Very Bummed

Hang in there wyld--don't let it get you down. At least you learnt from it and can go on and next time you will be more aware of it. Keep your head up--its gonna be ok

 

I totally understand how you feel. I'm sorry it happened to you. I had a preventable and was to embarassed to post about it on here. Just a complete dumb rookie mistake I did. So my hats off to you on owning it and having the courage to post as it could help some of us rookies watch out for that mistake.

On, my preventable all i'm gonna say is don't trust green lights at docks, get out and make sure the bumper lock released your trailer bumper.

 

Yup--i think we all learn to not trust the dock workers--always check and be sure its released. I have had that happen but had no damage in the process so its all good. Live and learn as they say!

 

Unfortunatly mine had alot of damage. lets see if I can figure out how to post a picture.

 

sorry didn't mean to hijack your thread, but thats the damage I did, didnt even feel any hesitation in the truck,

 

To both Wyld and Robert.....things happen and we learn from them. I suppose there are drivers out there that have never made mistakes but frankly I don't believe them when they say they haven't. Believe it or not there will come a day y'all will be able to laugh about this incidents. It won't be today or even next week but there will be a day you'll laugh.

And for the record: my "stupid" mistake was getting stuck in loose dirt up in Page AZ. I was in a hurry to potty and wasn't as careful as I should have been. It wasn't mud or sand or anything reasonable just dirt. I felt like a blooming idiot.

Put it behind you, learn from it and drive on.

 

I must say Robert, That ICC bumper was not welded on correctly. You always weld angle supports if it isn't just a 6" triangle to give it horizontal strength. Who ever welded that on was lacking experience.

Yes, you are right about the green light. I seen both scenario's of a green light and the jaws locked and a red light and they are open. Get in the habit of when pulling your wheel chocks, look at it.

 

Hang in there it will get better...

 

I was in a dock door like that not too long ago. You slip back to the dock, the trailer door slides along a sort of block wall that ends shorter than the trailer door when the trailer is docked thereby causing the trailer door to pop behind the wall such that when you pull out the door will be torn off. Stupid design. I had to have someone go back there on the blind side and push the trailer door hard against the trailer to clear that block wall til I could pull ahead about 10 inches.

I agree, it wasn't welded very well and appears to missing some gussets. Typically a good weld is always going to be stronger than the parent steel it is welded to. So if it was welded properly it would bend somewhere or break, but not at the weld first. Of course this is just chalked up to driver's fault not faulty welding.

Going off memory here-- most of your mild steels are good for about 60,000 pounds per square inch tensile strength. Picking up a typical all around welding rod 7018-- the first two numbers represent tensile strength of the weld-- 70,000 psi the third number is like whether it is a fast fill, fast cool, type of rod IIRC, and the fourth number is positions the rod is good for (in this case 7018 as opposed to 7014 for example) welding in which is all postions- flat,vertical, overhead, plate, pipe etc.

There are 60 series rods as well, like 6011, 6013, which are good for 60,000 psi but have very little flux on them and are good for welding in certain situations like down in a mudhole trying to patch a shatpipe.

Then you have the 90 series like 9018 good for 90,000 psi which the rodbusters use for welding up their rebar.

To get your 'unlimited' welding certification one would use two 1 inch thick pieces of steel 6 inches long 4 inches wide, with beveled edges of 22.5 degrees each for a combined opening of 45 degrees and using a backing strip of 3/8 flatsteel behind, fill that void up with good welds, no grinding allowed if you screw up-- then they put that test coupon through an Xray scan or an Ultrasound monitor- no kidding, they spread this gel on it just like a mother's belly and run a scanner over it, then bend it looking for stress cracks. If you run the test successfully verical, they certify you for flat but you'd still have to take and do another test in the overhead position and horizontal position for those certs. Then you start getting into pipe, the big one everyone wants is the 6G cert which is taking two pipes, each beveled at 22.5 degrees, prop the unit up at 45 degrees on your table and weld the 2 pipes together and hope the weld passes, certifies you for any and all positions whether plate or pipe.