Too cool for a headache rack?

I spent a week in DC, in a neighborhood just above the triangle(where the Prez lives). I was hauling beams that supported the street while they were building the subway.They were 63 to 67' long and weighed plenty(covered with mud and plates welded to them). I was in a rush one day and only threw 3 chains(bad,bad move). As I was crossing the Potomac river(it's 8 or so lanes on the Md side)some nitwit came across 3 empty lanes and stopped dead right in front of me.All I heard and felt was ping, swoosh, thunk and the whole cab shake.The center chain's suicide binder had popped and the beam slid right into the headache rack. It was a steel one and beings I was in a K100, who knows where that beam would have wound up. And that is why I love headache racks, no matter how ugly they are. Now maybe if I had secured the beam the right way,it might never have happened, but back then, securement wasn't the art it is today and I got complacent. Oh yeah, it sucks not being able to make a right or left turn,lol.

 

Why not a heavy duty built movable aluminum headache rack? Something you can chain down directly in front of the load so the load can't build inertia.

 

If you do that you might as well belly wrap and secure to the trailer..... ends up being more work consisting of more time that some don’t want to put into it.

 

I think some people (definitely many outside the skateboard game) may be mistaking what they think the function of a headache rack should be for that of a bulkhead... they're really two different things. A headache rack stores our tools and equipment and is mounted to the catwalk behind the truck cab or/and bolted if not welded onto the nose of a flatbed trailer. A bulkhead on the other hand is often built out of our 4x4s usually either one or two stacks, 4 sticks high, chained and bound directly in front (or in the case of some jackhole shippers) as close to the front of shorter metal loads as possible, mostly greasy bar, steel plate, angles, channels, flats and things of that nature. (I have seen some guys build a bulkhead to help keep suicide coils in place.) The point of a bulkhead is to keep the load from even slightly sliding forward in the event of a hard brake movement.

 

I always thought of a bulkhead as the wall mounted to the front of a skateboard or a van for that matter, either permanent or removable in pockets. Its also a wall between compartments in a ship or a wall that people who live on water build to keep their land from washing away(I used to move cranes for a "bulkheader").

 

That's military nomenclature--we talkin' bout trucking here! Lol...just kidding. Yeah the Navy (& Marines & Coast Guard) call their walls bulkheads, too.

The type we're talking about in here is the type secured to the deck--and yes I have seen removable ones affixed to stake pockets in the rub rails. I ain't got one, though--not that I really need one since I don't run much in the way of general commodities these days (YES!). So yes, you're right on that, too.

 

I used to haul a lot of 80 foot joints of pipe on a pipe dolly. Typically the front bunk on these setups are only about 2 maybe 2 1/2 feet wide, so when you load the dolly the tandem tires hang down a little over the front and back. you could just put a limited number of straps on this setup. Dropping off the mountains it was not unusual at all for pipe to slide up into the headache racks where you couldn't turn. My set up was different and much better in more ways than one, my bunk was 8 foot or a little more, with all the winches I had room to weld on it, so I thought I was immune to this problem. WRONG, it was getting late in the season and the snow was melting off of the pipes, and refreezing causing them to be covered in slick ice without being even, so even gut wrapping every layer several times would let some of the middle pipes not be tied solid, these pipes were on dunage with cutouts so the pipe could not be pulled together.
The pipe never got into my headache rack, but was almost worse, my lifelines come out of my headache rack 4 feet above the frame, one pipe got close enough that as I rounded a curve coming down a pretty good grade it busted the gladhand off the headache rack, dynomiting my dolly brakes, which I didn't notice other than the load was trying to come around, I corrected and it went the other way, only then did I notice my tires were not turning and proceeded to getting her whoed up. There are no maxis on a dolly, so I drained the air tanks and went on to a pullout and spliced my emergency line together with what I had in the truck. Ok, good to go and back on the road, I thought. till I started off one of the hills dropping down to the yukon, and had to use my brakes, as soon as I touched them, drives would lock up and trailer would start around, have to get a gear and get back under it, try to slow down and start the process all over, so pretty wild ride till I got across the river and could stop her. I had never noticed, but it had actually broken my service gladhand off to, but not all the way so it just folded back and looked normal untill I physically grabbed it and bent it, so when I applied brakes it would just bend and blow all the air out, with none going to the trailer. That whole situation was very close to a bad deal.

 

Most shippers won't let you use chains on pipe. Depends on the pipe and what it's meant for, I haul pipe with straps.

If you know what your doing a headache rack is of no real importance aside from storing equipment. Not a single headache rack sold today will protect you from jack. You want real protection?

Go to a welding shop and have a guy build you a custom one made of 100% steel. It will be to god #### heavy but it will save you. These aluminum and SS panel ones are for storage and show.

Period!