I'm thinking of putting a snowplow on my truck. Do I need to upgrade the front suspension. If so what would I need?
It would only be for plowing out my driveway (although I live north of Syracuse NY and we get about 150" a year!)

99 Ranger XLT
3.0 liter
CAI
Underdrive pulleys
cat back exhaust

stiffer springs may help. but the problem is rangers have zero weight in the back so they have zero traction. probably not a good idea to use as a plow.

stiffer springs may help. but the problem is rangers have zero weight in the back so they have zero traction. probably not a good idea to use as a plow.

Even if I put sandbags in the back (which I do anyway)?

Even if I put sandbags in the back (which I do anyway)? i have a 2wd drive 3.0 and my neighbor has a 4wd 4.0 and we both had problems getting up a medium grade hill this last winter twice and i had the second time 4 sand bags and 5 gallon bucket full of water plus what ever snow was also in the back.once i got up the hill i was fine.

my wifes sportage had no problems and neither did the fwd drive cars on my street.

now light maybe 3 or less inches might be handleable for the ranger. but they suck rear traction wise.

tires designed for snow may help.

If you want to plow snow you should have a FWD. I had a plow on a cub low boy and had to get the rear tires loaded about 500lbs. Otherwise it would't push snow. You are talking about a lot of snow I also used chains.

Thanks for the info.
If I have to load up the ranger with 500 pounds that little 3.0L will struggle and since it is my dailey driver the mpg will be aweful!

yep, i noticed with all of the spinning of tires and careful driving and the weight i went down to 14 mpg. but i remember seeing somewhere that weight. does not affect gas mileage as much as we think.consider this

a family packs up the minivan and goes for a picnic. the drive there would be about 23mpg for the trip

the same family a week later packs up for camping and manages to keep all of the stuff in side the minivan but the gear is alot heavier but gasmileage only drops 1-2 mpgs the thing is more gas is spent getting up to speed then maintaining it.

first is the ranger 4wd? if yes, does the low range work? if yes, is the front end damaged at all? If no, I would suggest a hitch plow, light weight(approx. 250 lbs.) not a conventional plow. Look at jcwhitney for hitch plows to get an idea. They are snowsport snowplows, may be able to google this to the actual website. Just put on a front hitch (approx. 110 dollars). Very easy to put on 4 bolts out, 4 bolts back in.