My 06 plowing over a foot of snow - short youtube.

[Explorer_PL]

So we got some snow over the weekend here on East Coast. Not realy heavy duty plow, but that little Fisher saves my back, beats for sure any snow blower, and does not take any toll on the truck. Weighs only 250 lbs. This is its seventh winter doing that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8Jy9xn-VD4

 

[kam327]

Cool video, I enjoyed it. It's good to see this gen Ex doing the heavy duty work it was designed to handle. No way the current crossover Ex could do that.

Where/how is the plow attached to the frame? Assume you had to drill bolt holes into the forward-most cross member?

 

[Explorer_PL]

When I bought the plow in 2007, it came off Jeep Liberty, so I took that mount and fabricated in my garage extra brakets and adapted it to the Explorer frame. After about 3-4 years, I wanted to add front mount hitch, so I bought one, and that gave me much better platform, that mounted pefectly to the frame using factory holes. I just fabricated some small angles to attach the actual "jaws" for the plow. So now I have in front the hitch, plow mounts, and I also added 2 recovery hooks from Chevy S-10, and cut out 2 holes in the air valance below the bumper. Looks almost "original".

 

[Explorer_PL]

Replacing that one is my other dilemma, as there are very few midsize SUVs on frame these days; 4Runner, FJ Cruiser,...
And I like having 7 seats, comes handy quite often in my case. Expedition is little too big for my needs, I am thinking Tahoe, new one is coming out this year. Same class as Expedition but feels smaller.

 

[Flag Gibby]

My understanding is that the Durango is still RWD with a body on frame style and 7 seats. That would be my pick over the Tahoe any day of the week.

 

[Explorer_PL]

Durango is a crossover derived from Grand Cherokee platform I believe, similar to one of the GL Benz platforms, unless I am wrong.

What's wrong with Tahoe as a truck ?

I had one, the original boxy style from 99.

The things I hated was horrible third row, not folding into the floor, and the rear door window not going all the way down.

 

[inkjunkie]

Beats the hell out of shoveling.......

 

[Flag Gibby]

Durango is a crossover derived from Grand Cherokee platform I believe, similar to one of the GL Benz platforms, unless I am wrong.

What's wrong with Tahoe as a truck ?

I had one, the original boxy style from 99.

The things I hated was horrible third row, not folding into the floor, and the rear door window not going all the way down.

It looks like you are right on the body style (one piece unibody style according to AOL autos), which doesn't make sense to maintain a RWD with that type of platform. However, I always felt like the brakes were undersized for the older Tahoe V8 models and I like the Dodge V8 better.
I have a 1977 Dodge Adventurer with the 360, but I have driven several trucks with the 350 and am impressed with its power; just doesn't have the same torque band as the 360.

 

[Explorer_PL]

You are right about the brakes. At one point I had the 99 Tahoe, and my wife had 02 Sequoia and I was doing brakes on both trucks one weekend. Tahoes front rotors were same or smaller than rear ones from Toyota. And the Vortec 5.7 did not have the power everybody is claiming it has. The small 4.6 in the explorer pulls my trailer much better.

The 2007 and on, especialy with 6 speed are good trucks. I rented a 2011 GMC Yukon XL for a trip and this thing was awesome.

 

[Flag Gibby]

As far as plowing with a unibody style vehicle, you can do it with the newer style setups that are available from snoway.com. I am not saying that you should do it for a commercial type setup, but they work great for a personal use setup.

 

[Explorer_PL]

Holy sh..t Gibby - that's a great info, and maybe a solution for me in the future.

I did not know about Snoway doing that.

I know my Fisher came off a Jeep Liberty which is unibody, but did not know anybody else was making plows for unibodies. I need to digest and idea of a plow on unibody CUV. Actualy, I love the new Durangos.

I had an old 700 lbs 25D snoway on my 2006 HD Dodge Ram. That thing was a monster.

 

[inkjunkie]

It looks like you are right on the body style (one piece unibody style according to AOL autos), which doesn't make sense to maintain a RWD with that type of platform. However, I always felt like the brakes were undersized for the older Tahoe V8 models and I like the Dodge V8 better.
I have a 1977 Dodge Adventurer with the 360, but I have driven several trucks with the 350 and am impressed with its power; just doesn't have the same torque band as the 360.

You do realize that the LS Chebby motor has absolutely 0 in common with the proverbial SBC? The LS is a vast improvement over the old 350.....

 

[Flag Gibby]

Explorer PL - I hear you on that one, I currently run a meyer professional setup on my 96 F150 and removing the 800+ lbs of steel off of the front end for summer construction use is a royal pain, but all that weight is great for cutting through ice/packed snow.

 

[Flag Gibby]

You do realize that the LS Chebby motor has absolutely 0 in common with the proverbial SBC? The LS is a vast improvement over the old 350.....

Yes, I was just implying that I am predisposed to going the Dodge route before I ever go the Chevy/GMC route.

 

[marc.07Trac]

This winter I decided against getting a plow for my SportTrac. After watching your video I'm kicking myself in the butt.

But have a few questions. How does it do with wet heavy snow? Your video looked like light snow except for some packed snow at the end. How does the tranny hold up? I'm trying to look into that now. Last question is if you know what is the heaviest plow you can put on the front end before having to beef it up.

I'm looking to do maybe 6 small driveways with it.

 

[Flag Gibby]

On a Sport Trac, just add bags of sand to the bed over the axle and you should be fine with wet heavy snow. I would think that 500 lbs. would be sufficient.
As far as the type of plow goes, I would stick with the poly blades and a downforce style setup in order to keep the weight down on the front end, something like the 22 series from Snoway. No need to go crazy on a home use style setup.

 

[Explorer_PL]

Marc -
For what I do, this setup works great.
But.....

as a reference how it performes, before the Explorer I had a 2006 Dodge Ram HD with a Snoway 25D. The truck weighed 6500 empty, plow was about 700 lbs, plus few hundred in the bed of the truck. With me in it I was close to 8k. It was an overkill for me. I just do my driveway, my neighbour and an old lady down the street. The Ram was over 24ft long (it was Megacab) and it was a pain to maouver it with the plow. Explorer is a dream since it's shorter, and has better turning radius. But I can't wait for the snow to accumulate over 2 feet, especialy if it's a wet one. Explorer is a light truck and it will get stuck (like I did few times) if you want to push too much, or frozen snow. One thing is that it would probably help if I put some balance in the back, but I am too lazy since I need the 3rd row seat often, and I just plow every few hours if it snows a lot. But with proper planning, it will do very well. Wet snow is not an issue, actualy it's better sometimes as it comes off the pavement easier that dry or frozen one. On the Fisher site they list a mount for Explorer Sport Track, but say N/A for regualar explorer like mine - not sure if the frame is different in the front, but I doubt. I just bought a front hitch, and attached the plow brackets to it. It cost $ 150 versus 350-400 for the original mount. Since I also tow with it sometimes, I flushed the tranny at 60k, then at 120k, and now at 152k the engine and tranny are just fine. Not sure how much weight you could put on the front. You'd need to get one scale and check the empty weight of the truck by front and rear axle, and substract it from the GWAR that is on the sticker door. Hope that helps.

 

[Flag Gibby]

Marc, here is a personal experience from someone that did exactly what you are looking to do and the mechanical issues he had.

http://www.plowsite.com/showthread.php?t=111486&highlight=sport+trac

A thread with a 01 Sport Trac with a Snoway 22 series:
http://www.plowsite.com/showthread.php?t=107164&highlight=sport+trac

Just remember, you have a light duty truck so if you get too crazy plowing with it you will easily break things. For example, the last snow storm that I plowed was a very wet snow and in only 2 hours of accumilation during the afternoon I had to move 8" of slush off of a 3/4 mile long road with my modified 1996 F150 plow truck. I ended up getting stalled out at the end of my run because of all the weight I was pushing and ended up breaking a motor mount getting the pile moving again. I am just mentioning this because when you plow it is just a given that you break something at some point no matter what precautions you take because things just wear out faster.

 

[marc.07Trac]

Thanks for the help Flagg and PL.

I think I'm going to go with the Sno-Way. I'm going that way to keep as much weight off the front end. I also like the down pressure. I feel confident the transmission in the ST can handle a small plow pushing the snow we get in CT.

I have experience with plowing large parking lots and driveways for work. We have a F-250 Super Duty with a 8' Meyer. But I changed jobs and they contract out the winter work. I got sick of watch the snow fall and not doing anything and feel like losing money.

Now I have all summer to get a good deal on the plow and get all the fluids changed and make sure my ST is ready for next winter.