EdsTowing

Got a call for a guy who got stuck in a brand new shopping plaza they opened near us. Still not sure what he was trying to accomplish? He hopped the curb...and then apparently rutted around in there for a while trying to get out... He hit the curb hard enough that it separated from the blacktop... I didn't want to just tug him backwards since it was sitting on the oil pan and I don't trust these steer axles. Ran a Rim Sling through the front spring hanger so I could lift & roll backwards... What a mess...

I borrowed this from Fallsway's Blog page so I didn't have to spell it all out... FORMULA: (Front Axle Weight in lbs.) / (2) * (Wheelbase in inches) / (Overhang in inches) = (Tow Performance) EXAMPLE: 14,500 lbs. / 2 * 312” / 190” = 11,905 lbs. that can be lifted and towed with a safe useable front axle weight This calculation is intended to show you what can be towed while maintaining a safe useable front axle weight. It is not intended to calculated axle weights for scaling purposes. Tow Performance is a calculation of 50% front axle weight reduction while towing and is a standard across the country. In addition, it is a good rule of thumb to abide by when building a new truck. So a 286" wb is pretty short for a heavy. Some guys use that as a min. on quick pick's being installed. If you can get the specs on the front axle weight of your truck, we could help figure it out. It's best if you can max your steer axle weight out to the full rated capacity but if you have a light spec'd chassis, that may be only 12,000lbs. The bottom line is these are the only figures that matter in the equation so anything you can do to improve these numbers will help - greater steer axle weight, more wheelbase or limit the overhang. Picking a truck up on Spring Slippers instead of at the axle decreases your overhang by 24-30" so it will lift better. This is why short trucks of days gone by worked fine with slings, there overhang was much shorter then a under reach. I just want to say that the formula has been discussed through out the industry and some feel that you can safely operate a truck with less then 50% of it's steer weight and I would say that is true to a point. You just have to accept that the lighter you get, the closer you get to a "white knuckle" ride. Hitting a bounce on the highway and feeling the tires loose contact can enlighten your expierience...LoL

One I did over the weekend...driver swerved for a deer which turned out to be the wrong "call" on this situation.... This area is a huge boulder field next to an "S" turn and I have done a lot of wrecks here. This guy was pretty lucky to walk away from this unscathed considering the boulder went right up through the sunroof and stuck in the car 10" or so... Hooked to the high side due to ease of access... Brought it half way over and then stopped to run the rear line to the right rear tire. Then I walked it off the rocks and set it down on the shoulder. Left the line hooked through the LF wheel and drug the car right to my wheel lift. I impressed my self and said "Dam, that was good"... The officers laughed...LoL Hooked & booked back to the impound yard.

We also got the support machines ready for the season. Snows installed on our older machine which gets used on a long term project... Ordered a new set of wheels for the new machine as well. I will get the tires together tomorrow so that machine is ready as well... The 19.5's work incredibly good on the skid steers for snow removal.

Yea I agree....and more so for me is just the cold. I did a service call on a trailer the other day and in minutes I couldn't feel my fingers...they just burn from the cold anymore...

Every year it seems it's at the last minute we are getting ready for winter. There's never enough time in a day... But anyway, My guys put some new studded snows on the dump truck to get ready for inclement weather... We got a new set of wheels to take the aluminum ones off so they don't get tore up for winter... The rest of the LD fleet is ready...just waiting for the misery....

Another busy day yesterday. Doesn't help when our primary driver has been out for 10 days. We were hookin yesterday though... Uhaul to the shop for repairs. Transit bus broke down. Loaded oil truck quit running, back to our facility for repairs Machine we completed for service delivered to a customer... I finished my night delivering a tool box. I know some of you guys like your Rams but I am not a fan of this truck. It looks great but that's about all I can say... LoL

This appears like a lot of Lawyer B.S. to me.... I have owned a lot of Super Duty trucks and worked on hundreds of them. I have never heard or seen any with roof problems? Can they make it stronger? Well of course, they can make it like a F'n tank if they want to. Look at how the truck generation changed in this period. The subject at hand is the 99-16 Superduty's. It was the introduction of the extended cab option with door access & then full crew cabs in mainstream. That has predominated Ford truck sales for 25 years. I'm sure regular cab trucks which used to be the norm are now a much smaller percentage of sales. The only one advantaging in class action law suits are the attorney firms that introduce them....

The back story to this one was from my younger days as well. When I was around 6 or 7 my dad had a white 67 coupe. He had a habit of opening the door while still moving as he was pulling to a stop for some reason? For whatever reason, I thought it was cool... So one day while driving with my mother, she made the left turn in to our driveway. I opened the door and the weight of it ripped me out of the car as I held on to the arm rest!... As she got the car to stop and I lay on the gravel, I'll never forget the look on her face when she said "Are you out of your F'n mind?"....Memories... 😁 Didn't get to use it much this season. Did some upgrades on the brakes and wheels & tires. I'll run it a little this spring before I move it for something else...

Yea I had a truck do the same thing... We were upset about it and they sent us a roll of double sided tape and an instruction video to fix it....Not what I was looking for considering a spent a few grand on the boxes! We don't use their product since that situation.

I get it and I'm the same way. My MPL40 didn't have the sling option so there wasn't anything on the tailboard. I bought the D ring package from Jerr-Dan for a few hundred bucks I believe. I'm not sure if the bolt pattern/spacing is the same though as the Cougar body? Just thinking these because they wouldn't protrude out as far as the Sling Mount/Safety Chain boxes they came with.

Only reason I asked was that on the steel body, it allows a little more bumper clearance w/out the boxes that are required for the aluminum bodies. You might even be able to get a set for a MPL40 with the D rings as well. To answer your other question, you can full pull off of the holes in the wheel lift. We had a spade on ours that was up near the main part of the structure that would plant the truck and not put force on the T head. You can also full pull off the side using the tear drop shaped holes in the boom mount, in front of the winches. That's what they are there for.

Curious as to why you would want to change it?

I didn't take many pics at the Tow Show last weekend but I thought I would post some for the guys that didn't go... The Jerr-Dan booth wasn't the same to me...with out corporate being behind it as typical. The dealers brought some nice trucks but nothing that really grabbed me... Couldn't believe out of all of the Jerr-Dan rollbacks that were there, none had the self loading wheel lift? Not sure how big of a deal this will become for a "revenue stream" but I can't help but think the motorclubs will try to keep it down.... Dallas's truck looked great, I think he got a 2nd place for it. This was a pretty nice ride too. Nice rollback for Ron's & Sons... The new Century wrecker body. Something looked odd to me....not a fan of the design. Bolt on legs that I had dealers tell me they were "very expensive".... Nice F600 carrier. I wish mine was done, it would of been here. We have been talking with Matjack for a couple years on a MD "Catch Bag" for cars & smaller trucks. They are sending us one to put through the wringer a few times & see how it works. A new message board on the market that we are going to try out. I hope to have one of these on the new F600 when it gets built.

These can be heavy little buggers for single axles... I typically only rear tow these if I have to...it puts a lot on the steer axle. This one towed to the dealer for Regen/De-rate issues.

Some work Rob did recently... Cleaning up before winter, running some scrap. This was a 21 F550 my guys found a problem with. They had to replace the under hood fuse box due to water getting in it and corroded off the terminals for PCM power. Truck was under warranty but many companies just have us fix their equipment rather then loose the use of the truck for weeks waiting on a dealer...

Nice work on the recovery. I wonder in "hind sight" if it would of been easier/faster to cut the bogie right out from under the trailer and set it on a flat top dolly or set the whole trailer on a Landoll?

That is literally the definition of the "Pocono's".... We never saw those type of cars in our area though until recently. We were just discussing the other day my Service Writer saw 7 or 8 of them "plugged in" at one of our local grocery stores on a Sunday. I have never drove an EV car but I can't imagine 700+ Ft Lbs of torque @ "tip in" is good for navigating snow & ice either?.... LoL

Totaled the car in the parking lot....LoL

Tight squeeze...

Had the 2way radio installed the other day & got checked over for some new lighting. Also we installed some new drive tires and worked on the tool box organization...

The 1st snow of the season always cracks me up. People seem to forget that we live in the mountains at high elevation and it snows here... We got a inch or two but it creates complete havoc in all the same places... Always the same set of poor tires and even worse decisions that lead up to this...but it's never their "fault". "The roads were slippery...like a sheet of ice!"....Yea...snow tends to do that... This was a 2 car the following early morning...left overs from the "storm".... 😁

Had a 2 car the other night. Guy in the Edge swerved in to the on coming lane because of a Deer and struck a Lexus... The van is really nice for big clean ups like this... Back at the shop sorting some space out...

There are a number of factors here to look at. As a repair shop that has wreckers to tow their own customers back to their shop, most of your general liability carriers will write you. That is intending for it to be a small portion of your overall revenue. Once you do "for hire", contract club work or Police Non-Consensual work, it changes everything. Now I'm not saying not to do "club work" so to save on vehicle insurance....there are plenty of reasons more viable not to do that type of work...LoL But that's another conversation... I use Peninsula Insurance out of Marietta PA which is owned I believe by Donegal Insurance, the actual under writer. They have had good rates for us and their service has been good as well. You need someone to look at and go over all of your intended exposure and what types of work you're going to look for. Many guys have little to no on hook coverage which maybe works for them until they have a claim... Some guys will carry $50,000 in On Hook but in reality, that's low. Guys may think "well I won't be towing any Ferrari's" but it's more likely to have a $100 grand in a Super Duty pick up or an SUV....and that's not taking in to account for a $250,000 ambulance! Also if you are looking at Police work, entities such as PSP require higher liability as well as Garage Keepers coverages for doing accident work. All of these factors along with your own history will greatly factor in to the rates that you pay. Good luck with your new endeavor and let us know how you make out.

I was pretty steady the last couple of days. Here are a few local jobs I had... Tractor to the dealer for an engine overhaul... Dump truck to a spring shop because the front spring pack broke 5 leaf's on one side and U-bolts were loose/falling out of the other side... Dam thing had an old style press in joint that I had to use the Tiger tool & beat on it to get out...I wasn't putting it back in in the shops muddy parking lot... I tie them up with a wire tie to keep them dragging on the ground when they pull it in... Box truck to the shop for running issues. Undecked a trailer for a customer... Step van to the customers facility 45 miles away. Then they unloaded it and asked if I could take it to a town called Shickshinny...which sounded like a "metropolitan" area...LoL Last 2 miles of my trip was on this gravel road as I got the feeling that my GPS was "mocking" me...LoL Couldn't imagine there was a truck repair shop back here somewhere? Had to wait for the guy with the Jeep to get out of the way for me to get around... Then all of a sudden there was a shop in the middle of nowhere. I think this was next in after they got done with the "Combine".... Actually I think I was close to Stubborn 66's area? Lots of unfriendly roads for a 35 ton truck....😉