This is only a tractor forum, (biggest and the best of course!!),...but I'm wondering if we have so many stories to tell on the subject,..... what sort of stories could places like GM and Volvo etc tell us?
Which also makes me wonder both HOW and WHERE those assembly line type companies "deal" with their wheels? Surely they all must have some sickening stories to tell, . . "IF" they were allowed to tell 'em?
AND,...they are Union shops,...so how does the Union treat this extremely dangerous situation?
Would be interesting to hear from someone who is connected to the industry that could enlighten us on the matter,...one way or another?
How do you feel driving on a multi-lane highway and look over at the transport passing you, or just sitting beside you at a traffic stop,....and nortice it has split-ring wheels, . .(that could, or might just explode at the next pothole or bump?????) Never seem to "hear" of such things, but just knowing it "could", . . . makes me want to get clear of it!
CHEERS!
. . tug
We had one truck leave our shop and, about half-a-mile down the road, a ring blew off and went through the wall of a house, after first scooping a trench across the front yard.
We had another make it to the next town, fifteen miles, the ring let go and took out the gas-pumps at a filling-station.
One went through the roof, not slowing down as it took out the steel rafters.
We had this one old slow fat guy working for us, comical as all get out; he couldn't hear it thunder.
UNTIL........, he rolled under a dump-truck to let down a hydraulic bottle-jack.
The rims were the worst of the lot = BUDDs = the kind where fully half of the wheel sort of connects to the other half by four tiny little nubs.
When the tire contacted the ground, the ring blew off, wrapping around the big leaf-springs right beside his head.
Being a dump-truck, there was old sticky black-top coated all over the springs and everything else under there, with millions of little rock chips embedded in this tarry mess.
The blast blew this shrapnel through his hide, making his entire head look like hamburger, blood all over.
He came crawling out and staggering around.
We mopped away the worst of the blood and picked the fragments of his eyeglasses out of his face, and doped him good with mercurichrome.
For days he complained of a constant ringing in his ears; but, when the ringing finally cleared, he could hear a pin drop a hundred feet away.
He never was hard of hearing again after that episode.
I sort of hoped that those who are always over-ruling my judgement would see the light and decide to quit messing with them; that was over twenty years ago and we are still fixing them today.
