Above 1200 Sq/FT The Salvage Garage

[Strouty]

It was certainly a learning experience. My Cousin was helping me, he will also be going with me to pick up the truck in NY, so it was worth the effort. I am probably going to mess with it some more, but this had to be a tougher setup, the front ibeam was too low, so we had to pre pick it, then the frame is covered in tanks and attachments, so we had to figure out what worked the best. The cool part is the you can have the rear chains hooked at different locations, one side can be two feet in front or behind the other. We were only a few inches apart, but there was no way they were getting hooked directly across from each other, then there was lots of things hanging down below the frame so we had to have the chains longer to clear everything.

I need to get some more chains and hooks made up before we head out, I can see that a few more things would open up the possibilities even more.

 

[Bob Heine]

Strouty, having this first tow go perfect would have been nice but the hiccup was a good learning experience. Better to figure it out on local tows than have the oops happen hundreds of miles away.

 

[Strouty]

I agree completely, the setup is pretty simple once you understand the concept, but if you miss a step, it screws everything else up.

I will say that in the daylight it should be much better.

 

[steaks&anvils]

Glad your first tow went OK. Yes, a learning experience.

For towing horse trailer, my ex-wife found that making a checklist of what to check on the truck and trailer helped her until she had a good procedure. She printed out the list and would put it on the steering wheel when she got to the tow location. That way she had to move it in order to leave.

She learned this technique while working on a government/military site. There was always a checklist used like that in every vehicle. They had checklists for everything, but working with potential chemical weapons made it kind of important.

 

[Strouty]

I will probably do something like that, going to print out the instructions and laminate them, there are several pictures for reference too. Big issue is that almost every tow will be unique unless towing identical trucks.

I just spent $1,600 on grade 100 chains and hooks, definitely going to be able to make almost any combination that I may need. I may wait until the NY trip to build any, that way I have plenty of chain length, just in case. I bought 30’ of both 1/2” and 3/8” chain, a grinder with a cutoff disc should be all I need.

I want to install all the new mirrors on Perk, Mount another toolbox, change out the light bar to LED lights too. I still need to get the air fifth wheel ram replaced, for now I am going to just make it easier to adjust with my turnbuckle hack, no one local has the ram and it looks like it is special order only.

 

[mybigwarwagon]

Not bad for a first tow with new equipment.

 

[rvieceli]

Hey Strouty looking good. While you are doing lights, I always found some switchable lights on the back of the cab very helpful. You might also consider adding a couple of positionable LEDS under the brackets holding those yellow caution lights on the hitch assembly.

Ron

 

[Strouty]

I don’t think I will get too many lights wired up before I leave, but even a couple would be nice. I also want to get a couple mounted to the knuckle boom. For now I have some magnetic lights that are battery operated and work well.

 

[Johanfpa]

That's a great piece of kit, never heard of it / seen it at this side of the pond but after watching some youtube videos I'm impressed with its capabilities, a useful addition to your setup.

+1 on the check lists, use checklists daily in my work environment and even for something you do a lot it is always useful to double check / tick off items after you done them because towing big rigs = potential big damage for the sake of a couple minutes double checking you have done all the steps.

 

[Strouty]

They are used by British forces, including the tow rig, they will move 300k pounds worth of truck/trailer/payload. That is for a truck hauling a truck hauling a trailer with a military tank on the trailer. Those trailers have 48 tires, crazy loads!

 

[Sifan]

48 tires, geez by the time you checked the tire pressure in the 48th tire, the first one would be low LOL

 

[Strouty]

Pretty crazy for sure, doesn't even count the tires on both trucks either.

 

[TLCObsession]

Glad your first tow went OK. Yes, a learning experience.

For towing horse trailer, my ex-wife found that making a checklist of what to check on the truck and trailer helped her until she had a good procedure. She printed out the list and would put it on the steering wheel when she got to the tow location. That way she had to move it in order to leave.

She learned this technique while working on a government/military site. There was always a checklist used like that in every vehicle. They had checklists for everything, but working with potential chemical weapons made it kind of important.

I have one of these in the center console of my truck - that way when I hitch my boat up after it sitting for many months, I remember all of the details for towing an launching. It is easy to forget until it is too late.

 

[Strouty]

The new parts truck has 8 traction retread tires, all on aluminum rims, one new front tire on a durabright Alcoa rim, the fuel tank is about full, hydraulic tank is full, the remnants of a three line wet system and lots of other little goodies. The tears are full locking, 3.73 ratio, was hoping they would be a bit lower, then maybe I could have used them as is. The other trucks have 3.90s, but even that isn’t good enough, 4.10 I could live with, but I want something close to 4.30s, that gives me 84 MPH top speed still.

I didn’t totally think things through, brought Perk with the Cascadia in tow to the top of the Hill, can’t really turn it around due to the blue hydraulic tail trailer being in the way.

I may be able to pull the *** end of the truck around using the Mitsu, that would do it. Need to figure out exactly what I am pulling off the truck, I would like to have it gone ASAP, of course that doesn’t mean much.

Came with a nice anti theft device.



One of the hooks I bought was for the 550



I also ordered a hitch mount carrier last week, it showed up on Sunday, had a few bumps and bruises, but looks like it will work well for the snowblower or push lawnmower.



The rest of the chain and hooks are waiting for me to figure out what it is that I need to make.

 

[xtremek]

I do not like your anti-theft device. Nope. And is your shoulder sore from lugging the chain around? Pulling chains is a good workout.

 

[Strouty]

My shoulder decided to fix itself, pretty sure I had slept on it wrong and something got pinched, Thursday night it hurt so bad, felt like a hot needle was shoved into my deltoid. At that point I figured I must have torn my rotator cuff or a muscle. I almost puked it hurt so bad. I iced it when I got home, still hurt when I went to bed, at some point during the night, my shoulder made a bunch of clunks and pops without me doing anything. Next morning it was sore, but movement wasn’t painful, by that evening it was almost pain free. The road trip went fine, knock on wood, it has been fine since.

All of that chain was in the bucket, definitely a heavy bucket!

Looks like it would have been about 120 pounds, no wonder why the guy rolled it out on a hand truck, I think he looked at me funny when I picked it up and put it in the back of the burb.

 

[mybigwarwagon]

I have a permanently dislocated left shoulder. Every one in a while it pops back in and I am never sure if it feels better or worse.

 

[Strouty]

That doesn’t sound like fun at all.

Yesterday turned into a lazy day, (I needed it), but I worked all weekend and I am working all weekend this weekend too. I did get a bit of office work done, did some research on a few things as well.

Also heard back about the crazy long half tilt trailer, made a deal on that, won’t be even thinking about it until the week after the tower is down. Way too much going on for that to take up my time.

 

[1Garageman]

I think you need to work on getting whats in one of these trucks for a change and RELAX for a day.............!

 

[Strouty]

One of these days I will relax, I promise.

 

[Strouty]

The hooks that I bought for both Perk and the 550 are not designed to swivel under load, they swivel only for positioning. I guess I am going to have to return them, I will confirm sizes and order some that have needle bearings, I need them to swivel loaded.

 

[xtremek]

I would have never considered that a thing, but for your app, it is definitely an issue.

 

[jack stand]

I am also Semi geeky when it comes to rigging hardware but also a cheap *******, do your knuckle booms have continuous rotation?
Wouldn't you get by with just some grease for the relatively light (in the crain world) loads? I'm mostly thinking of your forks freely spinning while you're trying to enter under a pallet or load. If you have wireless then it's not a problem.
You could add a swivel inline and share it between the 2 trucks. There's the cheap ******* coming out in me again

 

[Strouty]

The knuckle booms are not continuous rotation (would be nice!) the swivel is pretty useful, especially on the 550, it is a two part line, so when the hook doesn't swivel, you are actually crossing the cables and that is no good. I think I have found solutions for both, but I won't know for a while as things need to be shipped to me. I found a decent brand of hook for the knuckle boom, price was reasonable too. I will most likely have to order one for the new heavier duty boom, but I can wait for that. Perk and the 550 are the main trucks right now, so they should both have swivels. I put an offer on a crosby swivel hook for the 550, if that fails, I will buy an off brand one for now to see how well they perform. I am sure they are chinese made, but the price difference is insane and I can't find a decent one in the size I am looking for.

 

[Strouty]

The good thing is that the two hooks I returned (no roller bearings) were a bit more than the ones I found with roller bearings. I can live with that.

 

[Strouty]

I may have spoke too soon, the one I ordered on amazon has been canceled, the other one I saw on eBay is the same seller and I talked to them, no stock.

I may have to go off brand completely at this point. I can't justify $1200 for two hooks right now, if I was using things all the time, maybe, but not yet.

I did find out that the off brand are made in Taiwan, generally a bit better quality control than straight up China, but who knows?

 

[Strouty]

Everything is saved, found what I needed for a reasonable price.

 

[jakemac]

[emoji443] Here he comes , to save the day..... [emoji445]


Sent from my iPad using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[mybigwarwagon]

I put a rotating hook off of a chainfall on my engine hoist. Man did that make it nice. NO more fighting to get the engine into position.

 

[Strouty]

For the 2.5 ton hook and the 10 ton hook it was $366, but I am not sure what the shipping will be, they use UPS and said it is very competitive, so I am hoping that it will be under $400, the non bearing swivel hooks I returned today were $586 for the two. I am very hopeful that these will be good quality, they are made in France as far as I can tell, some of my military axles are also made in France, s they definitely can handle steel castings. I may also try and order one of the Taiwan ones to see what the quality level is. I will probably need to order a really big one for the new knuckle boom that we are picking up Sunday.

 

[Strouty]

Today we got the brakes figured out and bought all kinds of fittings to make just about any situation work, hopefully things will go fine tomorrow. I am still working on a couple things for Perk, then I have to load up tools and chains and stuff so we can deal with any issue that could arise. I don’t have a lot of tool box space, so it may be tough to get everything loaded, eventually I will have a lot more storage setup, then it will be easier to deal with all the possible issues, because I will have most all the possible tools that will be needed. Part of me says to bring nothing, but I know that would be an expensive regret if something goes wrong.

 

[Strouty]

I got most everything I can think of loaded up, I am sure there will be something I would like to have, but I think with what I am bringing it should be doable. Hopefully there won’t be any issues with tires or brakes, we will see. Leaving about 7 am, so we shouldn’t have to worry about hooking the truck up in the dark.

 

[casmurbax]

Good luck tomorrow.

 

[harley jim]

Strout its exciting to see your plans coming together with your trucks.

Sent from my SM-A102U using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[xtremek]

I hope your traveling safe. Good luck.

 

[Strouty]

Been a long day, truck was bigger than expected, had a few issues getting setup, drive home went fairly well, slow until highway. Well, except for the hills, those were generally slow anyways. Took 4.5 hours to get there and 5.5 to get home. Haven’t had a chance to do fuel economy numbers yet, will do those tomorrow.

 

[Grumblebum]

Strouty that hitch setup is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time.

Nothing like that over here.

GB

 

[xtremek]

Boy, that's a big load.

 

[Strouty]

Thanks GB, it is another great addition to my arsenal of tricks. X, it was big for sure, I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I figured the truck was smaller.

My Cousin too I some pictures, I was just too into the moment and forgot all about cameras.

It was actually substantial bigger than Perk





Me stuck under the truck with the rigging, they had pulled the trans and driveshafts, so there was actually a lot of room under there.



We had a leaking air bag in the donor truck, so I had to plug the line going to the suspension, we didn’t have a plug, I was so proud when I thought up this idea.



Had to back out to the road and then adjust the hitch one last time to makes sure it was a good travel height.



This was our last stop for fuel, the only thing that didn’t go perfect was a leaky brake can, we were lucky it made it back, and the steering wheel shifted ever so slightly, so the truck was offset by a few inches driving down the road.



We had the steering wheel ******* with the seat belt on one side and a ratchet ******** the other, next time we will use two ratchet straps, one on each side. If you went around a left turn that was sharp enough, it would straighten back up, but the right turns would kick it off a bit, if it had been any worse, I would have fixed it, but all in all the trip was pretty good. A couple hills leaving NY dropped us down to a bit under 40, but most everything else was 45 to as much as 70, probably could have gone faster, but I chose not too. The combination felt great going down the road and the brakes on the towed truck worked awesome, I would not have done it without those extra brakes, there would be no way for me to stop.

 

[Strouty]

One thing I will say, towing trucks that break down is a lot different than towing junk that hasn’t been on the road for a while, the freshly broken down one should be somewhat road worthy to start with, but the junk trucks have hidden issues. I need to expand my kit to include some more parts, if the leaking brake can had locked up, I would have had to “cage” it and block off the air line. Luckily brakes are fairly standard on these trucks, so some extra parts should fit almost all of the trucks I encounter.