOW FRAME HITS THE ATV WILL DAMAGE THE WINCH, THE ATV, OR THE PLOW.

ADJUST YOUR SUSPENSION & TIRES - The added front end weight will affect your handling and steering. On our ATV we run 5 psi in the front tires and 4 psi rear. We also stiffened our front suspension to the maximum setting. It is easiest to do this with the tires off the ground.

ADJUST PLOW SKIDS - You want the plow to skid along the surface being plowed, but not hold the blade so far off the surface it leaves lots of snow behind. Do this with the plow lowered all the way down.

GENERATION II PLOW ACTION

Fluffy snow is easy to push but the true test is when the snow is wet and wants to pile up in front of the blade rather than roll to the side. The first snow we were going to plow would be an excellent test. We slipped the Suzuki into low gear and headed out to show Mother Nature what she was up against.

We wondered if the Suzuki might have a problem pushing a 60” blade through wet, heavy snow. It didn’t take long before we had our answer and the Generation II plow was rolling snow off the end of the blade perfectly. Our Suzuki was easily walking it up the drive at about 4mph. At the end of the drive, we looked back and had a perfectly cleared path. We also tested the Eagle Plow with no blade angle and it easily pushed the snow with no problem, this time piling it where we wanted and leaving a large, clear area in front of our barn. Changing the blade angle took seconds, and it really made short work of clearing the drive. It was so easy in fact, we began to look to neighbor’s drives just for the fun of it. If the Generation II Eagle plow can move wet, heavy snow with ease, it will have no problem with fluffy drifts. It’s an excellent winter tool that worked far better than we ever thought possible and overall performance of the Eagle Generation II plow is OUTSTANDING!

A COUPLE SUGGESTIONS

Component quality of the Eagle Plow kit is very good. Laser cut brackets had no burrs or sharp edges, the holes were clean, and there were no tool marks on bends. Weld quality was also quite good, and every part was zinc plated or powder coated for corrosion protection. There are two things that could make it even better though.

The kit needs a much better set of instructions. The supplied instructions are more of a general guide rather than specific to any ATV and that leaves for a LOT of interpretation. That can be frustrating and for some people might make it nearly impossible to install. A few photos in the instructions might help as well, especially for the machine you are installing on. This goes for everything from mounting the hardware to solenoid location.

We believe the kit should also be equipped with different, high quality fasteners. On an ATV or UTV where every other fastener is metric, any accessories should be as well, especially for any fastener that contacts the machine. We twisted two bolts off easily, and a higher grade of fastener would prevent this.

SNOW KING

The Eagle Generation II Plow worked excellent even in the heaviest snow. Part quality is very good, and it makes short work of a tough winter job. It almost makes us look forward to winter…almost.

EAGLE PLOW QUICK FEATURES