Jon ,
Allow me to interject here for your safety and others bro.
That is an 80,000 lb rated towbar if I remember right. It is a BEAST!
I can not safely lower it nor raise it alone and I am a pretty big boy.
It is really heavy. Your strap WILL FAIL! Plus it will bounce and you
do not need those problems.
I use no less than TWO independant chains to support mine in the
stowed posistion and it is solid in said. ALSO, I think I see you are
missing 50% of the required pins! That unit came new w/ SEVEN
pins of which you can see all of them on my unit.
If you look at the plate I made to chain to you see a pulley. Some day when
I am really bored I have a winch to raise and lower that bad boy so I can
self recover w/ my 5 ton alone if necessary.
Sure that looks cool but bro... It's not safe my man.
Take that bad boy to a local fab shop and have them weld up a proper
winch bumper w/ tow eyes all set up to stow that towbar vertical perhaps.
I took some pics of mine for you...
Artisan,
I found your post very condescending. Your attitude seems to be that you are right and I am wrong even though you know nothing about me, the situation, and did not ask me any questions. I am surprised that SS allows bulling like that.
"That is an 80,000 lb rated towbar if I remember right. It is a BEAST!"
You were close, the weight rating is actually 83,000 pounds as denoted by the data plate on the tow bar. You mention it is a beast like I do not have any experience with it. Why do you think I don’t know? Did you see that I mounted it to my truck? You act like I do not know how heavy it is and only you know how heavy it is.
"I can not safely lower it nor raise it alone and I am a pretty big boy.
It is really heavy."
Again, you mention that it is heavy like I have never seen one before. What is the point you are trying to make – that I am a weakling compared to you? Have you ever met me? How do you know I am weak? Do you make that assumption about everyone?
"Your strap WILL FAIL! Plus it will bounce and you
do not need those problems."
Yes, the strap will fail. The transmission will fail, the engine will fail, the brakes will fail, actually, everything on the truck will fail at some point. At some point, your chains will fail. Do I need to point that out to you? I am not a newbie and I have quite a bit of experience with tow bars and the MTVR. Why do you think that you know more than I do? That is a very bad assumption. Think of what kind of people would automatically assume that everyone is stupider than they are – that they are superior to everyone.
Many things on this truck are dangerous and everyone should know that – I hope you do. If you want to be 100% safe driving down the road then do not drive a MV.
It is up to the operator of the truck to ensure that it is safe. I do many things to insure that. Things you do not know and did not ask about. The photos did not depict my truck as ready to drive and I never said it was. So you, again, assumed that I was driving that. Interesting that you did not bother to ask.
I do an inspection every time before I drive and one of the many things I check is the tow bar. Of course, it is important to check many other things also because there are many things on a MV that could go wrong and injury people.
One example would be driving on a freeway with a bus of school kids following you. The engine locks up, or the transmission fails, or an axle binds and the MV skids to a stop on the freeway. The school bus crashes into the rear end of the MV. Again, it is up to the operator to insure the MV is safe.
"I use no less than TWO independant chains to support mine in the
stowed posistion and it is solid in said. ALSO, I think I see you are
missing 50% of the required pins! That unit came new w/ SEVEN
pins of which you can see all of them on my unit."
As I mentioned, I never said the photos depicted the truck ready to drive. Yes, I could add two more pins and I have them. The extra pins are not critical unless you are towing something.
"If you look at the plate I made to chain to you see a pulley. Some day when
I am really bored I have a winch to raise and lower that bad boy so I can
self recover w/ my 5 ton alone if necessary."
Interesting. I do not use a pulley to raise and lower mine and I have no issues at all. I recently did it all by myself, safely, and it took just 15 minutes to completely remove the tow bar.
"Sure that looks cool but bro... It's not safe my man."
That’s your opinion and it is not based on any knowledge on your part of me, my expertise, my process, or my safety plan. I guess you are basing everything on two photos that represented an early stage of my work.
"Take that bad boy to a local fab shop and have them weld up a proper
winch bumper w/ tow eyes all set up to stow that towbar vertical perhaps.
I took some pics of mine for you..."
Thanks.
If you were really trying to help, you would have taken a different approach in your post. It seems like you just wanted to belittle me and try to show how much more intelligent you are than everybody else.
Jon