Star down under.:
Fully agree Dig, I often see straps used where I’d use chains. How many drivers can tie a Truckie’s hitch, these days? Not that ropes are legal any more.
Re securing a trailer atop of another, I’ve always chained between the dual on trailer and dolly, if no dolly, cross chained from the chassis/top of the legs. I’ve never had to do it, but if fitted with alloy rims, I assume a decent thickness of rubber would be needed to protect the rim from the chain.
I too have never had to scratch the head with alloys SDU Guess the easy way out would be to cross chain off the front axle of the tri or bogey and leave the alloys to sparkle in the sun.
As a foot note what can happen if not held by at least one restraint when setting up to unload we had a fella on a rig move took all his chains off then roared over the lease to the pole truck which was lifting trailers off for us hit the brakes the the bottom half stopped the top didn’t he had to find his swag to sleep in as his bunk was a tad untidy.
Dig
My point entirely, anything with wheels can move given only half a chance, just pulling down as hard as you can whatever you use is not enough. We were lucky at Cheveralls, no chains available, so I roped every hook over the top and then tethered the wheels as I described. There was only a very small road distance to travel, a little bit to Dover and then off into the dock at Ostend, but who knows what the Channel would provide in the way of giving you a bad day?
And I was nowhere near being an octogenarian in those days, more like a tricenarian.
OK what I was trying to highlight was the method used to tighten the straps looks like some type of winding ratcheted cylinder.
Oily
Oily in the early 80’s when we used to pull SCAC trailers (French) out of Portsmouth docks a lot of there trailers had those windless ratchet winders on, the French could not master tying a dolly so were sent out to load with a coil of new rope which they cut to length and tightened with the winders, useless to us when it came to a reload just loads of short lengths, we used to knot these some times to make a longer piece , Buzzer
Buzzer:
Oily in the early 80’s when we used to pull SCAC trailers (French) out of Portsmouth docks a lot of there trailers had those windless ratchet winders on, the French could not master tying a dolly so were sent out to load with a coil of new rope which they cut to length and tightened with the winders, useless to us when it came to a reload just loads of short lengths, we used to knot these some times to make a longer piece , Buzzer
Maybe you missed an Australian export opportunity, John.
And I was nowhere near being an octogenarian in those days, more like a tricenarian.
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OK what I was trying to highlight was the method used to tighten the straps looks like some type of winding ratcheted cylinder.
Oily
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Oily your quite correct about the type of strap tensioner if you look on the first photo of all the trailers double decked you will see the ratchet tensioners not being used are all at one end of the trailer they are mounted in a rail that allows them to slide to to wherever they are needed you may need to double click to make them clearer and the photo of the white KW with blue stripes and 2 trailers of hay has the Oz type ratchet strap which can be moved and is made to hook onto the pipe rail under the combing a double click there will show them better.just an alternative way of doing the same thing.
DIG:
Oily your quite correct about the type of strap tensioner if you look on the first photo of all the trailers double decked you will see the ratchet tensioners not being used are all at one end of the trailer they are mounted in a rail that allows them to slide to to wherever they are needed
And a very good system too I reckon. Saves keeping them all in a big box.
These are the tensioners that were on the flatbeds of the firm I worked for in the 70’s. A bit crude alongside todays ratchet straps and they were welded in place on the trailer but I forget how many there were.
Thanks to Buzzer and DIG for the explanation re straps with ratchet and bar tensioner, also remy for the photo.
had a look at this video and got my head round it now youtube.com/watch?v=P74f4UJfn2U
Oily
remy:
These are the tensioners that were on the flatbeds of the firm I worked for in the 70’s. A bit crude alongside todays ratchet straps and they were welded in place on the trailer but I forget how many there were.
Remy, we had a slightly different version of those. The base was wider than the the carriers, enabling it to be mounted into a specially folded C channel. The channel was mounted to the cross members, either the full length of the trailer or with gaps above the wheels, depending on the profile of the trailer. A bolt or deformation on the end of the channel prevented the mechanism falling out.
We also had a version called a clip-on, rough sketch below.
Another advantage of the Australian tie rail, over hooks, eh Dig.
Excuse the napkin drawing.
Star down under.:
The Pee Wees have learned that the front of trucks offers a smorgasbord of insects, for minimal effort.
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I have a bird related story, but concerning a car I once owned. Back in the 70’s Fiat launched a small car, the Ritmo. I was offered a new one at a very good price so jumped at the chance.
The front was basically a large grey plastic moulding with the various apertures moulded in and an egg crate effect design incorporated. When driving birds flying in front of the car appeared to get confused and think that the grey area on my car was road and not part of the car, thus safety.
Of course they were mistaken and regrettably the car caused the demise of many birds. One day I arrived at work and parked my car in the office yard. A little later a rather shocked young lady member of staff came to see me to say that she was disgusted to see that maggots appeared to be dripping from the front of my car…
Upon inspection I saw that a couple of wee birds had indeed hit the front of the car and their bodies had been rammed into the egg crate design and were slowly putrefying and being devoured by maggots.
These are the tensioners that were on the flatbeds of the firm I worked for in the 70’s. A bit crude alongside todays ratchet straps and they were welded in place on the trailer but I forget how many there were.
Remy, we had a slightly different version of those. The base was wider than the the carriers, enabling it to be mounted into a specially folded C channel. The channel was mounted to the cross members, either the full length of the trailer or with gaps above the wheels, depending on the profile of the trailer. A bolt or deformation on the end of the channel prevented the mechanism falling out.
We also had a version called a clip-on, rough sketch below.
Another advantage of the Australian tie rail, over hooks, eh Dig.
Excuse the napkin drawing.
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Thanks, that’s a better design than the fixed ones as once in a while you needed a strap where there wasn’t a tensioner but being able to move them where needed would have helped a lot.
