Good fabrication work is one of those things that shows itself by not failing. It exemplifies how good it is by never making you think about its quality. That may sound weird, but stick with me for a minute here. Properly constructed, a drag car, mud truck, road racer, or stock car simply functions as advertised or at least as well as the driver can work his equipment. When it doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain thinga gets really weird, really quick. Take this video for example. The driver of this huge truck is clearly a maniac because what he is trying to do is essentially drive his rig up a sheer cliff in order to get it to complete a backflip and wow the assembled crowd at this event. What he actually ends up doing is not completing any sort of stunt, wrecking his truck, and probably crossing the shop who built it off the Christmas card list. Unless he constructed it and in that case, he’s likely just sore and angry.
The driver of the truck had to have known that his goose was cooked when he saw the tops of the shocks coming flying up through the hood. With the axle now mounted mounted to nothing, the whole assembly got its own plan together and in less than a second things rapidly get bad. With the entire front assembly, suspension and all detatched from the frame and flopping around, the only thing the driver can do it tuck in and wait for his truck to smash back to earth as a heap of busted parts.
The truck sure looked up to the task of this vild stunt but once the rubber met the road, it was another story. That is the interesting thing about any sort of hand built vehicle. Stuff can appear to be fine but when it is put to the test, ugly deficiencies in quality and construction will show themselves. Hats off to the people who make a living building trucks like this and hats back on for the people who constructed this particular truck!
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE THIS MEGA TRUCK BECOME A MEGA-HELPLESS TWO WHEELER WHEN THE FRONT AXLE JUMPS SHIP FROM THE REST OF THE RIG –
jesus, what was that held on with, chewing gum?? it didn’t even take a hit, just fell off…
Home-built mig-weld project…and have a look at the front tie rod in the still pic, stock off of something-or-other and ready to be the next thing to go… He’ll figure it out but should maybe stick to rat rods for now.
Must have read the book ‘ Welding For Dummies’ and applied all that he learned.
Couldn’t be chewing gum – it takes brains to chew gum!
This guy aint’ got the brains to be an idiot….
Most likely it was – shall we say – a hand made sticky white substance….
A little too rednecked for me to try. There is a link at the end to a successful backflip, Jimmy Durr Mega Truck Backflip
Looks like learning to do that would be expensive.
I get the criticism, but I really need to see the truck before I join the stampede to judgment. That truck landed hard enough to bend the rear axle and the wheels – frankly, if you bend 2 1/2 ton axles that means that you’re getting well beyond what the metal is capable of handling. Thus, this looks far more like a material-choice failure than a weld failure.
With that said, a commenter on YouTube said that the break came when it hit the lip (that was designed to flip the truck) – which, those are about the weakest point on the truck and most likely to break.
What is amazing, though, for all the haters – that the front axle stayed attached – frankly, if it was a terrible/hack job that front axles should have detached. Heck, Bob Chandler has had some similar wrecks – and I don’t see you all hating on him for them.
and on the most-likely-to-break… in normal 4x4ing, you’re not trying to flip the truck so if that weld/hoop/shock breaks all that means is gravity will take the body down to the axle…. no real big deal.
Dumb and Dumber….
That’s what happens when you make your suspension out of PVC pipe.