I talked to the Ford dealer in my town yesterday. The owner is a family friend and he say that they put quite a few 8ft-2in Boss power V plows on 1/2 ton trucks. I always tell our drivers at work the same thing if you take car of your equipment it will take care of you. If you want a plow on your truck and it will make you and only you happy go buy it. Dont listen to people who say you cant do something otherwise you will never accomplish anything. By the way I am looking at doing the same thing and if I do I am going to buy either the Boss V or I am going to buy the Western MVP.

 

got a plow its heavy too, so got heavy duty springs (code ZZ) and it fixed the problem.

Plow easy and you'll be fine. Going on 3rd year with plow and have had no problems what so ever. Good luck

 

thanks for all the posts guys, ialot of ppl seem to think its a bad idea but not sure were they live cuz i see fords hell like someone said even jeeps or s-10's with plows if they can handle it i cant see why our truck wouldnt be able to, and of course im not looking to plow highways just my parents LONG *** driveway, and make a few extar bucks during winter..

Thanks for all the input guys!!!

 

Now you've really got my attention. A V-Plow on a half ton truck? That's a serious recipe for disaster. We have 3 Fisher (a real plow) V-plows within our fleet of f-350's and they're one seriously heavy plow. You ought to see what they do to the trucks over time. Why does your dealer friend slap them on? Simple, he wants the service business - if Ford doesn't void the warranty on him.

One thing nobody seems to mention here. You know all these people who say you can plow the hell out of a half ton truck? Where are they five years down the road when everything falls apart. Yes, you can out a plow on a Pinto and it will "handle it." Now try plowing for a while and call me back. It's your decision, but I have "more than just a few" years in this business in a city that averages 120" of snow a year. get my drift?

 

I would say that a majority of the V plows on 1/2 ton trucks where I live never see commercial service like yours do. Most of them get used a handful of times to go plow out camp or do some extremely long driveways. I do know of a mechanic in town that has an 8-2 Power V on a 1/2 ton Chevy short bed and he uses his commercialy and never has any problems. The fishers that you have are probably the 9-6 V that they make and I know they go about 1,000# with the mounts and those have to be on an F350. I have been pushing snow for quite a few years and as long as you keep up on maintaning the plow and truck and dont plow like an idiot and abuse it you have very little problems. I plowed one of our lumber yards for a year with my personal 1/2 ton GMC and a Western Pro plow and bever had any issues.

 

I hear you. As a Mechanical Engineer, I might look at this stuff a little differently than non-engineers. Here’s my big concern. When you take an extra 500-1,000 pounds and hang (cantilever actually) it off of the front suspension, you’re doing things that the system was not designed for. Now, can you simply put stiffer springs in to handle the weight? Sure, but springs are only one part of the suspension system. It’s kind of like replacing a 5-amp fuse with a 40-amp fuse because a circuit keeps blowing the 5-amp due to an additional load. That fuse didn’t upsize the rest of the system’s current carrying capacity. Yea, the fuse might not blow, but something else will.

So what are the other components in an F-150 that will now be stressed beyond their design capacity? Ball joints, universal joints (CV joints in your front end), brakes, transmission cooling to name a few. If you happen to have the Hancrap or General Ameritrash tires, they’re pretty hopeless in the snow and are not load rated for a plow. You really need LT rated tires.

So once again, I guess my final take on this one is that you can plow with an F-150, but I would not strongly recommend it.

 

I understand what your saying. But the ZZ springs people upgrade to are a factory spring on F-150s with the heavy payload package.... which is rated for plow use. Now I don't know everything about F-150s, but I am a supplier to ford so I have talked with hundreds of service managers and parts managers over the last few years. There is not many major differences between the normal F-150s and the HD ones, hell right on fords site it shows:
-8200 gvwr
-2700 max payload
-17" 7 lug wheels (which everyone agrees was just a stupid thing that serves little to no benefit.)
-4:10 gears
-lt 245/70-17 generals
-heavy duty shocks, 72 amp battery
-upgraded springs, radiator, and aux tranny cooler
-10.5 gearset

Now, my truck, the way it was opted from the factory with the tow and go package already has the 10.5 rear end, the bigger radiator and tranny cooler and battery and I have since replaced my stock tires with LT tires (which P metrics on a full size is just retarded cost saving on fords behalf) and I have added stronger springs front and rear. My truck is basically what ford sells as a Heavy Payload F-150 at this point.

Even better then that.... I just looked at there website more closely, they offer the 5.4L 4x4 longbed with plow package. That package is nothing more then a set of $95 plow springs, no heavy service package required.

So Ford, on there website shows that you can plow with a F-150.

Now, as I said before, I will agree with you that a F-150 will never, and can never come close to the things a F-350 can do weather it be plowing or towing a load. Anyone who says otherwise is retarded. Im sure more stuff will ware out on the 150 sooner due to plowing, but hell, stuff wares out all the time as is. Most guys I know with Super Dutys go through ball joints and tie rods every 50k, plow or no plow.

dsq3973, I have also saw 1/2 tons with V blades.... and I will agree with 2 stroked on this one that its just stupid to do that. There is a big difference between adding 400-500lbs to the front of your truck and adding 1000. I would never put a V on anything less then a 3/4 ton if you plan to use that plow the way it is intended to be used.

For now, Im going to just keep plowing with my 150 until the wheels fall off.

 

I am not trying to start an argument here or anything but here are the specs for both straight blades and the Power V off of Bosses website.
7-6 Power V 700# plus mount
8-2 Power V 770# plus mount
7-6 Straight Blade 572# plus mount
7-6 Super Duty 690# plus mount
8-0 Super Duty 698# plus mount

Boss has the mounts listed at 105 for all the plows.
There is not alot of differnce in weight between the V's and the straight blades. But I will agree that it is all up to the end consumer if they want it on the truck or not. I will also agree that the dealers want the sales that what they are there for to sell and if the start saying no to customers then they might as well close the doors because us the consumer will go find some one who will give us what we want.