I was driving to work the other day with my plow OFF since we hadn't seen any snow in the past few weeks, and a guy in a Dodge Ram Sport Ext. Cab 1500 comes bombing up on me with a big old Western 7.5' Pro plow swingin from the fron tof his truck. I was going about 60. Do some people not know that you're not supposed to exceed 45mph with your plow hung on your truck? Or does Western say that you can go faster?
Either way, it made me nervous.
-Tim
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60+mph. He must be way cooler than I am! I see those guys here in Md.They must be in the snow plow "500". now I have a question for everyone.Are you supposed to keep your blade stright or angled when driving?I keep mine angled.
We angle our blades to the left. Our head mechanic explained that if you were to get into a head on collision with a car a lot less damage would occur at that angle. The plow is low and close to the truck, it would push the car out of the way.
If it were angled right, the plow blade is a foot or two off the ground and would rip a car to shreds, if the plow hit it. Our trucks (F450 PSD 2x4 duallies w/ 8.5+ Diamond) weigh 9500+lbs. empty. With a pallet or two of bagged ice melt, you are talking some serious damage.
And a story about truck speed.
Last year i was on I-95 in the right lane with the plow on, headed back from the mechanics shop. I was going about 55-60, no problem. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice another landscape company's truck, chevy 3500 crew cab duallie w/ a 8-10' plow and a 1 yarder in the back, barreling down the road in the far left lane. I noticed he was blowing out heavy black smoke (prob. the tranny.). So I'm driving along and a few minutes later see the guy parked on the side of the road, with the hood up. Guess he burned out the transmission doing 70+ with a completely loaded truck.
I carry my blade angled to the left, and as for speed going down the highway 45 to 55 tops is plenty fast enough for me when I've got the blade hanging off the front. I run a 4 core rad and a big transmission cooler on my 350/T400, no overheating problems if I keep the speed reasonable.
Mine doesn't really seem to have a problem, no matter which way I have the blade. The only time the gauge moves is if I'm doing about 50 (which is as fast as I'll go w/plow on). Even then, it doesn't even hit 210.
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Same here as regards temperature - my temp stays pretty constant (around 195 - 200) regardless of blade angle - I like angling it to the left for the same reason (worst - case scenario of a collision) mentioned in the earlier post by bam.
I think the manufacturer says 45 mph to be safe. I don't think that it matters as long as you have air going through the tranny cooler and radiator. With the F250 that I used to have there was no problem wit blade angle or height. With my GM trucks I take it easy on the E-way always watching the engine/tranny Temp. The rubber deflector flap on those affect the air flow a great deal.
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