Getting ready to purchase a hide a way system for my 05 GMC(90 Watt Whelen). Where do you guys normaly mount yours? I was thinking the front marker lamps under headlamp w/ amber bulb. Rear, amber turn signal area. The unit will be able to light 6 heads so I'm thinking the other 2 in the turn signals on the plow.On the roof I also run a small beacon type.
Just lookin for ideas.
Thanks Chris
what i did .. was put 2 bulbs in the turn signal housing and 4 in the back (2 in backup - 2 brake light) ... id stick with the clear bulbs .. i think amber bulbs are about $15 extra per bulb ..
not meaning to jack your thread or anything but i am new to the aftermartket strobe lighting seen and got a couple questions. do these "kits" replace the exzisting light bulbs in the blinkers and marker lights? how much would a set up like this cost? thanks
No Mossy you have to cut a one inch hole in the housing that you choose to put the strobe tube in.
Shulz I personally would put them in the headlights and the other four in the rear. The reason being is with the plow down your marker lights wont be seen with the snow dust and all. For putting the others in the rear taillights, how many times have you seen an idiot watch you plow for 10 or 20 mins and then pull out in front of you when your backing up. Stick with clear though cause they look like there white any ways. I have installed many of these and the color coating just burns off, its a waste. Just my 2 cents hope it helps.
As you are in Michigan the only color you are allowed to use is Amber. Personally, I would just go with a minibar as Michigan I do believe has a 360 visibility rule. If you do choose to go with HAW's you can use a clear HAW tube in your rear amber turn signals and it will be a nice amber still because of the lense. For the front, if you can;t get them into the amber part use Amber tubes or put them in the plow lights turn signals, however to do this requires a disconnect plug on your strobe cables.
For those with/suggesting clear: Michigan State Law on Lights See the second page.
Understandable about the laws. But who In Michigan has ever been burned on these laws? Its like the DO NOT REMOVE TAG on your mattress. Do what you want. Tow trucks have red lights nowa days and cop cars have red and blue. Those are laws too but there being broken every time they turn there lights on.
That is true, very true. Even around here.
Understandable about the laws. But who In Michigan has ever been burned on these laws? Its like the DO NOT REMOVE TAG on your mattress. Do what you want. Tow trucks have red lights nowa days and cop cars have red and blue. Those are laws too but there being broken every time they turn there lights on. Firelwn is right. 99% of the cops won't mess with you as long as you are not running down the road with them on. I plow alot on Dixie Hwy and Woodward Ave and you need to be seen when plowing the lots. I have left them on by accident and was driving down M59 and had a Waterford Cops go right pass me and didn't even blink. I figured it out about 1/2 mile away when a lady pulled over to the side of the road, looked up at my switchs and saw I had left the strobes on.:dizzy:
Regards Mike
Having built a trailer last summer with LED's I do really like them. Ill have to look into pricing and maybe rethink this. On the other hand I like the lights to be hidden.
Thanks Chris
LED HAWS, made by NOVA and now Whelen. Best of both worlds.
You can still hide leds. I'll get some new pictures of my truck this afternoon and post them for you. My truck is all LED except headlight flasher and corner Hide away strobes. All red though for the FD
Firelwn is right. 99% of the cops won't mess with you as long as you are not running down the road with them on. I plow alot on Dixie Hwy and Woodward Ave and you need to be seen when plowing the lots. I have left them on by accident and was driving down M59 and had a Waterford Cops go right pass me and didn't even blink. I figured it out about 1/2 mile away when a lady pulled over to the side of the road, looked up at my switchs and saw I had left the strobes on.:dizzy:
Regards Mike legal plowing colors in michigan are AMBER/CLEAR .... your absoulity right ... when its a blizzard or alot of blowing snow ... i do want to be scene .... its like a told a cop 2 yrs ago .... if i get hit .. from a person who said they didnt see me ... i will sue the city's law inforcementa agency who yanks me over to write me up for illegal use of lights .. and he agreed with me .. but most cops around detroit are cool with most everyones light setups ..
You can still hide leds. I'll get some new pictures of my truck this afternoon and post them for you. My truck is all LED except headlight flasher and corner Hide away strobes. All red though for the FD
Firelwn82, If you dont have the pics maybe I can stop by the FD I'm just on Seymour west of Cooks dairy. Shoot me an email c.schulz@charter.net
Thanks Chris
WOW!!! Just checked out the LED Hide a way systems. really like the systems and low power draw. But the price is more but I think its worth it. So I guess Ill have to keep saving the dollars for the $400 purchase for a 4 head. Or another $230 if I want 6 lights.:nod:
I like lights!!!!!!!!
Chris
Which system did you look at? I think the Whelen one is multi directional, while the NOVA system requires the heads to be aimed.
I would buy the LED HAWS, for my emergency management stuff that I do(uses blue) but our permits don't allow em in the rear lights. I already have my Amber stuff, but I could always use more light.
Whelen seems to be my pick right now but I will look into the LED HAWS. Probably will stick with clear or amber depending in what light I'll mount.
Dodge Guy do you have a web site for the LED HAWS? Havent heard of this brand?
Thanks Chris
Hey Shulz. Sorry it snowed today, had a bad day but ended well. I'll get some pics of it today. I'll get some with them off and some with them on, see what you think. I have never seen the LED lights that are set up like strobes. It would be cool to see but not to sure about spending 400 bucks on something I haven't seen before. I like letting someone try it before I spend it, lol.
legal plowing colors in michigan are AMBER/CLEAR .... FWIW - Clear is not an acceptable color for a plow vehicle in Michigan.
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/af...ing_8570_7.pdf
Edit: I just seen this was also posted earlier in this thread. I missed it on my first read through.
The two companies currently producing these LED HAWS (Hideaways) are Whelen and a company called NOVA.
The NOVA LED HAWS:
http://www.strobe.com/component/opti...facturer_id,0/
This is the manufacters website
The Whelen LED HAWS:
http://www.vlsusa.com/cgi-bin/vlsusa/LAW4%2A.html
This is just a link to a place that sells them

i have an e47 pump wich i put all new solenoids on and worked fine for 2 weeks now when i hit the angle switch in either direction left or right the blade angles left. does anybody know why please help. thanx
You mentioned that your replaced all the solenoids, did you replace the all valve's also?
Sounds like a C valve problem (C valve has the green wire, closest one to the angle ports in the valve block)
Check the C coil for magnetism with a wench or screwdriver while a helper holds the controller in the angle right position..
Here's a handy little troubleshooting guide you will find helpful... http://www.discountsnowplowparts.com...hoot.htm#plowl.
Dont over look the couplers. A bad coupler usually will be hard or impossible to either plug or unplug the coupler from its mate. Look there first......Rob

I have an '01 ford explorer and i was wondering is there any way to convert my flat wire plug to a temporary round one
or do you have a better solution for attaching a LIGHT BUSTER
I want to be able to use both
I've seen adapters for sale at Carquest, and trailer parts stores.
I've never liked adapters though. whenever I get something that has a different style connection than the vehicle I'm putting it on, I'll replace it to match the vehicle.
that way, you do it once, and don't have to mess with it anymore.
I presume the light buster is an auxillary backup light. There is no backup light feed in a 4wire flat like a 7wire round. They make a 7 to 4, but I have never seen a 4 to 7. You will need to add a 7 wire socket, and do a little wiring.
light buster = http://www.mototrixonline.com/shoppi...&=SID#MOREINFO
how can i fit that in a flat?
I think your wasting your money !!
Yea your right

As a lot of people know, i did a gear swap on my truck and now have 4.11 gears front and back, back end now with posi.....i used to have 3.73 gears, open diff in rear. Ive noticed that there is a lot more slipping in the rear end when the posi kicks in, especially in the mud and when we got a light coating of snow last week. Is this normal? And in 4*4, when engaged, i still get some slippage.....i'm running 265/75/16 Cooper Discoverer M+S tires, pretty new ones......can someone tell me what's normal to expect and some tips plowing with this gear setup? I do understand that when plowing i will be clearing the area i will be driving in, but, i need to get to the accounts! lol, just dont' want to get stuck! I should also ad, these gears came out of a friends truck that he plowed his driveway with and it was a BEAST!! I dont' know if he experienced this same thing...
thanks
-mike-
baby the gas. get a tru trac. avoid a locker unless its primarily off road use. make sure you have enough ballast.
and consider going to a taller tire next time you buy tires to bring that gear ratio down a bit..
with the open differential you get the truck grounded by the wheel that didnt move. the wheel with the least resistance spun but the truck stayed planted from the non spinning wheel and hopefully one of the front wheels pulled you forward enough to regain traction in the back wheels. now you have one wheel spinning at a much higher ratio so it has more force, then the other catching posi and my guess is sending the truck sideways. If both of the front wheels arent pulling equally it breaks traction even quicker in the back will come out even faster. a tru trac will balance the power transfer. more ballast will make it more likley to dig instead of breaking loose. regular posi rear end doesnt do the job very well of power transfer.
we had a 92 for explorer that had a six cyliner with nothing done to it but a mild lift and some nice tall tires. i could go through more snow than most pickups with posi and took it places i wouldnt dare to go with my chevy truck. i used to "try" to cross smallrivers and streams with it too. not everything is as it seems.
just my take on it.
OK, B&B, can you tell me exactly what i have then? lol
Thanks bribrius....i understand what you are saying, i think i will benefit more from this setup than the old one, but, there will always be some issues no matter what i choose! I'll be running, hopefully about 700lbs of ballast! :)
By slipping I think you mean the rear end slides sidways? You are looking for traction Tires make the bigest difrence. Not a mud tire, not a M+S tire a SNOW tire
I use a LSD rear-ends too.
Plow in 4x4, this will help.
Minimize wheel spin.
Keep your foot out of it.
practice, practice, practice.
You'll get the hang of it;)
700# to 800# should be enough weight.
You do have it behind the rear wheels?.....
Going to a Taller tire:rolleyes: will do nothing for this.
OK, B&B, can you tell me exactly what i have then? lol
Thanks bribrius....i understand what you are saying, i think i will benefit more from this setup than the old one, but, there will always be some issues no matter what i choose! I'll be running, hopefully about 700lbs of ballast! :) Your experiencing basically what bribus is explaining and is totally normal for a diff that has the capability to apply power to both tires....
Now, anytime it spins, it will now spin BOTH rear tire's, which will generally make it slide to the lower side of the "crown" in the road since it doesn't have one tire just setting there to keep the truck "anchored" to the pavement..
I'll bet it spun before but since it only spun one tire and the other kept the truck anchored, you didn't realize it was spinning as much as it was.
I think you noticing as much as you are is not only because you went to a GovLoc differential (which is what the diff is that you swapped in), you also went to the 4.10's which will make the throttle more responsive on take off..so it will tend to spin easier than before..
The key here is ballast.. Now that both tires are providing forward traction you need to add contact pressure to the tire tread to take advantage of that extra forward traction.
Once you get the ballast added and get used to applying throttle input, you'll like all the extra traction that the diff added...:nod:
Thank you guys A LOT!!! TPM, i have not gotten my ballast yet for this year but it will certainly be going behind the rear tires....snofarmer, i always plow in 4*4 because i always had to due to the open diff...when road and good weather driving you dont notice how much more power is put to the wheels now, when i hit mud or snow, i agree you certainly notice it!! And B&B, thank you HUGE as always!
Again, thank you guys, i REALLY REALLY appreciate it, it just kinda scared me last week, i just have to get used to it :)
a posi sometimes will tend tcause the rear to slide. This happens when you get on the gas to hard. ease onto the gas pedle and slowly pick up speed. I have been running posi rears in my trucks since I learned to drive and very seldom do you have traction problems. the problem comes when you do not have enough wieght in the rear and a heavy foot.
By slipping I think you mean the rear end slides sidways? You are looking for traction Tires make the bigest difrence. Not a mud tire, not a M+S tire a SNOW tire Okay I have to jump in on this response, the Cooper Discoverer M+S is a seriously great plowing tire. It is a snow tire, how can you say it is not?
MCW is slipping more now because the lower gears are really putting the power down fast (and sucking up the gas) and without the ballast he is just going to have to lighten his foot.
Back to the tire, yes there are more luggy tires that may be better for driving off road or in deep azz snow, but we aren't. we have just cleared the road of snow leaving behind the ice crystallized asphalt, lugs won't help there, but the millions of sips on the coops M+S are perfect.
lol basically what the others have said, my truck has the locked rear end with the 4.10 gears and it takes a lil bit to get used to especially when plowing..... just feather it, still to this day when i slam the pedal down it brings back memories of my mustang gt
Just to clarify your Gov-Lok rear end is a automatic true locker, not a posi/limited slip. On top of that, it is a goofy locker in that it is normally unlocked. At a tire speed difference of 200 rpm I *believe* is when it engages and only at speeds below 20 mph.
I will save you my opinion on Gov-Loks sinec you have one already and just tell you this much. It's going to take some time to get the feel for engagement speeds. Atleast the Gov-Lok tends to be pretty consistent in engagement and disengagement. Make sure you take good care of it and try not to abuse it (hammering the gas=bad, brakelocks=bad, etc) and it should last for you.
Well, i'm an idiot! LOL
Let's start out by saying that my four wheel drive never worked in the first place after doing the gear swap outs and i thought it did (faulty actuator, no biggie). Yesterday, started around 4am, did my driveway and was fine in 2wd, then did two Midas accounts, once again, in 2wd and did awesome! Then i headed back to do some of my residentials, that's when i realized that my 4wd wasn't working....so after battling out a couple of them, i did some work and manually engaged the 4wd and WWWWOOOWWW, that thing could plow over a house!!! SOOO much power and torque, not only that but all transfered right to the ground without a bit of trouble or slippage! So, all in all i had nothing to worry about whatsoever!!!....btw, i do have 720lbs of ballast in the truck and that was AWESOME and perfectly leveled the truck just like it is supposed to be!! I'm VERY pleased with my truck and very glad i did the gear swap!
My first plow truck had 3:73s, open, I remember a guy back then telling me to stay away from lockers because you can slide sideways on a sidehill. Whatever, it has never happened to me yet. That truck was lousy. My 2nd, 4th and my current plowtruck both 4:10 Detroit Locker. I wouldn't want anything else for plowing. I always have a lot of ballast on, so tire spin isn't a huge problem. But when I do nose the front wheels too far and get stuck, backing up I love having all those extra wheels pulling. If I have a full load of sand on I rarely even need 4wd.
I thought the Gov-lock was only on the 6 lugs? When I was in the service the 6 lug diesel Blazers had 3:73 and Gov-locks, broke all the time. The diesel 5/4 pickups had 4:56 geared full floaters with I thought they were Detroit lockers, compared to the Blazers they were unbreakable.
Is the 8 lug 2500 like MCWs a Gov-lock because it's a semi-floater? I'm pretty sure if mine were a Gov-lock I would have broken it a long time ago.
By slipping I think you mean the rear end slides sidways? You are looking for traction Tires make the bigest difrence. Not a mud tire, not a M+S tire a SNOW tire I run 33" mud tires and couldn't be happier with how the preformed in the snow plowing last season. Only stuck
I was high centered on snow drift, no other tire of similar size would have made any difference. I'll plow with Mudder any day.
As a lot of people know, i did a gear swap on my truck and now have 4.11 gears front and back, back end now with posi.....i used to have 3.73 gears, open diff in rear. Ive noticed that there is a lot more slipping in the rear end when the posi kicks in, especially in the mud and when we got a light coating of snow last week. Is this normal? And in 4*4, when engaged, i still get some slippage.....i'm running 265/75/16 Cooper Discoverer M+S tires, pretty new ones......can someone tell me what's normal to expect and some tips plowing with this gear setup? I do understand that when plowing i will be clearing the area i will be driving in, but, i need to get to the accounts! lol, just dont' want to get stuck! I should also ad, these gears came out of a friends truck that he plowed his driveway with and it was a BEAST!! I dont' know if he experienced this same thing...
thanks
-mike- You probley just need too get used to it.
I thought the Gov-lock was only on the 6 lugs? When I was in the service the 6 lug diesel Blazers had 3:73 and Gov-locks, broke all the time. The diesel 5/4 pickups had 4:56 geared full floaters with I thought they were Detroit lockers, compared to the Blazers they were unbreakable.
Is the 8 lug 2500 like MCWs a Gov-lock because it's a semi-floater? I'm pretty sure if mine were a Gov-lock I would have broken it a long time ago. You could get a Gov-lock (aka Gov-bomb) in just about any GM corporate rear end from the late 70's on.. 10 bolt,12 bolt, 14 bolt semi and full floater were all available with the Gov-Lock....
As far as the military trucks like you mentioned Dan, yes the Blazers did use the Gov-lock and the 1 1/4 ton trucks like the CUCV's did have an actual Detroit locker in them...
Dan, are you thinking that your current truck might have an actual Detroit in it? It could if someone installed it, but it didn't come from the factory with one....whether your truck has either the 14 bolt FF or a Dana 70.
you said your 4wd was broken and that was the problem. did you have this same problem before did the swap? im just wondering if that why you did the swap and all you really needed was to fix the 4wd???
you said your 4wd was broken and that was the problem. did you have this same problem before did the swap? im just wondering if that why you did the swap and all you really needed was to fix the 4wd??? The 4wd worked before, but when i swapped the actuator over it stopped working, so, that's all i have to fix. The reason i thought it worked was because to test everything, i brought my truck to a hill that i know it couldn't do with the old setup even in 4wd, so, i pushed the 4wd button figuring i would need it and i went up the hill, and i made it without a problem! So, that made me thing the 4wd worked just fine :-\ Oh well!! :) all is well!!
I agree with the 4:10 but I tow and plow in very hilly country and when we get 8-10" of heavy stuff it makes the truck launch that much better. My 93' Cummins works good in low range but I will be looking for 4:10's to swap in next year. One thing I am totally sold on is the use of a true winter tire. The Coopers are a good winter tire, but if you take it to the next level and go with a Blizzak or Toyo Open Country GO2 it makes the truck that much better at keeping traction, the results are truely amazing. I have always been of the opinion that if you drive your truck like a car most of the time then 3:73 or 3:54 is a good choice, if you tow heavy, work it hard most of the time 4:10 is the better choice, and yes I know, this is just MY opinion.
Kirk

I hooked up my plow today (2003 jeep TJ) and it worked for 5 minutes perfectly. I parked it and when I tried to get it to work again nothing. I assumed it must be the solenoid and replaced it, after coming back from the plow shop and driving the jeep the plow worked for a couple of anglings and then nothing. If my battery is really low would that cause the solenoid not to work? (I'm pretty sure the battery is almost gone)...
thanks for your replies.
Put your fingers on the top of the relay and have some one trigger it,you should feel it work.
It may be working but not enough amps available to turn the motor. The Jeep was running when you tried it? The motor on the pump may be near death too. Clean all your connections and put dielectric grease on all of them. Corrosion causes more Resistance to current flow and the pump needs a good ground too.
The big chain auto part stores will test your battery and charging system for free.
took the battery to get tested and it was fine...checked the plow motor this morning and it was fine...the last thing left is the main plug and wire that looks like it has a crack in it (I can see green corrosion inside) I don't know what else to try :(
The crack in your wire with corrsion is more than likely your problem, get it replaced and you should be good to go.
I've got my fingers crossed because I can't afford a new plow this year...I keep hoping that I will get a sno-way dealer near me.