New To Plowing

[SilverBulletSS]

Hey guys, just bought myself a plow truck. It's an '89 GMC Sierra 2500. Things got 135,000 on it and the usual rust. It came with a Western 7'6 plow, i believe its a Uni Mount. Not sure if this truck will make it thru the season, bought it cuz I got it for $1900!! I'll be teaming up with my cousin who's been plowing for 7 years. I'm curious as if this truck craps out, can I mount this plow on a newer GM, preferably a Chevy! I'll post up pics, hopefully one of you guys can help me out. I'd hate for this thing to die then I'm left leaving my cousin in the cold, literally!

 

 

[Z45]

The plow itself will but all the parts mounted to the vehicle will not transfer to another body style because the frames are different.

[Kodiak450]

Wow, thats an old school Western (the kind that fits behind the bumper). Western has a great track record and makes very good pumps. I would make sure you do a flush of the pump and add new fluids, get some dry gas and add a couple cap fulls every start of the season to get rid of any potential condensation that could have occurred over the summer.

 

As far as the truck goes, it's old but it's a "Real Truck". No plastic truck there. I would try to address the rust areas and take time and apply red grease over the areas that have rust on them. The red greases works well and stays on for a long time. Yes it can be messy if you have to work on something and grease is on it but it will help protect from harsh winter road salt. What do you got under the hood?

[SilverBulletSS]

Trucks got a 350 under the hood, runs great, still strong. I'm assuming if i were to buy another truck, I would have to purchase a new A frame and mount to attach this plow to the new truck?

[old dog]

nothing will transfer to the new body style truck ,that is the old conventional style western .they stoped making it back in 1989 you would have to try to modify it to fit .man you would have to want it bad .my advise is to buy a newer used plow to fit the new truck .dont get me wrong wear there is a will ther is a way

Trucks got a 350 under the hood, runs great, still strong. I'm assuming if i were to buy another truck, I would have to purchase a new A frame and mount to attach this plow to the new truck?

[Kodiak450]

Yea thats a relic that Western, it would never work on newer trucks without alot of mods. If you were to purhase another truck down the road, would you be planning on keeping that 89? Reason I ask, the value of the truck is the plow. Even if it were to fit on a newer truck and you tried selling that truck without a plow, you would have a very hard time. I had a hard time selling a heavy duty truck once cause I took the plow off and transferred it to a newer truck. I moved out to a different part of the state where I needed a bigger cause I no longer had small drives and side walks to plow where I was able to get done with the smaller blade.

The truck sat for a year with no hits, but after spending $5700 on a brand new Western, I relisted the truck with the plow and the interest picked up fairly soon there after. It was sold for asking price 43 days later.

 

Whats still valueable about your old plow is that parts are still available in alot of auto part stores and online as well. The blade looks to be in very great shape for the age. Western sure knows how to use a top grade paint in finishing their blades, thus making them last a long time. Besides, would you really want to be messing around hooking the plow on and off in freezing weather? Not sure if you have a plowing business or are in the midst of building clients up. But if you are, I would use that truck as a tool to get yourself clients and more accounts, so down the road you can get yourself a new western. I personally would not sell that 89 but keep it for a back up if you ever had unexpected down time with your next truck with a plow on it. And also if you were to grow as a business and aquire more clients, you can have a second truck out on the road making you money, provided you find the right operator you can trust to operate it. I would of kept my other truck and had two plow trucks, but it got to the point that the truck was breaking down too many times and couldn't be trusted to be a commericial vehicle. Got to admit though, I see your 89 ready to go and still working while my 96 ford became too old and unreliable. That there tells you how good GM made trucks back then, they were built to last. And the 80's was a time were there were alot of unreilable vehicles that were produced imo. But mainly I am refering to cars vs trucks.

 

So if you haven't already, make sure you stock up on replacement parts for that plow. You need hoses, parts for the pump and change the fluid in the pump if it hasn't been done recently. Get dielectric grease and apply it to the power wire nut and ground. And any other eletrical connection under the hood where rust could be prevented from occurring. The only thing I would be concerned about when it comes to plowing with that old plow is getting hung up on snow mounds when stacking. I can see it sits lower "The frame mount" vs my newer Western does. I've got hung before with older plows quite a bit at times, needed 4lo to get me out.

[Kodiak450]

Also if you want, you can upgrade the plow lights to halogens for brighter light at night when plowing. I hated those old style lights, they sucked at night. I'm not sure if the nwere style western lights will work with that western of yours, as the lights are hooked into the module. But Meyer's night saber lights would work as they do not need to be plugged into a module like my westerns. They come with their own modules and it is just a matter of plugging in your oem plugs into the connections and running a wire into the cab for a switch to control the lights.

[Mckenzie]

Nice ole truck! Does it run fine? Trans shift ok? Is it 4wd?

[SilverBulletSS]

@ Hen Avenger, your on Target with keeping the old truck, that's what my fiance suggested. Keep it and use it as a back up and have my brother run it if I get backed up. As for the lights I don't think I will have to mod anything. The truck already has a toggle switch on the dash to toggle between the plow lights and trucks lights. Your absolutely right about those lights though, they suck. So hopefully the new lights will be plug and play. I have a question about the plow control, I have that old school joy stick mount under the dash, is it possible to use the newer thumb operated toggle switch?

 

@ Grape Soda, trans shifts like a dream, four wheel drive engages without a hickup, it starts right up, but is in need of plugs, wires an oil change and some seafoam. And the gas gauge doesn't register. Showed an 1/8 of a tank the day I picked it up, ran it to a has station and threw $50 in her. Started her up and the fuel gauge dropped below empty and never came back up lol. I'm wondering if the ground from the gauge to the sending unit has some corrosion buildup at the fuel tank and just needs to be cleaned up?

[Kodiak450]

You talking about the hand held controller that has the black spiral cord and up, down, left, and right buttons? If yes thats the controller I have for my Western and it wouldn't work with your older western. That controller is wired to the module as well as the newer style lights. I remember when I was getting the plow installed at the Western dealer in PA and asking him about if I can have the plow lights wired to a seperate switch so I can turn them on with a flip of a switch. The lights only work if hooked up to that module that is like 8" long. Once all the connections are hooked up ( The plow connections which plug into the leads under my bumper and the lights lead) the lights go on auotmatically. All those leads go right to the module. Thats why I mentioned going with the Meyers night saber I unit. It comes with it's own two modules ( one for each side) "headlights" and are seperate from the plow wires. Seeing you already have the switch inside the truck, it's just a matter of tieing into that wire and plugging in the lights. You'll get better lighting at night a 60% inprovement. I believe they use a H-3 halogen bulb, but don't quote me on that.

 

The fisher plow headlights "newer style" are the same as the newer Westerns. Actually they are the Western lights, just go by another name. Western owns Fisher. As far as other snow plowing brands lights, I'm not 100% sure how they are wired. The night sabers are low profile, so if you don't want them low, there are these metal blocks that I think come with the night sabers that raise the lights up a couple inches. If you do a search for them on a search engine like Bing or Google, there is a bunch of different websites that sell snow plow parts. Prices vary and change on parts. I remember using at least 4 or 6 different snow plow part websites for purcahsing spare parts and the night sabers. Sometimes one website has the lowest price, then the following year they don't and I use the other ones. Northern tool sells some plow parts i think too, so you might want to check them out as well. I recently got a plow parts magizine and seen the night saber 1 listed in them for under $200. I think I paid $175 when I bought mine and it was a couple years after they came on the market. They should cost lower at this time cause they have been out for almost 10 years now. Meyers was the first brand to start to offer halogen head lights, then other brands follwed with their brands a few years later.

 

They do make a difference and you will see it. they light up so much better then the old styel square lights like you have. Or you can always get a small fog lamp set and hook them up to near your existing lights for added light and they cost less. You can get an inexpensive set at walmart for $20'$30 and just wire a seperate wire and switch and drill a hole in the metal somewhere on the lhead light section and bolt them on. I bought from walmart once these square halogen driving fog lamps that I used as additional back up lights on the rear bumper on a previous plowing truck. They had plastic guards on the lens and lite up pretty good for $19.99.

[SilverBulletSS]

This is the joystick I was referring to.

 

 

 

 

 

My first thought was to just bolt a set of cheapo Autozone fog lights to the tops of my plow lights and wire them to a separate switch on the dash, along with another set mounted to the bottom of the rear bumper for extra rearward vision. I'm having a cheap radio installed due to the fact it doesn't have one, and was thinking of relocating the headlight/plow light switch, roof mounted emergency light switch under the radio and installing two more switches for the auxiliary backup and fog lights there also. This way they're in reach and easily seen.

[Kodiak450]

What does it have in it now as a controller? You need to look at the end of the clip on current controller to see if that controller is a plug and play option. If not, I would think if you cut off the plug end and hard wire it in, it should work. I would verify the fit using one of the online sites that displays the schemetics for your gen plow and see the lists of parts and optional controllers that work with it.

[Kodiak450]

Also, i see that controller has a float option, im not sure how long float options were available on westerns. I know mine floats.

[Mckenzie]

Sounds like you got a pretty good deal on that truck!

[SilverBulletSS]

@ GrapeSoda thanks man, it really was.

 

 

@ Hen this is the controller I have currently in the vehicle.