Soooo yea.... I almost died today

[thirdgenlxi]

Just as the title says..... it was waaaaay too close for comfort!! And no this doesn't involve the bike at all, she was sitting in the parking lot waiting patiently for 5:00 until I could ride her home. This one involved a 6 wheeled beast, actually.

Anyways, for those that don't know, I work as a Ford diesel tech. I'm at work today, finishing up a headgasket job on a 2006 Ford F-350 King Ranch, 6.0L diesel 4x4 crew cab long bed dually. Big truck, just like the one seen below.... it weighs in at 10,500 lbs empty



Headgaskets are a very common thing on these trucks with this engine.... I've done about a million of them before. I always find it easiest to just lift the cab off the truck rather than pulling the engine out or doing them in cab (sucks!!!!). Just as seen below (this was on a different truck I did headgaskets on)





So today I finish all the engine work that I needed to do while the cab was off, and lowered the cab back down onto the frame. On the crew cabs there are 8 body mounts, 6 of which are inside the cab, and the front 2 are in the very front right by the radiator and intercooler. I finished everything in the engine bay that needed to be done, then the last thing I put on were the 2 18mm nuts for the front body mounts. I was going to back the truck out some before doing the inside body mounts because I couldn't open the doors due to the lift posts. I tighten the front 2 body mounts, then lift the whole truck up in the air to finish up a couple things underneath and put the running boards back on before I backed it up and out of the stall. I had already raised it up once already so the rack was already set underneath the truck. I'm very picky about how I set the rack and always double check to make sure the little feet are where they are supposed to be before lifting it up. They were, so up I went... lifted the truck about 7 feet or so off the ground (I'm 6ft tall and I was holding the running boards over my head to put them on, and walking freely upright under the truck). Now on the Ford trucks the way the frame is you have to put these little extender things on the rear arms of the lift to raise the little 'feet' up so that the truck will go up level. I put it up and I'm bolting the drivers side running board back on, then all of a sudden I hear a BOOM and see the truck shift pretty fast. It was the weirdest thing... I didn't even think about anything I just immediately dropped down to the ground and rolled out from under the lift. Everything was like slow motion and I could see the truck falling as I was rolling out from under it. This all took place in prob a split seconds time.

I get up and analyze the situation.... the LR tires are sitting on the ground in the middle of my stall almost on the sidewalls, the RR tires are probably 5 feet or so in the air, the truck is sitting at about a 45 degree angle cocked to the left, the cab came completely off the frame EXCEPT for the 2 body mounts that I had just tightened in the very front, so it's tilted forward and to the left. Very bottom part of the cab was about level with the top part of the truck bed. When the frame popped the LR lift arm out from under it and the rest popped out after, they all caught on the cab and held it. The ONLY thing holding the frame/engine/trans/etc up in the air in the front were those 2 rubber body mounts.

In this pic, it's the 2 studs sticking up in the front just behind the bumper. When you lower the body down there's an 18mm nut that goes onto each from the top. That's all that was holding the entire front of the truck from crashing down on top of me



Had those 2 mounts not been tightened, the cab would have completely seperated from the frame, and the whole truck minus cab would have come straight down to the ground and squished me flat (remember that's 10,500 lbs). I GOT FU***NG LUCKY!!!!

The funniest part about this whole thing.... the truck was running the entire time. Seeing it sitting there all discombobulated and pointing every which angle, cab off the frame, and it's just running along like no big deal..... clak clak clak clak clak clak clak, hahahah. I finally had to climb up and shut it off.

So.... that was my excitement for the day, definitely got my heart pumping! I really did get super lucky not only that I'm alive, but didn't even get hurt at all. After a little intestivating I've found that the extender feet that they use on these lifts are super cheezy and loose. They have a big threaded nut welded onto the end of the arm, then the little foot screws down into it. Then there's the extenders, which I have to use on these trucks, which slides over that 'foot' and has yet another nut welded into it with another foot screwed on. So by the time they're fully extended there's so much play in it that it can lean quite a ways! Which is what happened here... it was fully under the frame where I placed it (where it's supposed to be), but when I picked it up it cocked the whole extended foot piece, and the weight of the frame just pushed it right out from under it. Works fine for cars and stuff, but definitely a very poor design for big heavy trucks like these. I'll definitely be talking with my boss tomorrow about a different style of arms for my lift