Wooden jack stands

No worries he has non conductive supports

A tailgate safety talk?

As Alfred E. Newman used to say in Mad magazine "what me worry". If you pull a stunt like that you probably aren't into a lot careful analysis of the best and safest way to do anything. He may have a scull so thick that having a truck fall on it would be no problem. He doesn't have to worry about brain damage. He must have been dropped on his head (many times) as a kid.

Scp

He's got a rock under the back tire to keep it rolling in at least one direction. What's the problem? :)

And two posts for redundancy. Looks good to me.

Actually, I know someone who killed themselves doing something very much like this.

Ned Simmons

Talk about yer knee-jerk reactions... You can tell all this about the guy, his skills as a mechanic, his planning skills, his analytical skills, and his concern for safety from one badly exposed, piss-poorly composed photo? Wow... You're just about the most amazing analyst of humanity I've ever encountered.

Ever considered that he was making do with what was available to accomplish a task that would otherwise be un-accomplishable? Y'see, not everyone (Even here in the ever-so-rich US of A) is privileged enough to have a hoist or pit or super-high-lift jack to work with. Some of those poor folks have no option but to make do with whatever is available, and safety be damned, or else do without the broken hardware until (if it ever happens) the "right tools" come along. Trying to "wait for the right way" might very well be identical to a death sentence for them if they rely on the vehicle for their livelihood/subsistence.

Personally, from what I can see in the picture, he did a damn good job of it. Sure, it's far from conventional, and it flies in the face of usual safety wisdom, but it's getting the job done.

Let's see...The truck's passenger-side wheels look to be solidly against the curb - It ain't going anywhere in that direction without one helluva lot of "persuasion" being applied. He's got it propped in two places (that can be seen... An unknown and unknowable number of other places that we may not be able to see - I'd suspect a prop post under the diff, similar to the one near the engine, but it's too dark in that section of the shot to be able to tell with any certainty) using 4x4 posts - The exact same kind of posts that are used routinely to support tens of tons each worth of building materials in static load conditions not much unlike what he's using them for, and do it for years upon years upon years without failing. Never mind that the truck we're looking at appears to be a "lightweight" - Not that we can tell for sure, but something along the lines of a Ford Courier, Chevy S-10, or Mazda B2000 that can't possibly weigh in at much over a ton and a half or two tons. sure, it's enough to kill somebody if it were to fall. But it ain't like he's trying to prop up a Peterbilt with toothpicks, if you get my drift.

The only *SERIOUS* safety issue that jumps out at me is that I can see no mechanism at the bottom of the prop-posts to keep them from deciding to "slide out" and drop the load, but that lack MAY be covered by fitting them into an existing (or created-for-the-task...) imperfection in the pavement, or even an 8 inch spike driven through the base of the posts and into/through the pavement to anchor them. Or the weight of the truck on them may be plenty to create enough friction to keep them from going anywhere. Hard to say from one bad photo, however. Placement of the posts that can be seen doesn't strike me as being at all bad - The rearmost one looks like it's in about the right place to be hooked into a frame rail, while the front one looks like it's probably wedged under an engine mount or perhaps the engine itself - Compared to the other post, it's "backup only", anyway, so it's far from critical.

What I'm left wondering is not "What kind of idiot is he?", but "How the hell did he get the truck up there like that to put the posts under it in the first place?!?!?" With the corrollary "How's he plan on getting it down without just kicking the posts loose and letting it drop?"

Greetings and Salutations...

On Tue, 11 May 2004 12:48:14 -0400, Ned Simmons wrote:

Yea...one can never be too careful when gravity and heavy objects are involved with each other. I just hope the idiot in the picture does not have a wife, because it will be up to his best friend to console the grieving widow. Although it was not a truck, I did drop a riding lawnmower on my face when I was a teenager, so, I gained early respect for both gravity and safe supports. The full story is that we used to buy these ratty, cheap, rear-engine riding lawnmowers about once every two years from Western Auto and other sources. They were a royal pain to get under to pull the blades to sharpen them, so, I came up with this REALLY great idea. I would hoist the back end of the mower up with a rope hoist, and sharpen them on the mower with a round stone in a drill. Actually, I did this for a season and a half with no problem and, while I still had to pull the blades at least once to reshape on a "real" grinder, it worked great for touch-ups. Then...there was that one time when I must have been in a hurry, or tired, or just sloppy. I had tied the hoist off to a set of built-in shelves, and, just did not tie it well enough. The movement of the mower as I ground and jiggled things was enough to loosen the knot...and gravity took over. The edge of the mower deck caught me RIGHT on the jawline, pinning my head to the ground, and, opening an impressive cut from my chin up past my ear. I was lucky, in that it was a pretty light mower, and, there was enough flexiblity in the mounting that nothing serious got crushed. Some folks might say that it was also because I have a lot of Hard-Headed German blood in me... In any case, I levered the mower up enough to get my head out from under it, then, holding the bleeding cut together, I went into the house and got my mother to cut butterflies out of the white bandage tape to pull it back together. I suspect it was a trying time for her, as I looked pretty bad. This was on Saturday, and, when I went to church on Sunday, there was quite some comment about the damage. I joked about it saying that if they thought THAT was bad, they should see the face of the guy that did it to me. Happily enough, about 2/3 of the folks realized this was a joke... Oh yea...because I *am* slightly nuts (and I *was* a teenager), after taping up my face and getting the bleeding stopped, I went back out, finished sharpening the blades, and, mowed part of the front field. However, after that experience, I used the hoist to get the mower up in the air, but, I went out and bought a set of cheap jackstands to go under it. I did not need to do that twice to learn it was a BAD thing to drop a lawnmower on one's face. Regards Dave Mundt

While I understand that people in many situations do what they have to, I think that there were likely less dangerous ways to do what the guy in the picture was trying to do.

Having said that, I DID wonder how the hell he got the truck in that position. I have this image of him driving the thing up on two wheels like Joey Chitwood and having a helper run along side with the 2x4s as he slowed the truck down...

Peter

As a career professional firefighter, I have seen the results of many attempts to "get the job done" and "safety be damned". It's job security for me...

My 35 plus year old Snapper riding mower has a pair of rails at the back end so you can lift up the front and stand it on its tail. The first few inches of lifting is just about the all I can handle these days, but I can still "get it up" when I have to for blade sharpening (with an angle grinder) and underdeck cleaning. If it's on a hard flat surface it takes a pretty fair push to make it topple over.

Jeff

Even in a third-world country, they should be able to come up with a few big beams and make a trestle to get it a couple feet off the ground. (Think "alignment rack" without the hydraulics.)

Or better yet, dig a lube pit, line with cinderblocks. Cheap and simple, and (as long as you watch for gas fume buildup) safe.

Not to mention "Where's the gas tank?"

-->--

You forgot a couple. I thought you were going to say that the sidewalk people would get hurt. One is that it is about to fall over on the body side. I've helped set up this situation a couple of times before , reluctantly , they get heavy also. Which answers the second.

Ya'll should see a 70' LC (3 ton car) hung up almost vertically from the back end with only the front bumper bent against the blacktop and repairing a U-joint.

looking for a picture that was posted here some time ago. It was a pic of a truck at a loading dock with it's front wheels of the ground and rear bumper on the ground......... another shot of it showed a forklift on the ass end that caused the truck to flip onto its bumper

any ideas as to where i could find it

It's even worse when you got to sit in the snow. Given the materials at hand I'd say the truck is ass backwards. I'd want the bottom end of the posts wedged against the curb.

I don't know if your picture is here, but there are lots of similar ones...

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Hey Mike, reset your system clock. The first reply here is 12 hours before your post!

Tim

-- "I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,