cosrec

Lots of years ago we had A martian artilary tractor we used for recovery. When we first got it the winch was that tight that we had to use another wrecker to winch to get rope out (yes it was in Freewheel). We tried allsorts to free of drum pulling rope out and winching full length many times. We eventually tied the tensioners back and took the rope of completely and left the truck running all afternoon in third gear lubricating every so oftence. This made a lot better but still not good. then one of the lads who worked for us spotted a grease nipple on a casting assosiated with the shaft that went up with little gear on it that drove the main ring gear the dog clutch engage on to it. Sorry if this all sounds a little vague but was a long time ago. we greased this ran it up again for 10 min and it was perfect. Never had problems again. I think the scammell uses same winch? so might be problem is same place.

son spotted a vehcile on back of possibly a French lowloader with what he believes was either a pioneer or explorer. M18 s/b painted in white with possibly Recovery man in red wrote on it anybody on here ???. Said it looked all there but looked as though stored undercover for a long time

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To continue with the one down the slope if rigged as I described in drawing the secret to success is to get up close and work a little at a time. If casualty gets to point were it is getting close to winching vehicle stop let go and pull forward a little re rig have another go. It may take 2 or 3 attempts but you will end up with the lower front end wheel on or very near the top of the embankment. Also as you are not only pulling sideways but slightly forward the rear wheels should be a little higher up the embankment.. The whole vehicle will also be more stable.

But still try not to be greedy and finish it of in one go with a long winch forward. As the vehicle is now more stable let go pull forward slightly and re rig again by now you will able to hang to somewhere of to the right hand side of vehicle and winch again your aim being to get the front end as far to left hand side of road as possible even to the point of putting the left hand front wheel over the gradient at the left hand side if that’s what it takes. The aim of all this a little bit at a time equal amounts forward and sideways at the same time is to end with at least one of the rear lower back wheels on or near the top of the embankment . From here it is just straight forward winches pull to get the whole vehicle back on to roadway.

If you try pulling sideways to much it will probably defeat the winch vehicle and drag it sideways. Too much forward pull and at best casualty won’t climb.

So once again a little bit at a time equal amounts to side and forward or at about 45 degrees. Winch only you can get some vehicles out of quite tricky places

Not the best of pics but should show sort of angle to aim for

I ment lifting the back of the casualty then use the casualties steering front wheels to bring the front of the casualty back onto the road......I do appologise as I was trying to describe from the point of view of a recovery operator not as advise to a MV user.

No problem and if you have any pictures etc that highlight any principles that help with safe recovery they will be welcomed on here by most people

Jobs like that is were a nice big 750 Holmes comes in handy.

Park the wrecker pref back to back with the casualty, (the wrecker on the road ) seperate the 2 jibs and swing them both towards the casulty. Attatch the the Holmes jib cable closest to the casualty to the far side and the other jib cable to the side nearest to the wrecker then lift the far side first tilting the casualty towards the wrecker until it is close to level then lift on both jibs together just enough for the rear wheels of the casualty to clear the ground. Next I would turn the casualties steering as far as I could in the direction it needs to go to roll in reverse back onto the road. Then remove the ignition key to lock the steering in that position. Next I would climb into the wrecker and slowly drive forward pulling the casualty back up onto the road in the direction it went off..........

This description is a little simplified as there are nearly always complications but that is how I would and indeed have, recovered trucks from this position.....

I am a bit mystified now you want to describe how lifting the front of the truck is going to get back wheels of truck clear of floor working on example i have given not that i am knocking use of 750 its the ideal use for vehicle although not exactly as you describe. I have tried in all posts to try and use ways that available to members of this forum not many people on this forum will have access to a 750 as a HMV

not totally following you here, is the scammel there to just stop it falling over or to recover it, how does it move it onto the single track road as shown if it is alongside...dont understand...why would you not use the scammel to pull the truck forwards ensuring that the truck is secured sideways so that it will not fall over...must be missing something here...

Sorry i havnt made a better job of describing this job the scammell is parked a little ways in front of the casualty and recovering it. I was going to do another drawing to suggest the ideal angle for winch rope when viewed from above is 45 degrees.

Still trying to get vehicle back up slope, and on to narrow road. As you can see its still upright but will take very little to upset it. I would seriously be looking for something to the left of the road to held stabilise it a tractor a l/r or even a tirfor to a tree It will take very little to hold it.

Any way on this occasion there is nothing but will have a go anyway.

The vehicle we have to use for the recovery is a Crusader.

I have put the crusader in the drawing and have drawn a line in blue representing the winch rope going to the front Nato hitch. You can see from this line it’s fairly high. The crusader is a fantastic piece of kit but even in its lowest position the winch still exits from the rear of the truck at about 51/2 ft from floor level. Most jobs this makes no difference but on this occasion if you look it is pulling at a steeper angle than that line I drew AB and this could be all that’s needed to upset the vehicle.

To combat this I would put a snatch block in the rigging as shown in red. The snatch block isn’t there to increase power but to change direction of pull. As its pulling as shown the vehicle will now be fairly stable and you will be in with a good chance of recovering it trouble free at least enough to get lower wheel to near the top of bank. Now you may be wondering what the end of winch rope fastened to. I would wrap a chain round the box section of the leg furthest from the casualty and down and out underneath the spade before lowering the leg to the floor then fasten winch to this

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If it was me I would concider the cutting of anything in that position too dangerous. Looking at the picture what I would do is position a winch out of the picture to the left and attatch the cable to the trucks chassis via a chain wrapped around the rearmost cross member. I would then pull the rear of the truck towards the left. As the body is wedged against the bridge. as you pull the chassis the cab end should come away from the bridge and as long as the ram does not break it should stop the front of the truck dropping to the ground in an uncontroled manor as the rear of the chassis moves left the front should come down hanging on the ram. Once the truck is on it's wheels I would then move the winch cable to the rear of the body and chain the bottom rear of the body to the rear of the truck so as you winch to the left the ram (as long as the it has not leaked and is still full of oil) should hold the body front elevated as it comes away from the bridge. Once the front is clear of the bridge I would stop winching and (depending on the system fitted) l would opperate the rams lowering mechanism to lower the front of the body as far as it will close then block the body and remove the ram. Once the ram is removed I would Via jacks/whatever is available remove the props and lower the body back down onto the truck chassis, chain it down, put the ram in the body and tow away....... Job done with no further damage and in a boring but controled way :D:D

 

 

OOPs.....forgot to say that I would make sure that there was no air in the trucks brakes so the springbrakes are hard on to stop the truck rolling once the rear wheels are on the ground.

pretty much agree but this job and the rollover before it would only go ahead or be done under instruction from the person in charge of the bridge. Or at least it will if Japan is the same as this country. Bridge recovery work here is a nightmare when the bridge engineers get involved. Scotch blocks and rear spades are a no no when working on bridges

One trick I learned with my MK6 is don't pump the tyres up to a pressure, pump them to a size. Run a tape measure around them and inflate them all to the same size. It reduces wind up. T

 

The guy gave his advise take it or leave but dont knock him for doing so

I have struggled a bit with this one trying to put into word’s what I am tying to get at. Here goes. Remember that empty truck I used as an example before well its ended up in the situation shown. I have put in where I think the CG is. And drawn a line through the CG parallel with the truck body marked a b and one vertical through the CG. This has marked out four quadrants. The object is to get the vehicle back on to the raised section of road. We do this by fastening on to the vehicle somewhere and winching or lifting to the left.

In quadrants 1 and 2 any angle made by the winch rope must be less than that the angle of a b otherwise it will have the undesirable effect of lifting the vehicle over the wrong way.

If fastened to something in quadrant 1 and winching this will have the effect of taking weight off the lower wheels which is good but do very little towards sledging the vehicle up the slope.

Quadrant 2 will take weight off the lower wheels plus put a lot of energy into pulling it back up the slope.

Quadrant 3 is ok for straight lifting as long as it’s vertical or tending towards the line through the CG.

Quadrant 4 angles made by winch ropes for lifting must leave the quadrant above CG or it will tip the vehicle on its side any large pulls directly sideways in this area will only pull lower wheels harder into slope.

So to do this job with a winch it’s looking like we will have to hang on to something in area 2

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Right you have a vehicle which is laid at an acute angle for what ever reason gone off the road. In a dyke or even on level ground but bogged at one side. Undamaged. To make it worse you have limited room to work e.g. a narrow road usually parallel with the vehicle.

To me it is more challenging than a straight forward bogged or rolled vehicle. Why because there is so much more chance of something going wrong and ending up with a bigger mess to sort out.

Sure time to get out and have a good walk round and think before reaching for shackles or chains or pulling winch ropes out. The first point to look out for is our good old friend (enemy) CG where is it. As I pointed before its bad to tell exactly and it’s up to who is in charge of the operation to make an executive guess on this one. Plus get an executive upping if it goes wrong.

Only advice I can give here is CG still acting between the outsides of its wheels (or tracks) else it would have fallen over.

In your favour it takes little force to keep it there.

Plus when a vehicle is laid at an angle it isn’t always as bad as you think. (Done a few demos and most vehicles really have to be pulled a long way before they fall over) Been caught out as well

Next which general direction does it need to go? Not as easy as you think to decide why because pulling it the obvious direction may just pull it into softer ground or put it on a steeper slope or hit a road side grip all of which may just put that CG out side them outer edges. If it’s in long grass nettles or shrubs get in among them have a kick about don’t assume there’s nothing there that’s going to fetch the whole operation to a halt or tip the vehicle over as its winched.

If the road is a narrow farm track you may find you can’t get past thus you have no choice in which direction you take the vehicle.

So direction sorted next choice exactly what angle does it have to go at and how do you get it to go that way. Next what do i fasten to because this effects its direction of travel All I can say is if I have a choice and it’s a rigid vehicle I prefer the back end will explain in later post . One other thing i dont know why but these sort of incedents seem to attract a lot of well meaning experts who seem to throw your train of thought out of sync

So theres a lot to think about before you actually start.

There is of course the other approach that I set of with many years ago the 4 Ps

Pile in

Pull It out

Park it up

Pray no one sees the damage

Were we live is mainly a rural area so the bulk of our challenging every day jobs are not vehicles bogged up to the nuts or rollovers but simply vehicles that have got too near the edge of the road and run off or the road has given way. This presents three sets of problems.

One the shear physical force to get them moving again we have already covered all this with the calculations so we know what we are up against the only difference being its usually only one side set of wheels that’s stuck

Two the vehicle is leaning at a big angle and likely to become a rollover at any moment.

Three and this is sods law at play its always down a very narrow raised road to a farm with a fully loaded bulker or the rep with his £70,000 vogue balancing on the edge of 12ft commissioner dyke and guess what there is no room to work..

Don’t know all the answers but will describe what I think is the basic theory behind it all if any body is interested. Also it may seem different but it is exactly the same as some video clips as I have commented upon like this one

In the case of the 18 wheeler might they have wound the spring brakes off and removed the prop while it was on its side, or lack of communication between the recovery crew.

 

'Wind the difficult to get at brakes off while I set up the recovery'

 

'Yes boss'

 

'Doh, what happened?'

 

'They were all difficult so I did the lot'

Daft thing is that is exactly what we do and advise our drivers to do, But only on the unit. The trailer and remember we are usually talking modern vehicles here we just take the red line off and rely on the spring brakes to hold it. We do this for good reason when i explained how an artic comes over its allways the unit that hits the deck first because the unit is free to move some of the shock is taken out of the trailer hitting the deck. Then it is simply a case of coupling up to trailer airlines before towing away. The unit is not being braked while towing for legal reasons

first i have heard or read about the man absolutly facinating

Might also be worth just checking on this page to make sure it is actually a Holmes Crane Same site also details some of the equipment carried

http://www.amv-lilliput.org/MODELLI/Docum/CMP%20WRECK/CMPWRECK_ENG.htm

May be worth contacting

International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum

3315 Broad Street

Chattanooga, TN 37408-3052

423-267-3132

For questions or comments about the museum, contact :

Cheryl Mish - internationaltowingmuseum@comcast.net

I have never been but i believe it is built on the old Holmes factory and i think they inherited a lot of photos and records. Given a model no they should be able to tell you what equipment was shipped that body. The CMPS i dont know about but the 969 DT had its recovery eqipment fitted to the chassis at this factory and shipped as a finished unit from there. Even today the Miller Corp who bought Holmes ship thier recovery/bodies eqipment fully kitted out ready to work when installed

dont know for sure but guessing two snatch blocks per line was norm for all holmes eqipument post war

There certainly is.. wasn't expecting to see this happen :clap:

 

in my own defence i think both these cock ups happened for the same reason no

Brakes applied

Once the vehicle has gone past the point of balance it goes in to freefall back onto the ground. Lets bust a myth here you hear people say “when a vehicle is winched over it can hit the floor then topple the other way”. With two exceptions when winching on to level surface there is no chance of this happening. The exceptions are fridges with swinging meat and half loaded tankers. Having said that just because it hits the floor and does not roll again does not mean it’s a good recovery. To me nothing looks worse than a vehicle hitting the deck with say front axle followed a fraction of a second later by the remaining axles. It is these multiple shocks in close succession that cause the damage eg floor boards to spring out lights and lenses mirrors falling of and on occasion’s bodies to split and collapse. If when you rig up you spend time and are aligned with the CG as you winch it over all the axles will hit the floor at the same time and the suspension will absorb the shock as it is designed to do. It wont look dramatic on a video but there again any controlled well carried out recovery wont.

If you where to film the two examples that I have used the MT and laden vehicle the MT one would probably look the most dramatic with dust and muck flying about as it hit the floor. Why because the laden truck would almost certainly be have to be winched until it almost hit the deck because the steel plate is offset to the side. Secretly I would be hoping for a bit of a rough landing so that it fell back over saving me sorting it out before towing away.

If you have any doubts and have no means of doing a controlled restraint a couple of old pallets under a couple of high side wheels will smooth things out a bit.

I have also used MT 25 litre drums with bungs in stood upside down under where wheels are going to land or even a couple of tyres on top of one another.

Bit of humble pie here i will add fire engines to .the above list

Don't think he'll be working for Cosrec anytime soon:cool2::cool2:

worth keeping an eye on him and following about though. Plenty of transporter jobs to mop up when he has done his stuff

Nice video, takes me back to my courses at Bordon, lucky that Cent was there.

Undramatic Unphotogenic but spot on recovery thats how it should be no ramming about no wheels spinng just nice controlled safe work with no further damage to casualty or equipment

used. Envy many times wished i had had that amount of brute power available

Placing a log under the winch rope on the brow of the bank would help in keeping the rope up increasing the angle of pull and more importantly preventing the rope from cutting into the bank were it could possibly become damaged dragging over sharp stones and rocks.

Good sound advise Only things i would add is i dont know for sure what the vehicle doing the winching is but it looks fairlly big and has the winch capacity. So if possible i would have taken it a lot nearer the casualty. the winch is mounted high up and i guess a situation could have been achieved where the winch rope would have gone to the casualty with out hitting the bank. With my civillian head on i would have used the hook bridle i posted earlier i would have hooked on to the front suspension mounting pionts thus providing more lift. Lastly i would have asked the driver to stop trying to drive forward all this was doing was introducing shock loads to the rigging and the winch was coping with out him

Landys stuck in a very deep hole, recopvered by using the sheer weight of the Ural...

 

 

the second one shows how to use the weight of the ural to aid extraction, as you can see she was really stuck as the ural was spinning the front wheel.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XybCXSFvdig

while watching above clips noticed this one anybody any got any views on what went wrong and what it has in common with the above clip where something snapped. More important what could have been done to avoid it. By the way not not knocking use of ural it seemed to do a good job

Having said that it all looks a bit tame if you watch this clip sure says a lot for urals

good drive:nut:

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just noticed those are two different tanks or at least same tank in different place