What have you had fall off of your trailer/truck that wasn't supposed to?

Just curious, have you ever lost anything of your truck or trailer that was supposed to fall off?

 

I was once riding with a friend to put in his 16' boat at the local marina. We were doing maybe 40... all of a sudden, the boat and trailer pass us on the left!!! So my friend slows and the rig crosses in front of us and eventually stops against the curb. All I know is that I wasn't the one to hook up the trailer. No damage to anything expect for the back of our shorts and some gouges on the trailer tongue.

Bob

 

In 1985 I was building a dragster and was to the stage of mocking up the engine in the car, so I loaded up a bare 361 Mopar block in the back of my 1938 International hot rod pick-up to haul across town to where we were building the car. About 10 blocks from home I punch the throttle a little too hard leaving a light, when I hear a slight noise. I look in my rear view mirror in time to see the 361 flying out the back of my tailgate less truck at about windshield height toward an early '80's Mustang that was behind me. Lucky he was paying attention and he swerved out of the way in time. I pull around the corner and park, hop out and run back to where the block is and the Mustang guy is trying to drag the block to the side of the road.He ends up helping me re load it . I made a tailgate for the truck soon after.

 

Towing a 68 firebird home ,Heard a bang and looked in my rearview mirror to see the tongue of towbar standing up,,I thought that's not right, the BALL fell off,, don't know how it happened and this towbar had no safety chain..My dad had given me some 1" rope, said there should be something on just in case. Slowed slowly to a stop, only minor dent in bumper of the bird. Real lucky,,next stop 100 miles down the road all but ONE bolt in the bumper had rattled loose and fallen off, this tow bar was only attached to bumper,was starting to wonder if the bird was just not meant for me but got it home and kept it for 22 years

 

Are there things that are supposed to fall off your trailer/truck?
Paul

 

I like it, lol...

My brother cleans out my dad's garage and fills up the 9' bed of his GMC to the hilt, it even had woden sides on it that were 3' tall. So the last thing he loads is this old dresser, I still remember it since it was painted silver. It was 4' wide and 5' tall on legs. It was the last thing to go on and may or may not have been tied securely.

Well, my bro decided to go out with the whole loaded truck to get his drink on. He arrives at his destination, walks around the back of the truck... NO dresser.

I met up with him at the bar and he relates the story, wonder where it fell off? I follow him home.. we come to where it hit the pavement. This massive dresser was reduced to kindling, not one piece was bigger than a paint stirrer...

Bob

 

This happened on the way to the Autorama on Thursday,How do you get stains out of truck seat?

 

my license plate fell off luckily someone stopped me at the next light and told me it fell off.

 

Yes. Junk tires and scrap that you can't haul to a landfill and no one will take them, so they fall out of the bed of my truck when no one is looking.

 

Auxiliary fuel tank out of my 66 Chevy pick up while taking home a date the next morning. My Aunt was on her way to work going the opposite direction and almost hit it.

Her: What was that?
Me: Just the fuel tank.
Her: (Concerned look on her face, wide eyes) Oh.
Me: Not the one we're using, hahahahaha.

 

Good save there. I hope it didn't mess up much of your work on the car.

 

AND people wonder why i'm paranoid when i tow stuff,
if you look at my signature you'll see picture of when i bought it home 6 chains/double wrapped actually holding the car down & 2 come-a-longs,a few sml ratchet straps to keep wind from lifting the hood & trunk,i even went as far as to bolt the chain together just in case,then there was the 3' truckers ratchet strap that i put over the frame,
i've only lost 1 thing out of my trucks ever! a triple stack shop tool box-filled to the max !
{3 hours picking up tools in the middle of the road will teach ya}

 

had a pin come out of a reciever hitch once and the boat trailer followed behind the car as we pulled off the side of the road it followed and stopped like it was still attached. borrowed a buddys 5x8 trailer to haul my sand drag atv and his trailer had no suspension and looked back and the wheelie bar tire was rolling on the asphault with the 900$ set if paddles about a half inch from touchiing the pavement. luckily the straps had cought on other parts of the trailer as it slid back

 

Heading out to the Mopar Nationals one year the van was so full I could not see out the rear view mirror. About 2 blocks from the house I realized the back door was open. Went back and our suitcase was laying in the middle of the 4 lane street in front of my house. Luckily it was early with no traffic, If the door has swung shut and latched I would have never known where the suitcase went!

 

I picked an ot newer truck for cheap. Had a grenaded diff. Loaded it on the trailer and my buddy attached a big nylon tie down strap on the bumper instead of the diff. Good thing I set the park brake as the spring acttion of the truck snapped the strap. Truck didn't move thankfully.

 

My air conditioner fell out of our beautiful old Shasta Stratoflyte camper window after it fishtailed down the freeway, flipped on it's side and then back upright again. Does that count?

I rated a, "Jam Factor 8" on the local news - my highest score to date! I would have gotten a, "9" but cars were still able to squeeze by in the median. I guess maybe next time I should try dousing a trailer load of fireworks with gasoline to raise the score.



You can't see it very well from the angle of the picture, but the top of the camper separated from the frame. This is a picture of where the air conditioner used to be mounted. I didn't get a picture of the A/C because my cell phone ran out of batteries before it landed.

I was able to repurpose the trailer as a flat-bed utility trailer after straightening the hitch a little.

Amazingly, the air conditioner still works and does a good job (in our tent).

 

Where do you live? I'd like to return some of the items you lost near my house.

 

Yes - If your car steers on the right and has the word, "Lucas" written on anything.

 

Just last night I scored a 1 HP hotdog air compressor and a box full of driver & drill bits that fell out of a truck,,,

but these stories deeply disturb me since I lost a very near and dear friend about 20 years ago due to some jacksass's incompetence.

He was out for a Sunday putt on his scooter when a trailer with no safety chains and the wrong size ball hit him head on, tractor that wasn't tied down properly flipped onto him and caught fire.

Just a lil something to think about when you're in a hurry to get on the road.

 

Damn man, Im starting to think your car doesnt want nice paint...

 

My buddy has TWICE unhooked the tie downs and winch hook on boat trailers before backing down the ramp only to watch the boat roll off the trailer onto the ramp. The first time it was my boat and we had to winch it back on. Minor fiberglass repair.
The second time it was his boat with his wife sitting in it. The ramp was steep enough so that when it hit the deck it just kept sliding backwards all the way down to the water until it was floating like we planned it that way.
Did I mention the ramp was right beside the deck of the bar which gave everyone a great view?
I couldn't stop laughing, his wife didn't see the humour for some reason.

 

About 25 years ago a buddy calls up and says his old lady had left and took everything out of the house. He was moving in with his brother and wanted to borrow my trailer to haul a van. Knowing my heavy trailer and his van would be way too much for his Ranchero to pull the 50 miles to his brother's place I suggested he use one of my trucks.
So he takes my old truck and my very nice trailer and loads his van on the trailer. He loaded a couple of dirt bikes in the back of my truck. Everything else he owned was in the van. As he got on the interstate and was going through the gears he ran over something and cut a trailer tire just as he was entering a construction zone where the funneled the south bound traffic onto the northbound side of the road. When the trailer tire got cut the trailer swayed and jackknifed. When it jackknifed the trailer came unhitched and the safety chains broke. The truck rolled and landed on it's wheels in the median facing the wrong direction. The trailer hit the Jersey barriers shattering one of them. The van came off the trailer and landed balancing on it's side on the Jersey barriers. The trailer, after hitting the barriers made a 90 degree turn (in the air) and landed on the roof of the truck.
When my buddy was telling me what happened he said it scared the crap out of him when the trailer started swaying. He said when the truck landed on it's wheels he thought to himself, I got through that ok.....then the trailer landed on the roof of the truck. He shut the truck off, put the keys on the dash, buckled his seatbelt and passed out. He said something damn near ripped his ear off. I told him that would have been my T square, and it was bent in a shape that roughly matched the shape of his head.
When it was all over my truck was junk. My bedside tool boxes were junk. Some of my tools were missing. One axle, the tool box, and tire rack one my trailer were junk but the trailer itself was in amazingly good condition. His van and motorcycles were junk. Someone on the ambulance crew or at the hospital cleaned out his wallet. The towing bill was crazy because they needed a heavy duty wrecker to lift the trailer off the truck roof.
I don't loan my trucks or trailers anymore.

 

In a small town in Massachusetts a few years ago I saw a guy in a pickup truck with a garden tractor in the back take off from a stop sign really fast. The machine came out of the box, he heard the noise and slammed on the brakes. The tractor rear ended the pickup demolishing the tractor and doing lots of damage to the pickup.

It was funny to watch although I do not think the guys saw any humor in it at all.

 

Leaf debris. And never enough of it.

 

Hey, Ive been looking for you!

 

I had my roundy car on a tandem axle trailer going through a residential neighborhood at about 12 at night. As I came up to a "T" intersection stop sign I saw a blur to my left .... a wheel was passing me up, rolling through the intersection at breakneck speed. It flys through the intersection, hits the curb, goes over a chainlink fence, and slams into the stucco wall of a school, impaled itself about 7 feet up the wall .... yes, it was my trailer wheel, no I didnt stop to retrieve it. ..... alittle advice, always retork your lugnuts!

QUESTION : Is there a statute of limitations on these sort of things????

 

Came out of a car auction one night and hit the interstate. Soon after getting up to speed my bedliner blew out. I guess someone really wanted those little chrome thingies that screwed into the stake pockets to hold it in.......WTF. It damaged 2 big trucks, a real headache.

 

Boat ramps are the best entertainment money can't buy. On a slow Friday evening, me and my buddy would take a 12-pack and 2 lawn chairs down to the local ramp to watch the show. Tried it a few years back less the beer.. now they have it manned by the town and they chased us off.

Bob

 

I was buzzing down a bypass/freeway in a brand new Chevy pickup when I heard a bang and the truck's ass kicks up. WTF was that? I look in the rearview expecting to see a piece of debris on the road, nothing there. (WTF again?) I continue to watch the mirror when a wheel comes out of the sky, bounces off the pavement and disappears again. Three or four times I see it land in traffic and bugger off. By this time I'm pulled over, still watching the loose wheel go boing, boing, boing. It bounces off the freeway, across an open field, and last I saw, over a wooden fence into a residential area.

The stupid cable/hanger failed. The spare fell off, momentarily wedged itself under the bumper and took flight like an oversized Tiddlywink. Thankfully, traffic was light and nobody was executed by Goodyear guillotine. I tried, but never found where the spare "landed". GM refused warranty, claiming "somebody" overtightened the cable.

 

back in the 70's while driving on I 275 in Cincy, I lost a 40 Ford hood that blew out of the back of my truck. I had it upside down but not tied down. damn, that was a nice hood