Guy takes his truck apart on a hill

[Aragarthiel]

http://www.13wmaz.com/story/news/loc...ruck/23927477/

This guy thought it was smart to take the drive shaft out of his truck when it broke down on a hill. I can understand checking on things like the fluids, but just taking things apart? I don't know much about vehicles but I know that you don't do that. Just no.

[Gilhelmi]

When I was first learning to drive a truck, I was 14 or 15. I learned on a 15-ton grain truck (15 loaded, 5 unloaded). I say 15-ton because that is what the scales read, technically it was only suppose to be 12. My father tended to overload our grain trucks. The truck had 10 speeds, 5-high, 5-low, standard transmission (as nature intended).

I was hauling one of my first loads to the grain bins by myself. I was excited, this was the first time I really felt like an adult.

There was a hill about 100 meters long, and about 25 degree slope, you needed to go full speed and drop gears in order to get just enough power to crest the hill (you could get up the hill in first only, it would just take 20 min).

I do everything exactly like father taught me. I hit the button to drop the gears from high to low, let off the gas and gunned it. No power to the wheels. I slowed to a stop, only 5 meters from the top.

I tried the clutch, nothing, shifted gears nothing. My E-brake was not strong enough to hold the 15-ton truck, but my regular breaks were holding for now. I did the only thing I could do, I road the break and crawled my way down the hill. I made it.

Another farmer came by and stopped to help, soon my father also came (wondering where I was). And they got to looking and found the Differential Gear fell out. (Because someone overloaded his trucks, father Though he did say how proud he was that I did not panic, and that he might not have been able to make it without rolling over).

Those heavy trucks are nothing to take lightly. One wrong move and I could have rolled over, been thrown from the truck, and killed (old truck, no seat-belts). Just like what happened to the driver in the article.

[It's me]

Large trucks often need the driveshaft removed when towed so as to avoid transmission damage. Still stupid to do on a hill with out wheel chocks.

[wolfie]

Normally, when a large truck needs to be towed, the drive shaft is removed AFTER the tow truck has hooked its wheel lift up to the front wheels. Makes it easier to get at the U-joint caps to disconnect the drive shaft (extend/retract the boom, drive shaft rotates as the wheels turn). Of course, the tow truck's brakes keep the truck from rolling away.

[Aragarthiel]

Either way, it sounds like the guy just shouldn't have done what he did.