Tow Stories
#16
Years back I had a 00' F250 w/a V10 & not too long after my Dad purchased his 04' F350 he had an EGR Cooler let go (only thing ever to break on his 6.0 after all these years actually) anyway I went to go get him w/the Trailer & since I was concerned with the weight of the F350 we decided to load it on the backwards (this was the mistake made),
when I got it up to speed there wasn't enough tongue weight & the trailer started to sway violently
Thankfully I got it to a stop safely & needless to say we turned the Truck around on the Trailer.
The rest of the trip was uneventful & my F250 had no problem with the weight of the Diesel F350 facing forward on the trailer.
Properly loaded now
when I got it up to speed there wasn't enough tongue weight & the trailer started to sway violently
Thankfully I got it to a stop safely & needless to say we turned the Truck around on the Trailer.
The rest of the trip was uneventful & my F250 had no problem with the weight of the Diesel F350 facing forward on the trailer.
Properly loaded now
#17
Around 1990 I bought a garage package and the soonest I could schedule the delivery time was Wed of the next week. I really wanted to get started on it that Friday since I had 3 days off. I borrowed a trailer and went after the studs, plates and sheathing so I could at least get the walls up on my days off. Somehow, after loading that much there still seemed to be plenty of room, so on went the roof sheeting, shingles and masonite siding. Room in the back of the truck for roof felt, nails, walk door and window. Pretty soon the only thing left on the list was the trusses, so I just piled them on top. The trusses were not very heavy, but sure added a lot of size to the load!
There it sat with a complete 24x30 garage package loaded onto an 18' homemade trailer, all but the overhead door which I already had. I tied it all down securely, and headed out toward home, 60 miles from the city. With my trusty old 77 F150 4x4 with the 400 engine, I could tell it was heavy. It must have got about 4 or 5 mpg because the tank was running on empty before I even got a good start towards home.
About 50 mph it wanted to sway, so I avoided the interstate and stuck to the much less traveled highways and county roads. Pulling up a big hill, 30 was about all I could get out of it. I made it safely home and rolled across the scale at work grossing 29,700. Probably would have been a lot better with trailer brakes, I didn't have them set up on the truck and the homemade trailer didn't have them. It was dumb and unsafe, but I made it with really no issues at all. Next time I would be sure to be much better equipped.
In 08 I went after shingles for my house and garage. This time I took my 2000 V10 F250 4x4 and a 30' gooseneck, tandem dual trailer with good brakes. I brought 45 square of laminated shingles and 20 some rolls of 30# felt right down the interstate at 65 mph. The hills would slow me down only a bit and I could certainly tell it was heavy from a stop but once I had it rolling it pulled easy and stopped fast. I pulled across those same scales at just over 30K. A bit overloaded but nothing like the last time, the right equipment makes all the difference.
There it sat with a complete 24x30 garage package loaded onto an 18' homemade trailer, all but the overhead door which I already had. I tied it all down securely, and headed out toward home, 60 miles from the city. With my trusty old 77 F150 4x4 with the 400 engine, I could tell it was heavy. It must have got about 4 or 5 mpg because the tank was running on empty before I even got a good start towards home.
About 50 mph it wanted to sway, so I avoided the interstate and stuck to the much less traveled highways and county roads. Pulling up a big hill, 30 was about all I could get out of it. I made it safely home and rolled across the scale at work grossing 29,700. Probably would have been a lot better with trailer brakes, I didn't have them set up on the truck and the homemade trailer didn't have them. It was dumb and unsafe, but I made it with really no issues at all. Next time I would be sure to be much better equipped.
In 08 I went after shingles for my house and garage. This time I took my 2000 V10 F250 4x4 and a 30' gooseneck, tandem dual trailer with good brakes. I brought 45 square of laminated shingles and 20 some rolls of 30# felt right down the interstate at 65 mph. The hills would slow me down only a bit and I could certainly tell it was heavy from a stop but once I had it rolling it pulled easy and stopped fast. I pulled across those same scales at just over 30K. A bit overloaded but nothing like the last time, the right equipment makes all the difference.
#20
I had a forklift come loose on my flatbed once.
It was one of those electric stand up "reach trucks". Heavy b*st*rds for their size. I hadn't been delivering forklifts for very long, and the "old timer" that had been doing it for years made fun of my double chaining front and back, with binders all the way around. He said that was "the hard way", and said all you have to do is run the forklift all the way to the front and butt it into the winch head, then run one chain around the back, with one binder and tension to the front.
Well it didn't seem right, but after a few days of pestering me about it, I decided to try it. Big mistake. First and only time, I got about a block away from the pickup point and "felt" something shift, looked over my shoulder out the back window, and to my horror, saw the forklift all the way back on the bed, looking like it was about to come off. I was able to ease down speed, and ease into a shopping center parking lot without dropping the lift off the truck. I then moved it back up where I normally loaded it, and got out 3 more chains and binders and chained it down properly again.
When I got back to the yard that night, I had a "few words" with the old guy. Told him if he ever suggested that to me or anyone else again, I would put my binder cheater bar through his skull.
I was D*MN lucky I didn't kill anyone...if that 8K pound reach truck would have dropped into traffic...makes me shudder even now.
Don't have any pics of that, but somewhere around here in a box I have pics of that old Ford flatbed...may have to see if I can dig them out.
It was one of those electric stand up "reach trucks". Heavy b*st*rds for their size. I hadn't been delivering forklifts for very long, and the "old timer" that had been doing it for years made fun of my double chaining front and back, with binders all the way around. He said that was "the hard way", and said all you have to do is run the forklift all the way to the front and butt it into the winch head, then run one chain around the back, with one binder and tension to the front.
Well it didn't seem right, but after a few days of pestering me about it, I decided to try it. Big mistake. First and only time, I got about a block away from the pickup point and "felt" something shift, looked over my shoulder out the back window, and to my horror, saw the forklift all the way back on the bed, looking like it was about to come off. I was able to ease down speed, and ease into a shopping center parking lot without dropping the lift off the truck. I then moved it back up where I normally loaded it, and got out 3 more chains and binders and chained it down properly again.
When I got back to the yard that night, I had a "few words" with the old guy. Told him if he ever suggested that to me or anyone else again, I would put my binder cheater bar through his skull.
I was D*MN lucky I didn't kill anyone...if that 8K pound reach truck would have dropped into traffic...makes me shudder even now.
Don't have any pics of that, but somewhere around here in a box I have pics of that old Ford flatbed...may have to see if I can dig them out.
#21
#24
For work I drove a Ford F-750 with 26' flatbed towing a 24 foot bumper pull flat bed trailer. The trailer had removable metal sides. These side gates were 8' x 4' steel. One day I was traveling down a highway that was being resurfaced, at every bridge their was about a 2-3 inch bump from the blacktop being ground out. kind of like:
_______--------_____________--------__________-------_____________I was going 45mph. On one of these bumps, one of those side gates popped off, it went straight up in the air. Hit the ground, flipped back up and bounced right over the car behind me. Hit the ground again then went down into the right hand side ditch. I watched the whole thing in the side mirror. I was so glad it didn't go thru the windshield of the car behind me because it would have killed the driver.
Since the road was being resurfaced the left lane was fresh asphalt and closed off. Their was no place to pull my rig off the road, so I pulled onto the fresh asphalt and walked back about 1/2 mile to drag my side gate back to my truck. Threw it onto my trailer and got out of their. Left some nice tread marks in that nice new road surface.
_______--------_____________--------__________-------_____________I was going 45mph. On one of these bumps, one of those side gates popped off, it went straight up in the air. Hit the ground, flipped back up and bounced right over the car behind me. Hit the ground again then went down into the right hand side ditch. I watched the whole thing in the side mirror. I was so glad it didn't go thru the windshield of the car behind me because it would have killed the driver.
Since the road was being resurfaced the left lane was fresh asphalt and closed off. Their was no place to pull my rig off the road, so I pulled onto the fresh asphalt and walked back about 1/2 mile to drag my side gate back to my truck. Threw it onto my trailer and got out of their. Left some nice tread marks in that nice new road surface.
#26
#27
I got a call from an Amish sawmill owner that I ran a loader for from time to time Tuesday evening. His sawmill had burned down and he needed to get 2 replacement H beams for the overhead crane. He had access to a new 28' PJ gooseneck trailer. I pick them and the trailer up at 9:30pm and finally get to the farmers house to load at 10:30. An hour later we are heading back to the sawmill with 26' of beams tied down to the trailer and 24' hanging off the back! Good thing we were on all back roads except for about 4 miles on a state route that isn't traveled heavy at night.
#29
I got a call from an Amish sawmill owner that I ran a loader for from time to time Tuesday evening. His sawmill had burned down and he needed to get 2 replacement H beams for the overhead crane. He had access to a new 28' PJ gooseneck trailer. I pick them and the trailer up at 9:30pm and finally get to the farmers house to load at 10:30. An hour later we are heading back to the sawmill with 26' of beams tied down to the trailer and 24' hanging off the back! Good thing we were on all back roads except for about 4 miles on a state route that isn't traveled heavy at night.
What kind of sawmill uses 50' beams?
#30