I apologize for the novel that's coming....
We have an 8' Unimount on a 1998 Chevy K2500. We bought the truck with the plow about 7ish years ago. The plow worked great, until last year.
One of the guys who was driving it told us that it would not move up/left/right. He said he could get it to work for about 10ish minutes by (slowly) pushing it against a curb or a pole while operating the controls. He did that the rest of the night. Got the truck/plow back to the shop, and started troubleshooting. As usual, the plow worked fine at the shop. We changed the fluid, filter, and removed the pump. I took the pump apart, inspected/cleaned it, and reinstalled it. Everything worked fine in the shop. The next time out, it did the same thing after he had been using it for a 3-4 hours. I talked to a friend of mine, who told me it might be a wise idea to change both poppet check valve assemblies, as well as the crossover relief valve assembly. At the same time, I also changed the motor just as a precaution. Next (and last, for the season) snow, the same thing happened. All valves/coils were removed, cleaned, and bench tested with no issues
This season rolls around, and we have a new guy out plowing with it. I'm in a parking lot with him, and the plow does the same thing. I go up to the motor and touch it, and it's pretty warm considering it was only 5 degrees F outside. So, I told him to wait 10ish minutes, and try it again. He did, and the plow worked for a few more hours. We get the truck back that night, and I decided to change the motor (that only had maybe 8 hours of use on it) and the solenoid, because I thought maybe the almost-new motor may have been defective.
Fast forward to January 28th-29th snow, and the same thing happens. He texts me and tells me that the plow is doing the same thing (I can't remember if the motor makes noise or if just the solenoid clicks. I'm about 99% sure that the motor does energize and sounds like it wants to work). He said he packed some snow around it because it was warm, waited 5-10 minutes until it was working, and then he went on his way. That snow was also about 0-5 degrees F.
Last year, I thought about just saying F it, and buying a whole valve body (already assembled). However, this year, I'm almost tempted to buy a new positive/negative cable on the truck and plow side, and then making a new positive cable for the solenoid to the battery just to see if that does anything. I know that old/corroded/dirty cables that aren't making a good connection usually generate heat. I'm wondering if there is something going on with these cables (from motor-solenoid) that we can't see.
Out of 8 plow trucks (5 total unimounts), this is our only problem child. The truck runs great. It's a shame that whoever is in this truck gets frustrated because the plow has intermittent problems that I can't figure out. If anybody has any ideas on what to do with this thing, it would greatly be appreciated.
We have an 8' Unimount on a 1998 Chevy K2500. We bought the truck with the plow about 7ish years ago. The plow worked great, until last year.
One of the guys who was driving it told us that it would not move up/left/right. He said he could get it to work for about 10ish minutes by (slowly) pushing it against a curb or a pole while operating the controls. He did that the rest of the night. Got the truck/plow back to the shop, and started troubleshooting. As usual, the plow worked fine at the shop. We changed the fluid, filter, and removed the pump. I took the pump apart, inspected/cleaned it, and reinstalled it. Everything worked fine in the shop. The next time out, it did the same thing after he had been using it for a 3-4 hours. I talked to a friend of mine, who told me it might be a wise idea to change both poppet check valve assemblies, as well as the crossover relief valve assembly. At the same time, I also changed the motor just as a precaution. Next (and last, for the season) snow, the same thing happened. All valves/coils were removed, cleaned, and bench tested with no issues
This season rolls around, and we have a new guy out plowing with it. I'm in a parking lot with him, and the plow does the same thing. I go up to the motor and touch it, and it's pretty warm considering it was only 5 degrees F outside. So, I told him to wait 10ish minutes, and try it again. He did, and the plow worked for a few more hours. We get the truck back that night, and I decided to change the motor (that only had maybe 8 hours of use on it) and the solenoid, because I thought maybe the almost-new motor may have been defective.
Fast forward to January 28th-29th snow, and the same thing happens. He texts me and tells me that the plow is doing the same thing (I can't remember if the motor makes noise or if just the solenoid clicks. I'm about 99% sure that the motor does energize and sounds like it wants to work). He said he packed some snow around it because it was warm, waited 5-10 minutes until it was working, and then he went on his way. That snow was also about 0-5 degrees F.
Last year, I thought about just saying F it, and buying a whole valve body (already assembled). However, this year, I'm almost tempted to buy a new positive/negative cable on the truck and plow side, and then making a new positive cable for the solenoid to the battery just to see if that does anything. I know that old/corroded/dirty cables that aren't making a good connection usually generate heat. I'm wondering if there is something going on with these cables (from motor-solenoid) that we can't see.
Out of 8 plow trucks (5 total unimounts), this is our only problem child. The truck runs great. It's a shame that whoever is in this truck gets frustrated because the plow has intermittent problems that I can't figure out. If anybody has any ideas on what to do with this thing, it would greatly be appreciated.
