Tie down those Ratchet Tie-Down straps!

[BrianK]

Tie down those Ratchet Tie-Down straps

A friend visited me at my office today. He had a shiny new bed on his 2008 Chevy short bed 4x4 pick up.

A couple weeks ago, he was hauling his son's four wheeler, and had it tied down with four ratchet straps, one at each corner of the bed.




He was running down the highway in Huntingdon county, when the end of the front passenger side tie down must have come lose in the wind. Next thing he knew, "It felt like I ran over a motorcycle!"

The tie down strap worked its way between his truck cab and pick up bed, and got wrapped around the drive shaft. The drive shaft reeled in the ratchet strap like a high speed winch, drawing the bed down rapidly on the rear suspension. It destroyed his rear suspension and his drive shaft, and bent down a deep "V" in the front of his bed, which is currently for sale on Pennswoods at http://classifieds.pennswoods.net/classifieds/viewad.cgi?adindex=1394156:



The tie down ratchet was hooked to a loop in the bed of the truck, which took the brunt of the pull from the strap, so the four wheeler was not damaged.

But between the new bed, new rear suspension, and new driveshaft, this little tie down strap caused a $7,000 repair job!

Bud went to his insurance agent to file a claim. He says he told the girl,

"I was driving down the road, and a UFO came out of no where and hit the bed of my pick up and blew out my rear suspension and driveshaft! Does that sound unbelievable? Well, then let me tell you what really happened. Its even more unbelievable..."

They paid the claim.

 

[BrotherBart]

Wow!

 

[fossil]

Pretty dang strong strap.

 

[lukem]

I thought I had bad luck.

 

[ScotO]

Great advice, Brian.....crazy what that driveshaft did!!

I always tie the "leftover" tie strap off, even if I have to wrap it around the item that is being tied down. For the very reason your friend had to find out the hard way!!

 

[fossil]

Yeah, I don't like them flapping around. Short trip, I coil them up and tie them off. Long trip, I coil them tightly & put a wire tie around.

Back in about 1983, my wife (at the time) worked for Hewlett-Packard & had a company car. Coming over the mountain from Santa Clara (her office) and Soquel (our home) one evening, she ran over a pillow on the highway...must've fallen out of someone's pickup or trailer. Anyway, she didn't give it much thought...figured she'd just left it behind. No...that pillow wrapped itself around her driveshaft and wreaked all sorts of havoc with the transmission and the rear end. Apparently neither of them appreciates having something in between fighting them both. H-P replaced her car.

 

[pen]

damn that's terrible, but I think I want to know what brand of strap that was!

 

[osagebow]

That is craaaaaaazy. Even for PA! Glad no one was hurt.

 

[fox9988]

 

[gzecc]

Just another short coming of pick ups.

 

[MasterMech]

Just another short coming of pick ups.

 

[Jack Fate]

I always first tie the ratchet closed then tie the excess off in a manner that easy to get to

Man that's wild

Cheers

 

[paul bunion]

Bad things can happen real fast with loose tie down ends. All you need to do is drive over one. You can get all the way to where ever you are going with one streaming out the rear, and then back up onto it as you go to unload and bang...oops.....

 

[MrWhoopee]

Reminds me of the death of Isadora Duncan, only more traumatic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isadora_Duncan

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor to her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, when she was a passenger in an Amilcar. Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.[1]

 

[fossil]

The unexpected breadth and depth of esoteric bits of arcana tossed out by our diverse membership here never ceases to fascinate me. Rick

 

[BrotherBart]

I had a flash back to 1971. A guy wanted to drag race against my 440ci Dodge Challenger. We went outside of town to the local quarter mile on a back road. I won the race and the six pack bet. But just before the finish line I ran over a piece of barbed wire in my lane and it wrapped around the drive shaft and neatly stripped the pinion seal right out of the posi-trac differential. Fortunately I made it back to town without trashing the read end.

But I had to sneak it into the truck shop where I worked in the middle of a Sunday night to drop the shaft and change the seal. Working on a personal vehicle in there was a firing offense.

 

[Jack Fate]

I had a flash back to 1971. A guy wanted to drag race against my 440ci Dodge Challenger. We went outside of town to the local quarter mile on a back road. I won the race and the six pack bet. But just before the finish line I ran over a piece of barbed wire in my lane and it wrapped around the drive shaft and neatly stripped the pinion seal right out of the posi-trac differential. Fortunately I made it back to town without trashing the read end.

But I had to sneak it into the truck shop where I worked in the middle of a Sunday night to drop the shaft and change the seal. Working on a personal vehicle in there was a firing offense.

+

did something similar only on a turnpike with additional state charges ,go mopar!!

 

[gzecc]

The unexpected breadth and depth of esoteric bits of arcana tossed out by our diverse membership here never ceases to fascinate me. Rick

Is that a complement?

 

[USMC80]

That's something I always make sure I do. I've even told others they should pull over and fix them

 

[mywaynow]

I watched a guy tow a trailer with an old vette on it down a highway last year. The tie down strap was beating the side of the car with visible damage.

 

[fossil]

Is that a complement?

No, it's a compliment.

 

[gzecc]

No, it's a compliment.

Learn something new every day.

 

[clemsonfor]

I use the small 600lb ones when i use my truck or trailer, cause the load usually is not that large. For example my honda 4wheerler is a 300 and i use either 3-4 of them on it, which is plenty. I tie them off to trailer rails or the rack on the atv. I have had many pulled apart by the trialer tier or worn off on the road if they come loose. Now those 10K lbs straps for my tractor, i hate to see them pulled under a tire I usually tie them off with 3 knots in the tag end. If i see them loose or working loose i will stop. I also stop the first 15 to 30 mins then abour an hour or 2 into the trip as well to retighted and check straps.
\
My brother in law has a strap dent where a person he lent the truck to ran over the tag end and dented the bed about a half inch in the shape of a ratchet!!

 

['bert]

also do not leave a loose (unused) strap in the bed of a truck when hooked to a big fifth wheel trailer. Had a strap do the same thing when towing our race car trailer ... floated up in the vacuum caused by the truck / trailer and dropped down between the box and the truck and wrapped around the drive shaft. Wrecked the box and broke the back window of the truck when the ratchet part came flying up. A couple of inches over and we figure it would have hit the guy sleeping with his head against the back window and would have killed him.

The funny thing was this was a borrowed truck from the chev dealership my buddy works at; we started to explain the story to the owner of the truck and store.. got about 1/2 way through the story and the owner says " oh no not again!!" Turns out he had done the same thing about 1 month earlier and that's why the truck was available - it had just come back from the body shop. Not a word of a lie.

 

[billb3]

About once a year you read in the paper of a boating accident, often a small lobster boat where someone gets a sleeve and a body along with it wrapped around the drive shaft.
Can't be a very pretty sight.