My experience mounting Western Defender snow plow

[ShadowsPapa]

do the arms extending past the bumper remove - looks like they would be a problem in a collision. Particularly with your shins when walking around your truck!

Good question - I'm sure others have the same concern.
Yes, they remove in about 5 seconds each, and about the same time to put them back.
Two hair pins each bracket, then two pins slide out of each bracket and they drop out of the bar.

They do protrude beyond the steel bumper a bit, likely MORE beyond the plastic bumper (and trust me, this would be a piece of cake and work better with a plastic bumper and NO front receiver - my front end is crowded!) damn ADHD, where was I again? Oh, yeah, the winch hook actually sticks out as far - so walk past my truck, brush up against the front bumper and you'll hit two things and I'll mention to you that you are walking too close to my truck. If I see a white cane, I'll rush forward to help you avoid it.

To remove -
Pull the two hair pins shown...........

Next, pull out the two pins shown toward the right in this picture. That quick-mount part drops right off the bar. (you can just see the Curt front receiver in the background)

This is what you are removing - you can leave them on when you expect the plow to be needed or if you expect to use the plow very soon, or take them off when the weather clears a bit.

This is what stays (yes, you lose some clearance, but ......... really? more on that later).

The brackets that hold the plow's mounting bar to the truck are beefy as @#$%

You can see the 3 bolts each bracket- the lock nuts that hold the bracket to the frame..
You can also see the truck's FRAME - the part that sticks down where the skid plate rear mounting bracket would bolt to. This gives an idea about how much farther down the plow mount sticks below the frame itself - not a lot unless you are hardcore boulder climber needing every 1/10" of approach angle. But yes, honestly, you do loose approach (again., more on that later)

OK, it's later. Here's the "more on that later" bit -

Referencing the pic below - note the 3 bolts/nuts indicated with red lines.
These bolts have steel handles welded to them to let you guide them into the frame and through holes in the frame. The handles stay on the bolts and are stout.
You trim off the excess handle of each so they don't protrude beyond the end of the frame.
What if you used some sort of clip like used to be used to hold brake drums and rotors onto hubs to hold the bolts in place so that when you removed the lock nuts and brackets, the bolts stayed in place?
After winter was over, you could take out the 8 bolts that hold the plow's bar to these brackets, or just loosen them, and then take the 3 nuts off that hold each bracket to the frame and take the plow mount off for the summer for those of you who are extremely concerned about approach angles, clearances over 3' tall rocks and logs?
The lower two wouldn't be any problem if they dropped out because they go in from the bottom of the frame where the skid plate bracket bolts to - you simply put them back.
The rear bolt on each side goes in from the very front, BEHIND the bumper, so you don't want that one coming out or you pull the bumper to put it back in place.

Would I do it again? Yup.
I've learned a lot and "next time" would be a lot faster, take a lot less time, and would not involve taking things back off because of wires being in the way, clearance for connectors and so on. I'd know what to expect.
With a different bumper - it would be different as well. I had to make clearance between these brackets and the bottom back edge of my bumper. Likely no issues with a plastic bumper and with a plastic bumper, removal for drilling the hole in the front ends of the frame would be a lot easier.
Mine took a couple of hours longer because my front receiver was in the way and I had to grind and cut the receiver brace for clearance for the plow bar. No front receiver, you don't need to mess around with that.
The receiver really complicates things with a plow and with a winch plate.
I lost a couple of hours installing my winch because of the receiver, and lost a couple of hours with the plow install because of the receiver.
But - I love the front receiver! With the right tool in the receiver, it would also make a decent point to hook to to winch myself out with a snatch block. It's priceless for maneuvering my long car hauler.

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[Summitsearcher]

I’ll tell you one thing. With all that heft between the receiver and plow mount cross bar that front differential is pretty protected. Deer don’t stand a chance when you add the bumper too. Great job Bill, been watching this thread since you started. I would have never attempted that one.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I am now waiting on the Western lighting harnesses to arrive. There's one that runs from the isolation module to the plow, and another that runs between the truck's lights to the isolation module.
Instead of tapping into the left turn, right turn, park and DRL light wires by cutting and such, I've ordered a couple of harnesses from Oracle that will go between the park/turn lights and factory harness and get me the "taps" I need for the plow lighting.
I just need to find the turn/park light harness connectors up in the fenders and try to access the headlight wiring.
They say "pull the grill" but my grill won't be as easy with the winch real close to it on the bottom.
Hopefully there will be enough clearance to get those bottom clips to let loose. I'll need to cover the bottom of the grill with tape to protect it from the winch as I try to pop it out.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I got the headlight harnesses yesterday so today was electric work, wiring, running harnesses.
Let me tell you, this adds hundreds of feet of wiring and 3 fat harnesses, 6 relays, 3 attached to an "adapter" and 3 attached to the harness that feeds the plow's lights, and an isolation box you have to find a place to mount.
So I had to mount the isolation unit, and 2 sets of 3 relays.
The harnesses are WAAAAY long for a small Jeep. In fact, one is so bad there's something like 3 extra feet I had to literally use both hands to try to squish into a small coil and STUFF ahead of the windshield washer fluid tank. I will be shortening that harness, warranty be damned.
It's a good thing I like electric work LOL

The harness that powers the plow and the hand-held controller plugs into is the way long one. All it needed to do is run from the battery to the firewall, across the firewall to the left and into the cabin for the controller to connect to. Then there's a sub-lead from that with a 4 position connector that plugs into the headlight harnesses for power. I ran that harness from battery, back, across and into the cabin and there was so much left I doubled the remainder and hung it over the grill!

So, with the power/controller harness already in, what's on the floor here went in today. Far right is the isolation module, then a short fat harness with 3 relays plugs into that and the other harnesses plug into that short fat harness.
The one by the tire feeds the plow's lights from the isolation module, the one on the bottom in this pic runs from B and C on the module to the truck's lights to pick up signals as triggers for the plow lights.

I'm glad I already used the Oracle pigtails to tap into the park, DRL and turn signals so that part was done last week.

Because of the close proximity of the winch to the grill, I taped the bottom few inches of the grill to protect it when I removed the grill. I know how clips like that work, they often suddenly let loose - and the tape worked. No dings or scratches as the clips let loose.

These pics were taken before I was done taping - I ran another run of tape down lower covering all of the blue.

Darn bugs, but I see it sucked in a piece of tape, too.

Grill off so I can remove headlights to access the plugs to insert the plow's harnesses between the truck's factory connectors and the headlamps.

Isolation module mounted, wiring started -

The module has two screw mounting ears. I used a stud on the top of the firewall/cowl area for one and made a simple aluminum bracket to run down to an existing bracket on the truck. It's SOLID. I had a piece of aluminum angle and cut it with my band saw to make two flat strips.
One strip forms the brace shown here, the other I used to mount one set of 3 relays.

Wiring started - the long one is also way too long - goes across to the right headlight area but I ended up coiling a couple feet of it behind the headlight.

You unplug the headlight, plug the plow's harness into the headlight and then plug the factory headlight connector into another connection on the plow harness so the plow harness sits between the truck wiring and the headlight.
The plow's light harness I ran behind the cross bar that the grill's lower clips clip into.

With the grill off, it was easy to lift this shield and run the part of the plow harness that goes to the right headlight under this shield -
In this end...........

And out this end.............

The other piece of the aluminum angle I cut I used to make a bracket to strap these three relays to -

Where to mount this other trio of relays? This is all I could come up with before I had to use the truck tonight..

Tomorrow I need to solder the connectors onto the ends of the plow's harness - they intended you to tap them directly onto the park, DRL and turn signal wires. I used the Oracle pigtails and have screw-together connectors on those so I can make the connection.

The green wires here are marked turn and DRL and I'll solder on the mate to the connector I pointed to with the red line -when connected, everything will be connected.

These are how I'm "tapping" into the DRL, park and turn signals - instead of cutting and soldering directly to the truck's factory harness as Western says to do -

Rat's nest of extra harness length - I'll likely be spending a couple of hours shortening this to clean some of this up -

Tomorrow, I hope to finish those screw-together connectors and actually hook the plow up and check all the lighting, aim the plow lights and so on.
the problem is - I don't have any level ground at all - not even a spot large enough to put the truck on and call it level, so not sure how I'll aim the plow lights.

 

[am1978]

That's one idea - about how far down and over is that hole?
Plenty of cable so options may be open as to which side, etc.

Depending on your wires, here’s another option.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Depending on your wires, here’s another option.

Wires are all run - but thanks anyway.

 

[am1978]

I am now waiting on the Western lighting harnesses to arrive. There's one that runs from the isolation module to the plow, and another that runs between the truck's lights to the isolation module.
Instead of tapping into the left turn, right turn, park and DRL light wires by cutting and such, I've ordered a couple of harnesses from Oracle that will go between the park/turn lights and factory harness and get me the "taps" I need for the plow lighting.
I just need to find the turn/park light harness connectors up in the fenders and try to access the headlight wiring.
They say "pull the grill" but my grill won't be as easy with the winch real close to it on the bottom.
Hopefully there will be enough clearance to get those bottom clips to let loose. I'll need to cover the bottom of the grill with tape to protect it from the winch as I try to pop it out.

Another video of the parking/turn signal wire access.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Another video of the parking/turn signal wire access.

I like those lights!

If I had some more POM rivets on hand, I would have likely removed the liner. It would have been easier. That's a good video on liner removal.
Oddly, when I removed the screws/bolts, mine only has 3 and all the same size while videos I've seen show 4 with 2 of them 8mm heads and 2 another size head. I don't know if it's a difference with Overland or what.

 

[am1978]

I like those lights!

If I had some more POM rivets on hand, I would have likely removed the liner. It would have been easier. That's a good video on liner removal.
Oddly, when I removed the screws/bolts, mine only has 3 and all the same size while videos I've seen show 4 with 2 of them 8mm heads and 2 another size head. I don't know if it's a difference with Overland or what.

I used both videos to install the oracle sidetracks on my JT and the wife’s JL. Used the other video to run the wire to tap the courtesy light so it comes on when I unlock or open the doors. I did order a package of plastic rivets and a rivet tool to do this since I installed on two vehicles. These videos kept me from fishing through the firewall on either side and the diesel has way less room for that than the 3.6 does.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Teaser - more later.........
(all lights work but I have no real way to aim them as I don't have 25' of level area with anything in front to aim at)

 

[ShadowsPapa]

More teaser - actually, this explains why it's so not simple to find space for the wiring harnesses, and why things have to be just right to have the next harness's 4-way connector line up location-wise with the first harness's 4 way connector, and then have certain other connectors end up in the same part of the truck within a few inches of each other! Then the fact they are stiff, and there's a lot of wires, well, these will explain -
This is a generic schematic. It doesn't show the adapter between the isolation module and the lighting harnesses B and C - that adapter has 3 large relays.
This also doesn't show the 3 relays in the harness going to the plow for the plow lights.

This diagram shows the 3 relays that go to the plow's lighting harness - it shows them next to the isolation module. .

But this goes in between the isolation module and the harnesses shown above - mass of wires, multiple connectors and 3 relays -

So I had to find a way/place to mount 2 arrays of 3 relays and they preferred them mounted wire-side down, apparently to prevent water gathering at the connections.

I wish I had a way to mount this big fat-honkin' connectors somewhere instead of stuffing them in the bumper-

Big cable is power and control to the plow's solenoids and pump.
Smaller cable is plow's lighting.

 

[Rusty PW]

To aim your headlights. Use your garage doors. Park the JT 25ft away from the door. Turn your headlights on high and use a piece of tape to mark the bright spot on each side on the door. Switch over to the plow lights on high. Move the bright spot to match the tape on the garage door. I did this every year with the power plant truck with the snow plow.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

To aim your headlights. Use your garage doors. Park the JT 25ft away from the door. Turn your headlights on high and use a piece of tape to mark the bright spot on each side on the door. Switch over to the plow lights on high. Move the bright spot to match the tape on the garage door. I did this every year with the power plant truck with the snow plow.

Like I said - I don't have 25' of level ground. If I am 25' away from the doors, I'm pointing up hill if I use my shop doors, and down hill if I use my garage doors.
I need to have the truck on at least "relatively flat" ground.
They actually want you do use the low beam to set things. It's all in one housing for left and another for right side.

 

[Rusty PW]

You don't have to be on level ground to do it my way. Mark where your oem headlights are hitting . Then adjust the plow lights to match. Or go to town and find a store with a sidewall and parking lot. Use that for your level ground. I had friends go to the back of the local mall and use the back of the building to use for adjusting lights at night.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I had friends go to the back of the local mall and use the back of the building to use for adjusting lights at night.

I had thought of that - but didn't want to drive all that distance with the plow on - and blind people on the trip into town.

I wonder how my neighbor's driveway is - that might work. He's leveled out an area by his garage.

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