Truck lift & plow

[CBrabec]

I currently have a 3" front leveling kit on my '03 CTD. I push snow, and the leveling kit helps with the weight of the plow, but I am wanting to put on a 4-6" lift. I am wondering if any one who has a 4-6" lift on and pushes snow, has any trouble with the blade touching the ground. Any suggestions on a lift kit as well? My plow is a BOSS.

Chris

 

[CIverson]

The blade will most likely touch the ground, but the problem will be with hooking the truck up to the plow.



I had a boss on my '98 with 6" of lift and I had to extend the side plates and modify the kickers to lower the main bracket.



I've got a snoway on my '03 and w/ the kore setup the mount is almost as low as it can go to hook up the plow, although the plow has been tweaked a little to get more height out of it's attaching points when unhooked.

 

[Scrappy]

hat is too tall! the plow is going to take too much from the front wheels in a hard push. And if you lower the mounts you are going to overtax them and they will fail. I installed a 6'8" blizzard on a Jeep Wrangler that was lifted and had 33's on it, the frame mounts had to be extended 4". the unit came back about a month later and couldn't lift the blade more than 6" off the ground from the mounts getting bent. I added some support struts to the mounts to help keep the mounts from bending again.

Last I had heard it was working but it was still weaker then it was intended to be. The jeep was a 4cylinder 5spd. with stock gears so he wasn't overpowering it like we can.

 

[CIverson]

hat is too tall! the plow is going to take too much from the front wheels in a hard push. And if you lower the mounts you are going to overtax them and they will fail. I installed a 6'8" blizzard on a Jeep Wrangler that was lifted and had 33's on it, the frame mounts had to be extended 4". the unit came back about a month later and couldn't lift the blade more than 6" off the ground from the mounts getting bent. I added some support struts to the mounts to help keep the mounts from bending again.

Last I had heard it was working but it was still weaker then it was intended to be. The jeep was a 4cylinder 5spd. with stock gears so he wasn't overpowering it like we can.

I have to say I had no problems extending my mounts on my '98. I bolted 1/2" plate to the outsides of the existing down brackets. Then mounted the cross piece between the 1/2" plates with some 3/8 plate to take up the gap. To cut down on lateral movement, I bought some 1/4" wall box tube the same size as the crosspiece and some 3/8 plate and welded that up and mounted it where the cross piece origionally was placed. Then some angle to extend down the kicker braces, and mounted those to the added crosspiece.



It had to be extended down quite a bit to run 6" of lift on 37's, but I tripped the plow several times that winter and it did just fine.



You can do it and it will work, but I will say it isn't the best idea in the world, as it's hard to see the plow when your so high up, you are putting more stress on parts, and not to mention it looks f-ugly with the 2 crosspieces and such.

 

[brods]

One option to take some of the stress off the frame ends from the added leverage of extending the mounting points lower, is to copy an old design from meyer? (the blade was a meyers anyway). The example I copied for my K5 was from a mid 80's full size bronco. There was a framework that bolted to the back of the plow frame, directly behind the lower mounts, went under the front axle and then bolted to the transmission crossmember mounting points. Any rearward impact is then transferred back to the middle of the frame, more inline with the frame, instead of trying to twist the front frame rails down.

 

[CIverson]

Every plow frame I've ever seen uses kicker braces, only most usually just to back about 12-18" from the down mount.

One option to take some of the stress off the frame ends from the added leverage of extending the mounting points lower, is to copy an old design from meyer? (the blade was a meyers anyway). The example I copied for my K5 was from a mid 80's full size bronco. There was a framework that bolted to the back of the plow frame, directly behind the lower mounts, went under the front axle and then bolted to the transmission crossmember mounting points. Any rearward impact is then transferred back to the middle of the frame, more inline with the frame, instead of trying to twist the front frame rails down.

 

[brods]

Every plow frame I've ever seen uses kicker braces, only most usually just to back about 12-18" from the down mount.

I once looked at a stock height K5 with the kickers like you describe and the frame was bent where the kickers mounted. By extending the blade mounts down it creates a longer lever arm which will apply even more force to the kicker mounts. You can't get around that unless you move the kickers back. Typically the front axle gets in the way to do that.



I've beat my blade and truck pretty hard (pushing fallen trees, gravel, bashing through iced over snowbanks etc) for years with no frame damage. I'm sure if it didn't have the tube going to the crossmember my front frame rails would be tweaked like the truck I saw. (actually I installed an additional crossmember behind the tcase crossmember, but its the same principle. )



Just an option. If there are any blade mounts for the 05 Dodge that are still made to mount to the transmission crossmember bolts I'll buy it!

 

[IC Smoke]

general rule of thumb is 11"-13" to the bottom of your plow bracket. If you go higher the angle of the plow will change and instead of "pushing" the snow you will have a downward "scrape" whatever inch you go up the plow bracket should add too. You will need 45* (general angle) from the bottom of the plow to the frame. just bolting it up front puts TONS of pressure on that part of the frame. If you hit a curb, man hole, or uneven concrete youre going to have bad news.



Ian



Coleman landscape & snow removal