I guess I'm a little disappointed in my truck. Yup, I should have done a little more research before I bought it, but hindsight is 20/20 right? I have been planning on doing some plowing with my '86 F-250 this winter, but maybe not so fast. I learned that my truck has the IFS Dana 50 and that I probably shouldn't put my Blizzard 810 on the front unless I want to do some serious damage. From what I've now read it probably isn't a good idea to plow with the D50 at all, regardless of the weight of a plow. I thought that this is what 3/4 and 1 ton trucks did, right? I mean did I miss something? Believe me, I'm not trying to start a flame war with anyone, just stating my disappointment. Now, I am at an empasse. Do I spend the money on a D60 conversion or save my money, sell my truck and find the truck I should have bought in the first place for plowing? I bought this one for $1900 last year. I read that Dana 60's are getting top dollar, so you can understand my indecision. Let's hear what you think!

TJC

 

Why can't you plow with your frontend? I plowed a church parking lot and 3 or 4 driveways for two years with my f150 with a dana 44 ttb frontend. No problems. It's a 7.5 ft Meyers.

Getting down to the nuts and bolts of the question, I wonder what the nay sayers are saying is weak about the frontend? It has one more slip joint and u-joint than a straight axle, and two more pivot points in the middle.

I am trying to sell my f150 right now, and put the new to me, 89 diesel on the road. It has the twin I beam on it, and the plow is going on it.

 

Sounds good to me! Rather than start all over I figure I'll "Run what I brung" and if it breaks while plowing I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Thanks for the input!

 

the d-60 thing is a bragging thing sometimes we have a tow truck with a heavy push bumper (f-250 4x4 4 speed) my father in law use's in the scrap business.. we are RUFFFF with it pull junk cars out on hard dirt and front wheels hopping up and down... all we have ever broke so far was a axle joint , that was my father in law heard it clunking and still used it instead of stopping and fixing it..now sometime a d-60 is needed but on all my 3/4 4x4 the d-44 works just fine and they get abused..

 

i plowed public roads every winter with a D50 in the 89 diesel i sold 4 years ago for 14 years, and the guy i sold it to still plows roads with it. and it has a meyers C8 on it. (that is a 700 lb plow).

don't listen to the buttheads that tell you ifs is no good for plowing. they are full of bullscrap.

 

it is not a axle thing its a mount for the axle and a weight rating they way a plow mounts is supposed to bend the taps that attach the axle housing to the crossmember

never seen this but heard of it and if it is a problem add a 4 link style setup to strenthen it up

 

The real problem axle is a Dana 44 under the diesel engine.

The Dana 50 is much closer to a Dana 60 than it is a Dana 44.

I plowed many years with a 44 under my truck.
I am just a lot happier with the 60 I have now.

 

In my first reply to this thread, I was all gung ho since I had run my plow on my f150, with no problems. I crawl under the 89 diesel expecting to find the front frame area somewhat the same, and was shocked to see the front frame is way different, and I am going to have to start over and make a new mount(I made the f150 one).

What deflated me even more is I go to the Meyers site and they have manuals in pdf on their mounts, so I went to get some ideas. They have a note in there that they do not recommend mounting a plow on a f250 with a diesel. Hard headed as I am , I am going to do it anyway, but I am figuring since the diesel engine is so heavy, maybe they are afraid of over taxing the axle? I am thinking I can get away with my smaller 7.5 ft plow. It worked on my f150, certainly it will work on this f250. I guess I will find out.

 

get higher rated tires thats all load range e and put the plow on then and weigh it
the diesel engine is bigger so so must be cross member in front but the diesel is heavyduty and the gasser is not long as the tires hold i think you will be fine

 

if you are going to mount the plow on the truck and then drive around, looking cool with a plow on the front of your truck, but not using it, yes you will have some problems. but remember one thing. when plowing, the plow is on the ground. therefore, there is no extra weight on the springs.


and dave, the meyers parts cd i got with my setup says nothing about plowing with a diesel, and it is an older cd from 1990.
it also shows the same part numbers for all ford trucks, 84 and up, F150,250,350, and superduty.

 

Most guys that hang plows on F250's, up here. Use either Air Bags, or Timbrens. They help considerably to conteract the weight of the plow on the front suspension.

Also, after 20 years, it's prolly time for new POLY pivot, spring bushings.

 

Actually when I replaced my front springs, the spring bushings were in fine shape.
But the upper bushing in the front spring hanger was shot on both sides.
Since it is inside the frame, you can not tell it is bad till you drop it out.

Replacing the spring hangers eliminated a clunk that I could never find, I only heard it when I hit a stretch of rough road.
After I saw the upper end of the spring hanger, there was not much question as to where the clunk was coming from.

Cheap fix, I think the hangers were about 20 dollars each from Ford.

 

About the only reason you will see plow brackets with a "does not fit with diesel engine" caption is that the trucks with the deep radiator have the core support stick down about 3" deeper than the one on a gasser. I've installed one Boss on a 91, and with instructions they provided, substantially modified their brackets to clear the rad support. Another truck, we just did a 3" body lift on, and there was no issue at all. My buddy Stephane's truck had the short rad with a gasser style core support, and his Meyer setup(runs a 9 footer) was a non issue, but, we recentley changed the cab on his truck, and while we were at it, swapped to a deep rad, and it's corresponding core support, and without the 3" BL his truck has, it would just barely have cleared the bracket.
As for the D50 handling plowing, we are upgrading his truck to a 60, but only because he happened into one for free, and it and the matching rear axle have 4.10's(and we just put in the ZF out of the same truck). The 50 took a hell of a beating last winter(He, like I runs from the first snowfall until the spring with the hubs locked) and we had to replace one lower balljoint, that was about 5 years, and nearing 100,000 miles old; Steph used to work in the bush, and the old girl saw more than it's fair share of beating on logging roads, and his summer tires are not exactly small...

 

I made my mount to work without the bumper in place. It mounted all on the inside of the frame channel, with a angled support going from down low behind where the lynch pins go in, up to where the frame is boxed near the suspension. I don't know what vehicle the plow mount came from I have now, since I got it used, but I made it work on the f150.

I see the official factory mount has brackets that mount on the sides of the frame, and hang down to mount the rest. I will have to do something like this on the diesel. Another problem I am going to have too, is this truck has a suspension lift on it. I don't know how much, but I am going to have to make sure the plow sits low enough so it won't "dig in" when I angle it.

The first thing I am going to do is price the factory mount to fit to see how much it costs. I thought my mold board and A frame setup would be too old to match a newer mount that I could buy, but if I can still buy the "classic" mount they have on their site, it looks like it has the same lynch pin setup that mine does.

 

Dave, here is pic of the setup i made to lower my Meyers receiver after the 4 inch lift. it sets the pins rite at 12 inches.
the reason the lower receiver is off is because the kids used the truck, and hit a tree stump and bent the lower. so i have it off to straighten it.i dropped the lower on the frame plates, then made gusset arms from the bottom bolt to the front bumper to strengthen it. the arms are 1/4 X 2 plate steel.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../plowbrace.jpg

and here is one of the full setup before it was bent

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...nsport/d60.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ort/bumper.jpg

it is kind of hard to see in this pic with john standing in the way.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...sport/john.jpg