Orcas Tow

A bugger getting under modern cars with little room under the plastic bumpers but look at all that oil pan clearance on the crossbar!

Can you imagine the reliability of our day to day operations & savings in repair/emission failure costs that we would have if you could still buy a truck like this 2001 F550 with the 7.3 Diesel & 6 speed manual transmission? I have bounced the idea around about selling this for a newer truck but have always came back to the simplicity & reliability in this 23 year old truck & how solid it has been.

Well planned, laid out & executed. Proud Father in Law!

Agreed, I like to see others techniques/approaches to complex jobs so this one was peaking my interest. Nice planning as always Ed.

I use the Miller short tapered forks 75% of the time & Irish Iron chain forks secondly on my 12 ton https://zips.com/parts-detail/miller-short-tapered-axle-fork-2-wid-mil-tapered?optionlabel_quantity=pair&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIx4C52_aXggMVygGtBh253wmKEAQYASABEgLdz_D_BwE https://irishironwrecker.com/products/chain-forks

I remember the days when you couldn't do recoveries with an autoloader!

Dang Ed as I was going through the story & pictures my excitement was building to see how you were going to recover this without a rotator then you went & ruined my day;) Nice work as always & rotators was probably the best equipment for the job:)

Thanks Ed, I expected it to come down a bit harder than that too but we had pretty good leverage at the line at the excavator boom & having the blade dug in helped keep things controlled too. Hindsight I should have rigged the recovery chains tighter (I was thinking veer angle when leaving them long) or put a sister hook in the chain to keep them from jumping as the angles changed.

Thanks, I think I was able to link the video

28,000 lbs on a slope, 4 lines to the load for control, catch truck lines went to trees on far side & back to excavator for landing control, no wheel chocks or scotch blocks for catch truck as plan was to have catch truck drag backwards if needed to keep all rigging in WLL & no shock load or overload surprises, came down nice & soft. 2 hrs from initial call to back at yard with equipment put away. Excavator started & moved under its own power once rolled over. Heres a video:

Yes thanks that's what we sill do if needed. I hesitate to do that as the rust holes are not only on the sides but coming up around the corner in the controls area too. From my experience theres double underneath compared to whats visible.

Ed, I have called all over the West Coast to Chevron dealers & they do not want to sell just the back end/wrecker bed, they will only sell it mounted one a new chassis & I prefer my 7.3 non emission diesel for reliability & ease of maintenance/repair.

Im looking for a Chevron 408 wrecker bed, just need the bed but would consider the whole rear wrecker bed/boom, my bed sides are rotten. 2001 independent. Thanks.

Here