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Recovery and Towing


Tony B

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Good thread so far learning alot.

Mind you even without it I had the feeling that this recovery was not going to work.

 

Mike

 

What a stupid bunch of dangerous idiots.

 

Picture paints a thousand words etc.

 

Top tip. Never ever straddle, stand next to, learn over or hold onto a winch rope/tow rope when a recovery task is being carried out.

 

Likewise...

Edited by Sean N
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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

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

 

Brakes applied

 

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'

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I would bet that a foden wrecker recovered onto its wheels like that might be very very tempted to keep going as well...they are notoriously top heavy...are they not?

 

Never, because we would use 2 wreckers, one to provide the pull and the other to provide the check tackle. (once winched over the point of balance the wrecker providing the check tackle takes over and lowers it onto it's wheels under control).

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Never, because we would use 2 wreckers, one to provide the pull and the other to provide the check tackle. (once winched over the point of balance the wrecker providing the check tackle takes over and lowers it onto it's wheels under control).

Similar to this then?

 

Something went wrong...

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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

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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

 

Something went wrong...

Edited by Marmite!!
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cosrec I would enjoy and benefit from reading what you post, so please go ahead and post your method.

 

I find your posts clear, well laid out, safe and easy to understand and expand my knowledge everytime I read them.

 

As I am a property manager on a large estate with many pieces of equipment I have occasion to be involved in recovery, plus working in a rural area we are the largest equipment user for quite a ways and often get other islanders (yes we are on an island) come seeking our help in sorting out their problem.

 

Unless I figure it is a safe and sure thing I always politely decline to assist but pass on 2 local recovery company numbers from my phone.

 

Other aspects of my job are liability management and PR for the owner and the property I represent. There is a fine line between being lauded as the local good guy on the island and being landed in court for wrecking a vehicle or causing further damage to a vehicle, We are not insured to do such work especially in a public area.

 

I have declined a number of recoveries only to have the poor unfortunate person come apart at the seams and berate me and call me every name under the sun. They have eventually be recovered by professional recovery truck and most have the good graces to come back over time and apologise for their hissy fit and understand me refusing.

 

Thank you for taking time to educate the rest of us on what is a highly skilled trade that you do.

 

Robin

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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

Edited by cosrec
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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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Edited by cosrec
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I had someone do that to me last month when i got the land rover bogged down. Although the rope was one the front bumper low down the only easy pull was about 45 degrees to the right. the tosser doing the towing was from another club and decided he needed to show what his truck was made of an floored it. His huge over reving drowned out my blasting horn and he was only stopped by people running and banging on the bonnet. No need. start gentle and pay attention to what the hell going on behind. you can put the strop where you like, your not going to pull it over if you pay Attention to what your doing.

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