HG's Plow Truck, '78 GMC K35 Dually

[palposity]

Great Job on this Truck. Love this one!

[Dieselwrencher]

Lights help a lot out there in the wind country while plowing I'm sure!

[hgs_notes]

Got a warm day while I was actually home so I could finish the rear light install. Had the harness ready to go. Just needed to plug in the lights and route the power wires along the frame rail and solder in to the relay wires. Works great! Mounted the switch by the plow controller.

Also mounted the receiver hitch. Freshly painted. I didn't plan on using it, came with the bumper, but using a ball mounted in the recessed hole there is a problem. I hooked up my step sons big enclosed trailer this summer to move it around and it basically was locked onto the ball. There's not enough room above the ball for the hitch to come off it. I was lucky and was able to separate them by unbolting the ball. Just enough room to wiggle it free. Otherwise I would have had to get the torch. I'm not really planning to tow much since the truck rarely leaves the yard. But I need to move stuff around.

I'm thinking about swapping LED lights into the plow ones and installing a dual battery setup next year. Oh and I blew out the muffler, so it sounds a little better now lol. Exhaust upgrade for sure next summer.

[Corts60]

Love it!

[Low Elco]

Shame you have one of the little electric controls- it'd be cool to adapt a go baby go shift knob to one of the old cable controls and hit the lights from the button. I've put a LOT of those little electric dudes in.

[hgs_notes]

The plow truck did great over the winter. There's a chance I'll be plowing yet but spring finally showed up this past week. About a month ago I had the block heater start leaking and I spent some fun time under the truck trying to get a new one in between the block and exhaust manifold. Fun fun times. And after that (unrelated) it was running rough, would stall out if put in drive before it was well warmed up, hard starts, misfires. While checking things out, thinking it might be the choke adjustment, I saw sparks from 2 plug wires.

I used these blue streak wires because they have a very low resistance per foot for the price. Good fit.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/smp-10002

New plugs and wires fixed it and it's ready for the next ice storm!

Welcome to the mud pit. This was all ice and snow a week earlier. I had to get a load of rock delivered for a spot that was down to the clay and almost got the UPS truck stuck.

[hgs_notes]

Been over a year since the last post? Well last year went okay. We had a lot more snow. It drifted up by the grove so bad at one point that even this truck didn't have the power and weight to push the pile into the ditch. I almost didn't get through at all. I was pushing a pile as high as the hood of the truck with nowhere to push to but straight ahead, making the pile even bigger. It was crazy. The township plows left us stranded for 3 days, so I plowed from my driveway all the way to town, 3/4 of a mile. There were places I barely got through. The wind was blowing it back in right away even after the storm was done so I had to do it two days in a row. I almost got the plow stuck, on the road, not in the ditch. At the end of my driveway it was so much that the big road grader the township uses couldn't get it widened out so they had to get one of the big trucks to do it. Spring was a disaster, where the snow was piled up along the driveway the melt water was too far from the ditch area to drain off so the gravel driveway was a mudpit. It was a foot deep and we couldn't leave the yard without 4wd engaged for a few weeks. I had to pay for a load of rock to be dumped on it. Even the county and township was having to do that for gravel roads in the area. Just a sloppy mess.

Nothing broke on the plow truck though. There were several times I thought something was going to bend, brake, blow up, etc. I worked it HARD. By far the worst winter for spring cleanup since I moved out here. Anyway, the truck did as well as could be expected under the conditions. The only real way to improve it would be having a V plow. Those are really expensive and most people that have them clear snow as a business. Too much for the regular guy just handling his own driveway, but if I found a bargain I'd jump on it.

But the only things I'm doing for sure are adding an aux battery, replacing the wiper motor (it's kinda crap) and maybe install a dual exhaust. It's got the 2 into 1 small pipe on it and the muffler blew apart when the tailpipe got plugged with snow lol. I have my exhaust from my 72 blazer that I think I can use most of. I'll have to get the front pieces to connect to the manifolds since it's a header set up and get some extensions because of the longer wheelbase but I should be able to make it work.

Tonight I got the new aux battery tray installed.

[Willowrun]

Cool stuff. I'm headed to pick up a new to me plow next week to put on an old non-Chevy truck I have for plowing snow. I had a plow on a Ford Bronco at my old house that had a long driveway but moved to a house with a shorter driveway about 10 years ago and sold the Ford thinking I didn't need a truck with a plow with the shorter driveway. I've used a sweepster and a bobcat with a plow since being here and this year I'm going back to a truck with a plow. Nothing works better in my opinion.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Willowrun

Cool stuff. I'm headed to pick up a new to me plow next week to put on an old non-Chevy truck I have for plowing snow. I had a plow on a Ford Bronco at my old house that had a long driveway but moved to a house with a shorter driveway about 10 years ago and sold the Ford thinking I didn't need a truck with a plow with the shorter driveway. I've used a sweepster and a bobcat with a plow since being here and this year I'm going back to a truck with a plow. Nothing works better in my opinion.

Bobcats work great with the right bucket. I'd have one if I could afford it. At least I know several people that have one and are willing to help when I need it.

So yesterday I remembered I also need to improve gas flow. My pump I was using seemed weak, like it barely got gas to the filter under the hood. I bought a holley pump a while ago and installed it yesterday. Gas flow was still pitiful. I disconnected hoses in different places to see if there was a blockage. Nothing was going through the pump and I know it's good because I used it this summer to temporarily run the riviera on. Turns out the hose from the sending unit is garbage and the pump is sucking air. So now I have to drop the tank and replace the hose.

I did get most of the aux battery kit installed before it got dark. I forgot to stop and get a couple screws I need for mounting the isolator, what was in the kit doesn't work. And I need a battery! No new pics, I'll get some when I'm done.

[LT7A]

Cool that the truck is taking care of you, and you're taking care of it. That rig is all business.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by LT7A

Cool that the truck is taking care of you, and you're taking care of it. That rig is all business.

Yep, around here a lot of people are still using them as they were intended for.

Here's my squares. The crewcab build has a thread also.

[400/400]

How do you like plowing with duals? There was a local guy that would pull his outer duals for the winter trying to get more traction.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by 400/400

How do you like plowing with duals? There was a local guy that would pull his outer duals for the winter trying to get more traction.

I was worried about the width, that the outer tires would be in the unplowed snow or in the piled up snow along side the path, but it wasn't really a problem. I think I have more traction than a single, more contact patch. This dually seems to push harder than the old K10 did, by far. In lighter snow, like 6" or so I barely touch the throttle, it just pushes without effort. I don't have any paved surfaces though, just a 10' pad in front of 1 garage. The rest is all gravel so that might make a difference.