My Snow Removal Equipment

When you live where we do and you get anywhere from 200 inches to 400 inches of snow yearly (from the 1st of July to June 30 or as I prefer from the Fourth of July to the next Fourth) you need a variety of snow removal equipment.

From left to right, a couple of shovels, a Yooper Scooper, and a Toro 7hp snowblower.

Next year keeping the driveway open will be all on me. The truck will take care of the majority of the snow removal, The scoop and/or the snowblower will take care of the paths and the shovels for cleaning off the steps and porches.

Snowplow On Different Truck

The transmission died on my old Jeep plowtruck. Last summer I took the plow frame off the Jeep and took the front bumper of the Dodge. Before I left to go play campground host I brought the Dodge with the plow frame in the back over to my neighbor. I asked him to put the plow frame on the Dodge. It required cutting and welding to make the switch and I don't have a torch or a welder for hearier metals. I told him I'd be back in November, but he thought I'd be gone longer. Anywho, I got my truck back last Sunday after he was done with the job.

Plow frame on the Dodge.

After I got the truck back I had to install the controls and the battery for the plow and the battery isolater. I still haven't wired up the plow lights, but I'm not planning on plowing snow at night. Although it does get dark early these days.

The snow has settled some or it might have been more difficult to find the plow.

When I took the plow off the Jeep, I put it off to the side where I thought it would be easy to get at, but not in the way for snowplowing in case I didn't get it on the truck before the county started plowing my driveway.  It was good that I put the plow with the arms up and the blade sitting on a couple of blocks of wood. Otherwise it would have been hard to find and/or frozen to the ground. I hooked a chain to the plow and pulled it out of the snowbank with the truck.

I plowed a spot next to The Guppy to park the truck.

This truck should hold up better for plowing snow. It has a 318 V-8 with a four speed transmission and a strong transfer case. All I got to remember is to keep the fluid levels up in various parts that require gear lube. All of which I should check before I do anymore plowing. It's supposed to be nice for the next few days, so I'll do that before we get more snow.

The Value of the Truck Doubled

I installed a hoist on my old truck yesterday. Now it should be worth twice as much as it was before!!

 This is the hoist completely installed. Bought the hoist two years ago from Harbor Freight and finally got around to installing it on my old truck.

 This is the hoist in the full up position. It will be interesting to see how it works. Bought with the intention of using it for an engine swap on my Barracuda. Hopefully it'll work.

This shows the support beams I put in under the bed of the truck. The box isn't strong enough to just bolt the hoist to it even with the angles that came with it to stiffen it.  The beams are cut from a metal signpost. I bolted them to the frame of the truck and then bolted the hoist to the beams. Now instead of just twisting the sheetmetal of the truck box, it would have to twist the whole truck.

This shows the support beams in place under the truck bed and bolted to the frame. One of the reasons it took awhile to install the hoist was I needed to come up with something to support the hoist. A friend had some metal signposts and I got one and cut the pieces from it. Now it's done and one of these days I'll actually use it.

When I told my friend last night that I got the hoist installed, he asked if it was before or after the rain. I said, "Before, during and after"!!