another lesson learned

[Fredward]

Guys,
Just be careful with these ropes. They work fantastic. But in the event of either a rope failure or a failure of the hitch point on one of the vehicles, the rope comes catapulting back at you with the remaining piece of metal from the other vehicle attached. I;ve seen it crash through the windshield. Also, I've seen it cut the hood of a Ford LN9000 truck right in half and nearly kill the driver. He was "bouncing" a combine out of a mud hole in a wheat field.

As Richard said, the energy stored in that rope is thousands and thousands of pounds of force. If it will pull a 30,000 pound bus out of the sand from a dead stop, imagine what it will do with a 600 pound hitch that just ripped loose from a 4x4 dually pickup.!!!!!!

Fred

[buswarrior]

Yes, no place for spectators anywhere in the recoil accidental snap zone.

Get them way out 90 degrees to the middle somewhere, not near the two vehicles.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[niles500]

In our old days of 4x4ing we would throw a tire half way down on the snatch'em strap - that way if the strap let loose it would wrap around the tire and not kill anyone in the recoil zone- FWIW

[Lin]

As I mentioned earlier, I am apprehensive about the road to my new house.  It is a county road.  A tremendous number of roads in that area are county dirt roads.  They are generally well packed.  The part of this road that I mentioned may be a problem is a depression with a wash of relatively loose sand.  Cars and trucks go through it all the time.  The tractor trailer that delivered our possession went through it last week.  I suppose the bus will to, but was thinking of laying some old carpet down on the worst part before trying to cross.  Am I being too cautious?

[JackConrad]

If it is a small area of sand, the secret is momentum. Don't slow down as you are going through the sand and definately do no stop in the sand.  Jack

[cody]

Good information here on this thread, the idea of a bus being not for off pavement use would prevent any buses from cruising the Upper Penninsula of Michigan lol.  We have many secondary roads that are not paved and some that are interesting lol.  Jack is right, the secret to a soft spot is to roll thru it with the momentum of the bus carrying it thru, but not to charge thru it, don't ask me how I know that lol. And I have seen snap lines break or come dislodged and fly back, I've seen the tire trick used several times, I even used one to pull out a UPS truck that had gotten eaten by a quagily with my daughters subaru, jerked it right out cleanly.  During spring breakup, normally solid roads can become infested with quagily's that lay in wait for unsuspecting cars and trucks and eat them instantly.  It's a wreckers version of heaven.