I thought all of you might like to see the repair I came across the other day , I thought at first someone was just playing some kind of practical joke but once I looked closer I found a different scenario. This is on a good size Bandit Chipper My thoughts are that the wheel became loose and the holes got all hogged out , the fix got to several stores and buy seven wrenches and seven extra thick washers , remove the lug nuts and install the wrenches , washers and then the lug nuts , the pressure from the wrench handles is the only thing holding the wheel on because the lug nut holes are twice the size of the nuts . My hope is that this was done to just get it off the road , I think it would have been wiser to get a new wheel and do it right the first time .
Well thats umm interesting(; Looks like it might have got them off the road
Good thinking, but if I was the mechanic I would sure want my wrenches back!
I wonder why the one at 3'oclock has (2) wrenches ?... I suspect if on the passenger side, the law would take a dim view when passing bicyclists....
Yeah, that's unique, all right!
I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! could I copy this pic and send it to a friend?
Be my guest , glad you found the humor in it too.
You'd have to ask the "" mechanic "" that did the repair what his reasoning was when he did this ??
Bad threads, had to stack them, LOL!
This is a perfect example of one of my favorite sayings: It's amazing what'll work if you are to stupid to know it won't!
My guess is they used what they had to get it off the road. At least I hope so. Good old yankee inginuity.
Judging by the cracked fender, I would say it probably is the passenger fender. Most of the fenders crack on the front bend in the fender because they are not built heavy enough to hold up in the wind.
Well that would be to "balance the wheel" of course.
Only an unbalanced mind would think of that! :tong
Well, I am a legend in my own mind.
Washers are cheaper than wrenches. Had they gone to an auto parts store, they could have bought larger nominal sized lug nuts to use as spacers. There is a story behind the pictures...
Yup, to keep the "Axmen" groupies at bay......
Willie , I hadn't thought about the balancing part , I bet you're right on that one . Jim D , I kind of thought the same thing , I'm sure they went to different suppliers because the wrenches are different brands and they were all brand new , why not just buy a bow of washers , who knows ?? A little more input on how I happened to notice this repair , I do heavy truck and equipment repair work for a municipal utility company and every year they go out to bid for everything including toilet paper , well this year they went with lo bid for their tree trimming crews which is all well and good but it always comes back to " you get what you pay for " . The lay down yard for these tree guys is pretty much next to my shop and I was surprised when two brand new bucket trucks with brand new chippers showed up one day , I didn't pay too much attention to the comings and goings of the crews but about two weeks after the new equipment showed up so did the mechanic from the company that sold the equipment and after a couple of days went by of him pulling both chippers apart I decided to check in and see what was going on , it seems the low bid company hired people who had never run a chipper before so they didn't know you had to lock in the clutch , the mechanic said the low bid company called complaining that hey couldn't chip and brush with the machines unless one of the crew stood there holding the clutch in other words slipping the clutch , the mechanic was laughing as he was telling me this and yes he put clutches in both brand new chippers and did his best to explain the over center clutch to the operators . Since that point in time there has been several other trucks and chippers parked there and the tree company's "mechanic" comes to do "repair work" on them from time to time , I'm not sure why he hasn't fixed this particular chipper yet but my guess is that he's probably the one that did the wheel repair . Oh , and the fender on the chipper is actually the road side fender , the gutter side fender is in much worse condition !
And when this outfit decides they can make the big dollars they thought this job would pay them they will let those new machines fall apart then sell them to some poor soul at an auction thinking they were good low hour machines.
I'd have thought for sure, he'd have used vice grips instead of combination wrenches, far more plentiful and cheaper too, just use the vice grips clamped on the studs and your done. So if there's nothing in the DOT manual stating you can't use combination wrenches to hold on the wheel, does that mean it's allowed??
That is too funny! (Can't blame guys who don't know what a Twin-Disk or Rockwell clutch is. *Can* blame the company for lack of training and instruction to the employees. The picture of the road wheel and wrenches should be the new image for the company!)
Engine Shed, as my granddad said, "when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys..." (you get less than you pay for, when you pay less than it's worth)
Problem is too many think about the first one is Hey elephants work for peanuts! Sure they might like to have a few as a snack but when you figure an elephant eats around 200 lbs a day and peanuts go for about $2.00 a pound just in peanuts alone that is going to cost you $400.00! The you need to give them about 50 gallons of water, and remember what goes in will come out! Sure the monkeys eat and drink much less but have you visited a zoo lately and seen what the monkeys spend there time doing? Scratching butt and playing with....well guess that's not far from some some workers I've seen on some projects so maybe the monkeys would be a good option!
Bloody well said.
So if there's nothing in the DOT manual stating you can't use combination wrenches to hold on the wheel, does that mean it's allowed?? I'd love to see what the DOT would do is the caught them on the road with that setup , I do know that they only have authority on the roads and highways . I agree that someone should have trained the operators of both the bucket trucks and the chippers and got them familiarized with them before putting them out on the jobs , I don't know what the company rate is but working for the municipality they are required by law to pay the workers prevailing wage in Massachusetts .
That's if the workers are smart enough to understand the "prevailing wage" rules and the company is honest enough to actually pay them the rate. Why do you think some outfits like to hire people with little or no education.
If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid. I don't know if they still publish it but there used to be a US Army field manual for "Field Expedient Repairs". This predates the Humvee, which I remember in particular because there was a detailed description for dealing with a wheel that broke off the rear axle of your jeep that involved using a chain to lash a log to the chassis such that you could support the frame off the ground and drive (drag) yourself back to base.