When a heavy recovery unit is dispatched to an entrapment accident to assist in freeing a victim, the unit’s path to the accident vehicle may be blocked by fire/rescue apparatus and police vehicles. When training with your local fire department to free victims in entrapment [...]
For repossession agents, getting the job done without confrontation is the best outcome, but having skills to deal with confrontational people is always a plus on and off the job. How do you de-escalate a confrontational situation? Here are some tips from Ron L. Brown, [...]
Spline fretting can wreak havoc on hydraulic pumps and PTOs, resulting in stripped splines. Spline fretting is a minute harmonic vibration that occurs between the spline joint, causing the splines to wear away. To help prevent it, separate the pump from the PTO, clean it [...]
The most common winch on a tow truck or carrier is a worm drive winch in which a steel worm gear drives a brass gear wheel, which in turn turns the winch drum. With only a pint or so of lubricant in the winch, a [...]
When jumpstarting, use quality jumper cables. Smaller, inferior cables may be adequate to provide a simple boost to a dead battery but cannot withstand the intense current when cranking the vehicle. In some cases, smaller, lightweight gauge cables will overheat because of their higher electrical [...]
What’s the first step to unlocking a modern car without doing damage to the vehicle? Understand how the car is built. Government side-impact crash standards required on every car sold in the U.S. since 1996 have significantly changed how vehicle doors are built, and how [...]
New chemical salt mixtures applied to road surfaces to control icing increase corrosion problems for lowboy trailers in winter months. The only way to mitigate the devastating effects of these de-icing agents is to aggressively pressure wash your equipment as soon as possible after exposure. [...]
Before disconnecting a drive shaft, towing operators must make sure the shaft isn’t under torsion, which could cause injury. A sure way to remove torque from the shaft is to jack up one of the rear wheels, says Frank Child of Child Towing LLC in [...]
Synthetic web should be protected from sharp edges or corners. To protect the strap, there are products available such as pads or sleeves of Cordura or rubber, plastic corner protectors and the like. There are also great homemade remedies like sliding a piece of old [...]
