LowBoy
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2006
- Messages
- 1,149
- Location
- Southern Vt. on the Mass./NH borders
- Occupation
- Owner, Iron Mountain Iron & Equipment (Transport)
Around '84 or thereabouts, my older brother (RIP,) gets the brainstorm he wants out of the trucking business, and into the craning business, as he had a background in dock building in the Long Island Sound.
He purchases a late 50's vintage Lorain crawler, not sure of the series, but remember we called it a 15 ton. The thing sat for God only knows how many years, until the day J.M.Rosa Const. in North Haven, Ct. has their downsizing auction. The crane was basically just a lawn ornament at their yard, but the mechanics got it fired, raised the boom, and walked it over into the auctioneer's line.
Big brother buys it, and brings it to his first paying job, an old dairy that was being dismantled.He gets hired to pick the air conditioners and various other components off of the dairy roof. Fortunately for him, me, and the general public, the first pick to be made was of an old refrigerated truck body, the one's built in the 60's that were REAL steel, and thick and heavy.
We rig the body which is on the ground with a spreader bar, and Jimmy gets up in the seat of his new honey to start the lifting process.
I should point out that he never did a single thing to this old relic; still had the original cables, the tracks were seized but we put the kerosene and drain oil to them and got them to at least roll, and it only steered one way.
He takes up the slack in the main cable, everybody's standing within 25 feet of this scene for some reason. The truck body makes a few creaks and cracks but never moves one inch vertically, when all of a sudden...KAAAABOOOOMMMM!!!! The gantry cables holding the main boom up snap, sending the boom straight down onto the 3 phase 440V lines. People scattering in every direction, but Jimmy's sitting in the crane with his feet off the floor, hands at "I give up" position, keeping off the steel levers and controls. Kind of a vertical "fetal position" I'd say...
The owner scrambles over to kill the main power. Now, we have to pick the boom up off the ground so Jimmy can walk the crane backwards and get it out of the way, so the power company can come and rehang and re-supply the power.I jump onto the forklift that was there, a 10K lb. Hyster, to do the lifting of the end of the boom, and walk in sequence with Jim as he does, trying to travel at the same speed, etc.
Everything was going fine for about 50 feet, when all of a sudden, Jim pulls the steering clutch to innocently turn the crane to miss something, and it took that Hyster forklift and flipped that son of a gun over violently onto it's side, in the blink of an eye.
Now I've always been slightly chubby since birth, at that time, maybe 30 lbs. over gross. But as soon as danger is present, this chubby fella can move like Michael Jackson. That's just what I did too. When I felt that forklift going over, it wasn't long making a decision. I bailed off of that thing like the Six Million Dollar Man, landing far enough away that I was out of the danger zone completely, and landed on my feet.
Everything came to a stop once again to account for the survivors. We all look at each other, me now standing 20 feet away from the towmotor, and we begin to howl out laughing. I got called Froggy, Steve Austin, anything superhuman related. My brother's crying he's laughing so hard, the owner of the forklift is in tears, and here we are, knocked the power out, broke the crane, flipped the towmotor over, and never accomplished ONE single task that was on the agenda that day.
I really don't have any good, meaningful lessons to be taught here, except take everything I just explained, and don't do ANY of it.:naughty
Thanx for the time.
He purchases a late 50's vintage Lorain crawler, not sure of the series, but remember we called it a 15 ton. The thing sat for God only knows how many years, until the day J.M.Rosa Const. in North Haven, Ct. has their downsizing auction. The crane was basically just a lawn ornament at their yard, but the mechanics got it fired, raised the boom, and walked it over into the auctioneer's line.
Big brother buys it, and brings it to his first paying job, an old dairy that was being dismantled.He gets hired to pick the air conditioners and various other components off of the dairy roof. Fortunately for him, me, and the general public, the first pick to be made was of an old refrigerated truck body, the one's built in the 60's that were REAL steel, and thick and heavy.
We rig the body which is on the ground with a spreader bar, and Jimmy gets up in the seat of his new honey to start the lifting process.
I should point out that he never did a single thing to this old relic; still had the original cables, the tracks were seized but we put the kerosene and drain oil to them and got them to at least roll, and it only steered one way.
He takes up the slack in the main cable, everybody's standing within 25 feet of this scene for some reason. The truck body makes a few creaks and cracks but never moves one inch vertically, when all of a sudden...KAAAABOOOOMMMM!!!! The gantry cables holding the main boom up snap, sending the boom straight down onto the 3 phase 440V lines. People scattering in every direction, but Jimmy's sitting in the crane with his feet off the floor, hands at "I give up" position, keeping off the steel levers and controls. Kind of a vertical "fetal position" I'd say...
The owner scrambles over to kill the main power. Now, we have to pick the boom up off the ground so Jimmy can walk the crane backwards and get it out of the way, so the power company can come and rehang and re-supply the power.I jump onto the forklift that was there, a 10K lb. Hyster, to do the lifting of the end of the boom, and walk in sequence with Jim as he does, trying to travel at the same speed, etc.
Everything was going fine for about 50 feet, when all of a sudden, Jim pulls the steering clutch to innocently turn the crane to miss something, and it took that Hyster forklift and flipped that son of a gun over violently onto it's side, in the blink of an eye.
Now I've always been slightly chubby since birth, at that time, maybe 30 lbs. over gross. But as soon as danger is present, this chubby fella can move like Michael Jackson. That's just what I did too. When I felt that forklift going over, it wasn't long making a decision. I bailed off of that thing like the Six Million Dollar Man, landing far enough away that I was out of the danger zone completely, and landed on my feet.
Everything came to a stop once again to account for the survivors. We all look at each other, me now standing 20 feet away from the towmotor, and we begin to howl out laughing. I got called Froggy, Steve Austin, anything superhuman related. My brother's crying he's laughing so hard, the owner of the forklift is in tears, and here we are, knocked the power out, broke the crane, flipped the towmotor over, and never accomplished ONE single task that was on the agenda that day.
I really don't have any good, meaningful lessons to be taught here, except take everything I just explained, and don't do ANY of it.:naughty
Thanx for the time.