Trailer safety (was Re: [AT] OT Darwin

[charles bridges]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry D. Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 12:55 PM
Subject: RE: Trailer safety (was Re: [AT] OT Darwin


> WHOA!  Man, Mike, that makes chills run up my spine.  One of the things
> I learned early on when transporting tractors is NEVER EVER use the
> winch as a binder, not even for the front of a light load.  It is SO
> tempting to chain the back and use the winch as a quick and easy
> tensioning device, but they just aren't made for that.  I did it a
> couple of times, and on the second time I was driving down the highway
> and heard this rumbling from in back.  Before I could get the truck
> stopped, the winch had run backwards, jammed the spool of cable, and
> burned up the main switch on the motor.  I had left the control wire
> lying on the bed of the truck and it shifted around enough that it got
> caught under the front tractor tire and the insulation got cut all the
> way through so that the controller was shorted out against the expanded
> metal traction paths on the bed.  The winch was unfused -- wired
> directly to the truck battery -- so it's a wonder that the whole thing
> didn't catch fire when the motor stalled.  As it was, the relay switch
> burned up and finally went open circuit.
>
> The free spooling action of those winches is also a concern.  They
> simply won't take the impact load that results from having the winch
> under load while running down the highway.
>
Yes, anything can go wrong at anytime.
Before I retired from truck driving, a guy was loading a broke down vehicle
off the side of the Interstate and his winch went into free wheel mode.  The
vehicle rolled right out in my lane and left me nowhere to go.  I knocked
that thing up on the bank beside the roll back and totaled it.
The owner and roll back operator both were agile enough to run up the bank
far enough that  it didn't hit them.(and smart enough to put the guys wife
and kid in the cab of the truck before starting to load).
The guy keep telling me the winch messed up, but I didn't believe him until
I saw the cable was still hooked to the car.  I was told later the winch
manufacturer paid all damages and there were no injuries.
charles