nymorey

I'm thinking of putting a snowplow on my truck. Do I need to upgrade the front suspension. If so what would I need?
It would only be for plowing out my driveway (although I live north of Syracuse NY and we get about 150" a year!)

99 Ranger XLT
3.0 liter
CAI
Underdrive pulleys
cat back exhaust

e_powers

stiffer springs may help. but the problem is rangers have zero weight in the back so they have zero traction. probably not a good idea to use as a plow.

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starting to love my 93 ranger w/3.0 5 speed.

nymorey

Even if I put sandbags in the back (which I do anyway)?

e_powers

i have a 2wd drive 3.0 and my neighbor has a 4wd 4.0 and we both had problems getting up a medium grade hill this last winter twice and i had the second time 4 sand bags and 5 gallon bucket full of water plus what ever snow was also in the back.once i got up the hill i was fine.

my wifes sportage had no problems and neither did the fwd drive cars on my street.

now light maybe 3 or less inches might be handleable for the ranger. but they suck rear traction wise.

tires designed for snow may help.

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starting to love my 93 ranger w/3.0 5 speed.

rhandwor

If you want to plow snow you should have a FWD. I had a plow on a cub low boy and had to get the rear tires loaded about 500lbs. Otherwise it would't push snow. You are talking about a lot of snow I also used chains.

nymorey

Thanks for the info.
If I have to load up the ranger with 500 pounds that little 3.0L will struggle and since it is my dailey driver the mpg will be aweful!

e_powers

yep, i noticed with all of the spinning of tires and careful driving and the weight i went down to 14 mpg. but i remember seeing somewhere that weight. does not affect gas mileage as much as we think.consider this

a family packs up the minivan and goes for a picnic. the drive there would be about 23mpg for the trip

the same family a week later packs up for camping and manages to keep all of the stuff in side the minivan but the gear is alot heavier but gasmileage only drops 1-2 mpgs the thing is more gas is spent getting up to speed then maintaining it.

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starting to love my 93 ranger w/3.0 5 speed.

jsweeter

first is the ranger 4wd? if yes, does the low range work? if yes, is the front end damaged at all? If no, I would suggest a hitch plow, light weight(approx. 250 lbs.) not a conventional plow. Look at jcwhitney for hitch plows to get an idea. They are snowsport snowplows, may be able to google this to the actual website. Just put on a front hitch (approx. 110 dollars). Very easy to put on 4 bolts out, 4 bolts back in.