Snow Wheeling Day - Tahoe area

[lc1996]

For those that have the itch to wheel this Sat. the 22nd, a few of us will be wheeling off Ice House Rd. for the day. Not sure exactly where since I was invited by a friend and got the ok to invite others. We will be meeting at Mel's Diner at 7am in Placerville off hwy-50.

Directions to Mel's Diner:
Rt on Spring St. (2nd stoplight off hwy-50)
corner of Pacific and Main

Carl

 

[lc1996]

The day trip turned out fun and safe, however my feelings was hurt coming back home. The following is a pic of a recovery that went south due to improper anchor point and missed safety steps. Obviously it boils down to my fault since it's my rig that was stuck. The weird thing is that I was concerned and had a bad feeling about it, but nothing would come out of my mouth. There were also a lot of experience wheelers there, but yet we all over looked a couple of unsafe factors.

Lesson 1: make sure anchor on tow rig is a good solid point on chassis, not no freakin' leaf shackle.

Lesson 2: put some type of material on center of tow line to dampen any recoil affect if the tow line is metal or tow strap/rope with metal hardware on 1 or each end of anchor point/s.

This situation was that the tow rope was anchored to my tow hitch hook and the other end was anchored to the tow rig's leaf spring shackle with D-ring. The rest you can pretty much figure out by pic. Please chime in if missed something or I'm off on the points I made.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

Glad nobody was hurt....what failed the D-ring or shackle?

 

[Beretta Vertec]

It was the anchor point that failed. Like Carl said, it was hooked up to a stock leaf spring shackle, because of a lack of tow point. Hindsight is 20/20, but damn, should've said something because it was sketchy from the get go.

The D-ring was what caused the damage. And that is a lot of damage. I think a close up pic would show how much force was in that flying D-shackle. There was about 4 or 5 people standing approximately 5 feet off to the drivers side when the damage occured. No doubt that pillar saved somebody's life.

I was sitting in my car about 50-60 feet down the road (in the direction of pull and saw the whole thing, but I didn't even see the shackle hitting the pillar. I just heard a pop/pow sound, not loud at all, and saw the strap go flying towards the people standing there.

 

[450 DUDE]

WOW!.......................... DAM that hind sight!! happy to hear evryone is ok. I was struck by a runaway wire rope , no fun and scarry






where did you guys end up going ? I wanted to go, but ended up going to the rock dog swapmeet..

L8 , ken

 

[e9999]

whoah! glad you and the bystanders a're OK. Nasty carnage though.

was this a snatch strap?

 

[lc1996]

Glad nobody was hurt....what failed the D-ring or shackle?

shackle; not sure what size the D-ring was, but it was smaller the the 3/4"

 

[lc1996]

whoah! glad you and the bystanders a're OK. Nasty carnage though.

was this a snatch strap?

The tow rope used is a heavy duty marine rope used for mooring oil tankers at the dock. It was at least 1.25" in diameter and 40' long.

 

[lc1996]

Here's a closeup shot to give you a better picture of just how fast that D-ring had to fly to do this damage.

 

[e9999]

wow!, this last pic is even scarier....

that's it, man, from now on, I'll use a second rope to tie the main strap to something....

did somebody take a running start on this pull?

 

[Beretta Vertec]

Yeah, it was a running start from a 1st generation 4Runner on 38's. The driver is the owner of the "inch worm" company. It was the red 4Runner on his site.

At first, it was me trying to get Carl unstuck. I did a few running start pulls and made some progress, but got bogged down and got stuck myself. I guess I wasn't going fast enough, probably because subconsciously, I was thinking about something like this happening.

Carl was stuck pretty bad, not on the frame, but the axles. On the first try from the 4Runner, the 80 literally did not move an inch. After that, the next couple of trys he went all out, and sheared the head of the bolt clean off.

 

[dknightd]

Thank god it was only your truck, not somebodies head!

 

[PromontoryCruiser80]

Thats going to be an expensive body shop bill. Glad to hear no one was hurt!!

 

[Radd Cruisers]

Wow unbelievable, good shop should repair that for not too much mula. Need a donor vehicle and peel out part of that pill, drill out the spots, back plate for strength and bobs your uncle.

Good to hear no one was hurt.

Thats going to be an expensive body shop bill. Glad to hear no one was hurt!!

 

[lc1996]

Repair Complete

Here's a couple of pics of repair with new panel. Now I can't wait to get the new paint job on!

 

[Beretta Vertec]

Thats cool. Glad to see it fixed up. When you think the paint is gonna be done? By next weekend? Lets plan a trip somewhere.

Some questions for you:

Hope the insurance covered it?

What did you tell the insurance?

 

[clownmidget]

Wow, that is very, very nice that no one was hurt and I'm sure you feel better now that the sheet metal is replaced. That damage surely would have been fatal to just skin and bones. At least now you are duely justified as being the super-anal, hyper-vigilent trail recovery boss -

 

[lc1996]

Jone, my insurance did cover it as it falls under comprehensive with $100 deductible. I told them that a huge tree branch fell on it while the LC was parked...shhhhhhh Respraying the repaired area is also covered, but since they won't pay for the whole rig to be sprayed I told the shop not to as I will have it sprayed on my own. Yes the goal is to have it repainted by next weekend. The window frame is a little out of shape by the damaged area, so I'm hoping to bent it back into shape.

Mike, ain't that the truth. This was obviously a wakeup call to use every safety precaution available.

 

[Beretta Vertec]

Thats good to hear about the insurance covering it. It would've been fawked up if you had to pay. What was the estimate for the repair?

So whats the deal with the paint? You wanted to repaint the whole rig? Different color?

 

[Kofoed]

Geez......

3/4" D-ring is rated at almost 5 tons working load, 24 ton ultimate strength (yield)

Was that thing screwed in all the way????