Plowing (Again)

[grimproductions]

Story,
Fiance is a perfusionist, and gets her calls to surgery the night before with little time to prepare. I own a 98 xlt v8 that we got just to keep the miles off our nice cars and I dont drive my Evo in the winter plus she has a brand new car. So we just pretty much use it for everything. Few weeks ago we were talking and I decided I wanted to put a plow on the truck, knowing she has to get up and out at 4 am to get to the hospital it would make our lives easier. So I found a 6'8" snow-way on craigslist and picked it up for $400, designed up a mount and started building it (ill post pictures later) I am just wondering if anyone here uses it to plow and how well the trucks hold up. Should I add a bigger transmission cooler? What are the main things that happen with the explorer if it is used for plowing. Keep in mind I could careless if it breaks Ill just buy another one, its not our only vehicle just our work horse. Currently has 138k on it transmission fluid is nice looking still (Trans line is leaking so i get too see it everyday)- Ill fix that. But any issues with the frames? The truck is rated to pull 6500lbs so I don't see an issue with plowing a driveway or two.

 

[429CJ-3X2]

No personal experience, but there's a 2 dr Sport with a plow on it here in Des Moines. I think it's at a small used car lot or car wash. I'm thinking there's 4 dr with a plow around here at another car lot too.

 

[Robman]

It'll be fine, people put plows on Explorers for light duty stuff.
The V8 comes with an automatic transmission that's actually worth having.

 

[J_C]

No way the tranny is going to overheat in winter just plowing a driveway or two. Plowing the main road for miles, maybe.

Sno-Way claims their 22 series, 6' 8" and 7'6" straight plows will fit your vehicle so I don't see a problem with those, both being poly instead of steel so both under 300lbs. which was the main thing in my mind, how much weight it would tolerate in the front, especially if driving longer distances in snow and ice than only up and down driveways. If it's something older and much heavier you might need to adjust front end ride height, particularly with oversized snow tires.

 

[Devan]

No way the tranny is going to overheat in winter just plowing a driveway or two. Plowing the main road for miles, maybe.

Sno-Way claims their 22 series, 6' 8" and 7'6" straight plows will fit your vehicle so I don't see a problem with those, both being poly instead of steel so both under 300lbs. which was the main thing in my mind, how much weight it would tolerate in the front, especially if driving longer distances in snow and ice than only up and down driveways. If it's something older and much heavier you might need to adjust front end ride height, particularly with oversized snow tires.

Upgrading the trans cooler is absolutely necessary if you're going to be doing 45 to 50 miles an hour or better for 15 or 20 minutes with that plow mounted your air flow is going to be majorly restricted what happens on my truck is when I'm on the highway and my air flow is restricted, my coolant temps and trans temps get real high and since the trans fluid goes through the radiator and then to the trans cooler it's like the radiator is also helping to heat the trans fluid and vice versa then it goes into the trans cooler and doesn't get cooled I'm going to get the biggest thickest possible trans cooler I can for the location I'm planning on mounting it and I'm also going to be installing a fan on the trans cooler that will engage via a thermostat switch I'll attach a picture so you can see what my current trans cooler and location looks like, I also have a supercharger heat exchanger mounted on the front end as well as a front mount hitch so I have to be very specific when I select a trans cooler. Plus I'm also planning on installing a thermostat bypass that I can engage with a switch so when I mount the plow I'll have the trans fluid bypass the radiator and go directly into the trans cooler and that should help keep both coolant and trans temps down and I was also considering ditching the clutch fan and installing an electric fan for the radiator and when I recently installed the fan shroud back onto the radiator I accidentally put the wrong screws in and one of them punctured a small hole in the plastic part of the radiator but as long as the screw is in place it doesn't really leak but I did find all aluminum radiators that are also thicker for my 01 sport and that will help as well. Plus if you have torsion bars in the front it's not a bad idea to ditch them and get fully adjustable coilovers they improve ride quality big time and you can easily and properly adjust ride height to compensate for the weight of the plow or if you don't have the plow mounted on and you have rear end sag from the ****y leaf springs they use on these things then you can level the front with the rear and ditching the torsion bars to install coilovers on the front is not a hard thing to do except for welding the gussets on the shock Tower that may be a little hard for some people.

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[Mbrooks420]

I never had any issues with my fluid temps, although it made the ambient outside temp shoot up. I drove with mine on for weeks sometimes.

 

[Devan]

I never had any issues with my fluid temps, although it made the ambient outside temp shoot up. I drove with mine on for weeks sometimes.

Do you have a power programmer in the vehicle to monitor your trans temps and coolant temps exactly? Plus I noticed you also have the 5.0 so your trans is different but your truck is definitely heavier than mine and if I have my Meyer Home Plow on the truck and I'm on the highway doing 50 to 60 my trans and coolant temps will definitely be a decent ways above-average

 

[Mbrooks420]

No, I used a regular scanner, and Omega data loggers.

 

[Devan]

Are you able to monitor trans temp with that thing

 

[Mbrooks420]

You can monitor the temp of just about anything, up to about 1,750 degrees F.

 

[Devan]

I bought my plow down in Virginia and I live in New Jersey and when I was on my way back I wasn't aware yet that the plow was affecting my coolant and trans Temps and my check gauge light came on and I looked over at my power programmer and my coolant temp was like 230 to 235 maybe even higher like 240 and my trans temps were pretty high too I think almost 200. but i was doin 85 mph for a long time and had to bak out of the throttle b4 the coolant system wuld rupture then ida been stuck ther till morning, but now tht im aware of this its pretty easy to make those temps go above average at highway speeds

 

[Devan]

Plus your truck is heavier than mine and in your avatar picture I see that you have a luggage compartment on top of the truck I don't know if that's the truck you use for plowing but you should Mount the plow and then go on the highway and do 65 to 75 for like 20 minutes and take a look at coolant and trans Temps I can almost guarantee you they'll be a little ways above average

 

[Mbrooks420]

I never had any highway issues, although I often ran with the plow fairly low, or all the way up, and a fair amount of air could get under it. According to the loggers the difference was minuscule. A few degree swing max. In full plow trim, I’m sure my truck was over 5,200 pounds. The roof carrier wasn’t typically mounted.

 

[Devan]

When I first saw that starting to happen to my truck on the way back from Virginia I also set my methanol injection to come on at 1 psi of boost and my temps were still going up but I was also cruising pretty quick and the Meyer Home Plow when it's in the raised position basically blocks off all air flow even if it's full left or full right it's a 7 foot 4 inch plow they originally come in 6 foot 8 inches and 7 ft 6 inches I think but the guy I bought it from had the 6 foot 8 inch model and added extensions to the side of the plow to make it 7 foot 4 inches wide but I'm very surprised that you don't have temp issues I'm planning on doing a whole bunch of stuff like I was saying before to negate my trans and coolant Temps from going up at highway speeds but I think you should do a retest and try maintaining 70 to 75 miles an hour for an extended period of time on like maybe somewhat mountainous Terrain and do some data logging plus my truck is also forced induction and those EATON superchargers are known for being called HEATONS because they heat up the engine and the intake air temp alot that's why I have methanol injection and an intercooler system. But I think that's definitely an issue you should revisit

 

[Mbrooks420]

I don’t need to retest anything. I measured the lines coming to and from the transmission, as well as in the radiator with industrial controls grade RTDs. I would typically plow my driveway, my moms, and my brothers, then drive 25 miles of highway at up to 75, and then plow the 1 acre lot and sidewalks at work. The only times the transmission got appreciably hot was it the snow was a foot or more deep, was heavy, and I had to do a lot of backing up in the work lot.

I plowed commercially for 8 years in an area that regularly gets 200+ inches of snow a year. If it were an issue I’d have burned up my 200k+ motor or transmission.

 

[Devan]

Interesting what size plow do you have and how far is it from the front end and how high does the bottom of it come up off the ground and what kind of plow is it and also do you tilt it to the left or right when on the highway

 

[Mbrooks420]

I believe it is 7’4” and 22 inches tall. It would lift around 18-20” off the ground with its lift, it’d go a fair amount higher when stacking. The blade sits 2.5-3 feet from the front of the truck. I always ran it straight during travel. It’s an original Snowbear that has its own mounting system, not the front receiver, and uses a strap winch, and not the linear actuator.

 

[J_C]

... coolant temp was like 230 to 235 maybe even higher like 240 and my trans temps were pretty high too I think almost 200. but i was doin 85 mph for a long time and had to bak out of the throttle b4 the coolant system wuld rupture then ida been stuck ther till morning, but now tht im aware of this its pretty easy to make those temps go above average at highway speeds

200F tranny fluid temp does not seem especially high to me so long as you don't run it much past 50K mi. I mean in general, I don't monitor mine. If you meant celsius ( = 392F ), yeah that's way too high.