anyone do it with a ranger, plowing that is. can the lil truck handle the stress?

 

Ive never plowned nothing.....






A couple people on here do....i know one guy with a old explorer does, i remember seeing the pictures..

Rocky

 

no your not supposed to plow with them, i highly doubt that the frame and crossmember is stong enough for the repeated abuse...

 

I have seen rangers with plows on them, they are the small plows but they are still on there.

 

I know they make plows for the front. I have seen them on a few rangers

 

your not supposed too but there is tons of people around here that plow with them you have to use the small plows the one's that are clear are really light

 

the weight of the plow isnt going to matter...its when your slamming your truck into a solid wall of snow at 20mph, its just the constant imact of the snow...

 

yes the weight of the plow matters extreamly. and your really not supposed to SLAM the snow thats guys that dont give two ****s about there trucks and try to get it done extreamly fast.

 

plows weight around 100-150 lbs for a 5 ft blade, evans winch weighs like 100... doesnt matter...

have you ever plowed? you dont sit there, put your plow down then go.... you go, drop the plow, and then push it to the end, which is a pile... if you go slow, you get stuck....

 

my old job used a wrangler to plow... that thing was such a pos though it was a 4cyl and had a auto tranny

 

lol no matter how many times you say it jeff the weigh matters and yes evans winch is heavy just go and ask him how much his front end sags with it and why he never leaves it on unless he has too...evans winch is not relavant tho in this discussion... T-bars cant handle a huge load hanging over the front of the trucks very well they will wear out alot faster with a plow this why it is best to find the lightest plow out there being most people leave there plows on for an extended period, becuase there a complete pain in the **** to remove when its 10 deg wind chill of -5 or more and ice has frozen over the release pins, and also being whats the point taking it off when its gonna snow say the next day and you will just need it agian..

yes i have been around blowing a long time there Jeff. my father used to do it for a living back in the day. thats another reason you use 4x4 Jeff is no to get stuck i have seen so many stupid people plowing that acully arc there frame cause they plow to fast and forcefully. then there is the guys that own brand new F-350 that dont want to fubar them to hell do just as good as a job dont distroy there trucks and just take a little longer. you dont want to SLAM you truck into a snow pyle unless you dont care about it. you push it into the pyle you can do it to not hurt the truck if your smart....

 

I have a plow that came of a 1995 Ford explorer and I put it on a 1991 explorer (Skinnier frame I found out had to modify it) It is a Western unimount and it is a Heavy steel biatch!







Secondly, these are trucks, they are going to get hurt if you work them! I wouldn't use mine as a Commercial plowing rig, but if you know what your doing and you keep up on maintenance you will be fine. Any plow driver who blasts through snow doing 20 doesn't care about his rig and is more than likely using a Company owned truck. Driving any vehicle a a speed abov 2MPH and slamming into a wall is going to hurt it. Now I guarantee more of you off roaders hurt your truck more than someone who plows with theirs in a correct manner and maintain it. You are going to wear out your ball joints and torsion bars a little soone, but so will constant flogging through a muddy trail. So if you really are concerned about it, you should put on a set of street tires and leave it in the garage waxed and pretty!

If I still had my Ranger that Plow would be going on it this winter seeing as the Explorer finally gave up the ghost 212,000 miles and I decided that fixing a blown head gasket wasn't worth it. I might put the carriage on the explorer, but with my current tranny issues, I am not sure that is a good Idea.

~HJ

P.S The weight of the pushing plow and the snow pales in comparison to the weight of trailers ome of us tow, your truck won't know the difference between pushing and pulling, they'll just think a fat chick jumped on!

P.P.S I have been Plowing as a sidde job for 5 years with my frriend Jesse, I know about plows.

 

here is a whole line of them that acully fit the ranger
http://www.truckaccessoriesworld.com/snow-plows/


here is a light weight alum one
http://www.autoanything.com/hitch-be...snow-plow.aspx

still trying to find that curtian one i mentioned


FOUND IT the best plow for meduim duty not extream comercial use and very light weight for out trucks

http://www.snoway.com/snow-plows-st.cfm

 

i was talking about the stress that pushing the snow does and how the wieght of the plow doesnt really matter, and you dont need a plastic plow, as you have just proven....

 

I can't think of the brand name but this is what I think you are looking for.




My Buddy who owns the plowing company has a 1994 Ranger STX with this plow on it. It says something like "world's Best snow plow" or some jazz. It works really slick and has a power down mode so you can scrape driveways with it going forward or reverse.

~HJ

 

http://www.snoway.com/snowplow-applications.cfm?id=70

Here it is Sno-way! I had to call him to ask! LOL

They don't stay that clear for long!

 

the wieght matters because the rear springs on a ranger are rated to hold trailers the front isnt where all the weight is the T-bars just down right suck for having plows in the front thats why ford doesnt recommened it on a ranger. the motor and trans doesnt know the difference where the weight is but the suspension does. the old explorer like you just showed with the TTB fron suspension and coils are alot beefier then the newer A-arm t-bar suspension

 

ya i found it, edited my post. its is the highly recommened plow for light weight trucks and SUV's also the frame is built like a tank, VS the snowbear plows. that would be the plow 99% of plowing compainys would recommed i acully was just surfing a huge plowing forum and thats what there concensis is. there has only been a few guys brake the Lexan on the plow because they hit pointy things at a high rate of speed like 1 hit the side of a dumpster lol...

 

I meant When You are plowing Blade down, the carriage doesn't weigh that much, that is what I was talking about. He was talking about how heavy the snow was as you are pushing it and I was saying that the the weight of pushing the blade and the snow added together is less than the trailers some of us tow. When the blade is down the load goes from the springs to the frame. My rig goes back to factory height when the blade is down and that is with 180K miles+ factory springs. I aggree if you drive around town with the blade on for days you should expect to buy new torsion bars and ball joints every few years. I beleive anybody that uses ther vehicle for work will expect to replace stuff from time to time. I know that the TTB is stronger that is why I bought it, I bought the plow for my 04 Ranger and then this cam up for sale for 1000 bucks and I thought what the heck I got two years out of it and I made a couple bucks in the neighborhood plowing.
~HJ

P.S. I plowned once, but I was in college and needed the money!

 

yes thats what i am getting at just having it on there the weight matters but right during plowing itself it isnt as highly relavent being the blade is acully in a sense pushing up on the front end and your just moving the wieght IE: snow around like you sayed... glad you see where i am coming from and Jeff might understand now with your clearification... but yes the Snow-way plow would be the one i would recommed for a ranger hands down. not only are the frames built to last but it isnt extreamly bad on the suspension VS stainless or even straight up steel is...

 

As has been said, Ford strongly recommends against plowing and will likely void any warranty you have if you plow w/ your truck. The front end is supposedly not designed for plowing. IIRC they say the same thing about the F150. In Ford's opinion you need at least a $35k SuperDuty to do any plowing.

Also as has been said, there are a bunch of lightweight plow setups out there that would probably work just fine. I have seen a guy locally that uses one of those small, composite blade plows on a late model (but pre '04 redesign) taco. He works at (or runs?!) a corner auto repair shop and uses it to clear his lot.

The City of Nashua NH also has a late 90's 4x4 Ranger w/ a full Westin steel plow on it. It is one of the smaller blades, maybe 6'. But unlike the guy w/ the taco it is a steel blade and has a traditional hydraulic lifter on the front. The truck says "Nashua School System" on the side and I am pretty sure they use it for clearing the wide sidewalks near the schools.. maybe some small lots too. They take the lifter off in the summer, but the mount is still there. I see the truck all over town and its front end is still in one peice. Although it might be a twin-traction beam front end.. not torsion bar like our later trucks, I can't say.
Of course it matters. Having a couple hundred pounds bolted to the front end of your truck was not exactly part of the plan when Ford designed the front end on our trucks. It has a huge effect.
Exactly. Although I might expect to be replacing components more often even w/o driving all over town.

 

would haveing a plow be any different if you had a rcd suspension on it?

 

I think a major factor here is going to be "PLOWING WHAT"? Are you getting this because you have a long *** driveway and it is more economical to do it yourself... or because you want to plow 50 other people's driveways to make extra money. Also concider how often it snows, which will increase or decrease the average amount of wear and tear.

 

ya know, our old mechanic used to work for the NYS thruway, he always said, that come spring, they had to tear apart and rebuild the entire front ends of all their plows trucks, just from plwing the thruway.... anything your plow with its going to be hard on, especially going over concrete when the edge is lifted and your blade catches the end of it....

I have seen on ebay ford dealer ships auctioning of plows for our trucks, I also know that denver uses ranger for small parking lots. I have seen a blue edge, like an 02 around here with a full 6ft steel blade on it. givin that the ranger is basically a cheap truck, i dont think its suspension components would last long doing plowing for alot of people. tho if your doing your own stuff and dont get caught up in the "oh u have a plow wanna plow my approach for $20" i think youd be fine.

we us a 1974 international cub cadet with a 16hp kohler motor, automatic, with a full hydraulic blade with lift and tilt. it works good in the snow, tho, dad cut the original blad down from 60inches to 48inches cause he said it was too much for sume a small machine.

and ya know, it works great for here as long as you know that you cant go into snow piles with your blade angled, I rember a couple years ago they were doing the grocery store lot accorssed the street, and the guy went into a pile with it angeled and snapped the piston.

common sense rules the roost with plowing. can u go 20mph acroosed a parking lot? maybe, but id slow down before i hit a rock hard pile of snow and ice.

 

some people do it on gen 2 rangers witht eh 4.0 stx around here and it seems to work fine when used with the smaller lighter plows