Hi, I’m new to this forum as I have just purchased a 2004 Suzuki Carry but have yet to bring it home. I need to put a plow on it as I have a 1300 drive and it will be my snow shovel. I want a hydraulic one that operates entirely from in the cab and not attached to a 2” receiver as I understand that that will cause damage eventually. Has anyone built a plow mount/harness for a plow like a Boss or a Snow Dog for example, as the manufacturers don’t sell one. I’m up in Ontario Canada and there are not too many mini truck shops up here or anyone in the plow business that have had any experience with these cool little trucks. I would also be happy to get one shipped here if anyone knows where I can buy a custom mount
Welcome to the forum! I fabricated my own bumper and mount and use a modified UTV snow plow...so as far as a plug 'n play answer for you, I'm not much help. I will suggest however that you will want to upgrade your front springs, especially if you have a plow with all the bells and whistles. Even with my relatively lightweight, 6' UTV plow with manual angle and winch-operated "up and down", the front end definitely sags when I lift the plow. If I recall, I have 275lb non-progressive springs and a 2" lift. Best of luck with your quest and keep us posted!
Thank for your reply I have started to look for stronger springs as well considering a lift and bigger tires. But one thing at a time. If anyone has a Suggs for springs I’m open to suggestions. Thanks
I built my own front and rear bumpers to mount my Blackline electro-hydraulic plow. The Plow weighs about 250 to 300-lbs. I’m pretty sure I won’t have any issues with the three point mounting system I came up for the bumper and receiver. The bulk of the weight is carried by the mounts for the stock towing hooks, and I have a third mount point on the front differential crossmember. The ones I saw from dealers which mount to the front differential crossmember and then hang all the weight off of two bolts or nutserts on the middle of the front sheet metal will have issues. The variable rate springs will help with the longevity, because it doesn’t get bottomed out and shock loaded.
Thanks Jig’s. That makes sense and that opens up the options of plows. We have a dealer around here that sells the Blackline plow, but it is a bit pricy. How do you like it? Is it built well and worth the money?
I did break it one week when we got 16-inches of snow. There were two tabs which kept the top of the plow from tipping too far back. They were just welded on 3/16 x 1 x 1 tabs with a single fillet. When the snow got higher than the top of the plow it broke one of them and tipped the plow all the way. I ran down to the local steel supply/welding shop. They were short a welder, and were busy fixing other plows that had broken. i asked him if I could use an open spot and get it prepped if he could jump me forward two days, and just do the about ten minutes of welding it would take to button it up. He gave me a funny look and said sure. I unbolted everything, and ground down to clean metal where the little factory tabs were, and fitted a piece of 1-inch square tube across where the factory tabs were. That puts it in a double shear load instead of a poorly supported moment connection with the one fillet on the wrong side. Didn’t charge me for the weld, and I hung out prepping stuff for him and got him caught up. Plus I made a good friend. Blackline has changed ownership, and when I last talked to them they had a better solution. But I haven’t looked at one made since the change. So, I’m not sure what changes heheh have made. the Hydraulics appear to have been upgraded. My plow has 400-lbs of down force. The new one is touting 600-lbs. Part of my reasoning in getting the electro-hydraulic set up was the down force. Being able to put the down force in the plow really helps if your trying to get packed snow off things. The plow showed up with maybe grade five bolts at the pivot points. I replaced them with grade 8s before I used it for the first time. I did have to replace the tip-out springs after about five seasons, becasue they had stretched out a bit. This guy added a plow to his Carry with a fairly conventional mounting receiver rack under the truck. He is a pretty good fabricator, and is doing a good job of modifying his Carry.
I got the Plow on and it works great. I put 300# springs in the front and a 2“ lift. I just have to do an alignment but I’m not too concerned about it right now as I am only doing my drive as insurance it too much to have on for now.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12dNBQ4mxt706DPZsNItZusvxQuDSCirN?usp=sharing Hi, I have attached a link with some photos of the install. I hope it works this way the pics are full size. if not I will downsize some pics and attach. I bought the plow and had choices of mounts for different UTV's and I picked one meant for a Honda side X side, they might have one that works better but I took a stab at it and it wasn't terrible. I mounted a C4 channel to the front frame of the truck and tapped some holes in it for the mount to bolt on as the rad and AC was right behind so not much room for a nut behind the frame, this actually worked pretty good. I then bolted a 2X2 steel tube to the mount and welded a 1X2 to the tow hooks on the frame. the tube frame that the tow hooks are on is on a 1" angle to the front of the truck but the tow hooks are equal distance back so I used those for a guide to be parallel (please don't judge my welding I am new to it) I then used U bolts meant for leaf springs to attach the 2X2 on the mount and the 1X2 on the frame. Had to lift the truck and beefier springs to keep everything off the ground. The hardest part may have been the electrical. The kit comes with the expectation that the battery and engine compartment is not that far away, needed to extend the ground cable and just had enough wire with the kit to put the solenoid under the passenger seat so the wires could reach the battery and then go to the plow. It was a fun project with a fair bit of trial and error but it seems solid and works well.
Thanks for the pictures. Looking good!!! If you plan to add other accessories that need power I suggest you install power terminal block in the front of the truck. This way you dont have to run wires all the way to the battery each time.
Thanks Kevin. Didn’t know I had that option. I'll look into that and may change that around in the summer.
Good work. Just a couple of comments: Your a newby so a couple of things about these forums. They become the information source for most of the owners so the integrity of threads as time passes is critical. There are a lot of threads which have been made irrelevant becasue the images have disappeared. So, always try to upload files to the group as opposed to giving links to where they are today. The link may not be good two or three years down the road. And, please go into your profile page and populate your signature with the information on your truck. it makes it lots easier if you need advice, if we can quickly see what rig we are talking about. Thanks, and welcome aboard.
Okay thanks. I’m finding I have to lower the quality of the pictures to upload that is why I did the link but not a big deal to do that. I does make sense to have the pics right on the page.
