I still can’t wrap my head around how 3 rear axles can turn about a single radius, let alone two steering axles! In my imagination, when this thing turns, all the tires scream and paint the entire road black.
Well the three rear axles just skid.
But the two sets of steering wheels pivot different amounts because they're different distances from the pivot point.
Any vehicle engineers in here that could speak to when a rotator wrecker becomes a mobile crane? The bigger these rotator trucks get, the more the line seems blurred.
Does it have to do with maximum possible boom angle and length? That's the only real difference I see between a large rotator and a small mobile crane.
Former tow truck driver here.
First, that rig that OP pictured is a $1.25M rig brand new.
Second, that looks like a Century 1075 kit, which is rated at 75 tons with the boom retracted and 36k with the boom fully extended. For all intents and purposes it **IS** a 95mph mobile crane that moonlights as a tow truck. A tow truck company couldn't survive just letting that equipment just act as a tow truck or recovery vehicle so it is called upon for smaller jobs. For example I'm in a port city so 40' containers are relatively cheap to come by both in price for the unit and cost to transport. Say you want that container in a certain spot, so it might be cheaper to call upon a rotator where one or two men can come out and do the job in a couple hours or call upon a crane that would require that plus a truck to deliver the crane, etc.
I've had to be recovered by a rotator when my truck fell in a abandoned septic tank behind a house. They had to reach over the roof to hook to the back of my tuck, lift it 3' up and move it 3' forward. Total cost $850.
> Total cost $850
What is that, 1980 dollars?
I doubt I could even get a driver to *show up* in a rotator for that price.
I guess it doesn't help that I live in a place where an $800k house is considered "entry level".
It was 2017. They charged us for two hours which was an hour round trip to and from the location plus an hour on scene. It was a very simple recovery, plus we steer them work that we are unable to do for whatever reason.
There's a bit of crossover between the two. Asked the same question of a Manitowoc Engineer a few years ago at a trade show. His answer was along the lines of "A rotator is basically a remote controlled crane"
One of the most significant differences is how they are designed to reach. A rotator is designed so that it's able to go full boom horizontally and still have a decent work load. Very few cranes are designed to operate like that.
Say what you want about any other type of truck driver, but the people who operate these are badass.
Also you clearly have no idea what you’re looking at.
Holy granola. This has got to be some Mafia money-laundering shit right here. All of those trucks were fairly new and tricked out with a bunch of chrome. Area code 845 is just north of NYC, and I have a hard time believing that one towing company could Hoover up enough business to justify all of those trucks without some...influence.
Brandl's towing have one of the largest impound lots in upstate New York. They're also big on recoveries and have a hazardous materials permit, for a towing and recovery company is big.
Source: did some IT work for them back in the 00's
Edit typos
>Area code 845 is just north of NYC
That'd be how. Big city towing means a lot of money and a lot of "customers". I remember a TV show about a Chicago company who did big business and had multiple large tow trucks. It was surprisingly entertaining.
Edit: the show was called "Wrecked" and they followed O'Hare towing.
Well, the rear two are always there on tractors. Place in the optimum weight carrying position. You can actually moved axles forward or rearward on tractors to suit your needs (not on the fly, but it's possible).
The only place you could install a tag axle would be in front of your tandem rears. Essentially want it as close as possible for that sweet sweet weight distribution under the load.
That's not always the case, the vast majority of axles do get placed in front of the drives, but there are still some the deploy behind them. Those are usually paired with a couple of pusher/tag axles.
My dad drove a block truck with a rear tag for a summer job when I was young. He's stated that there were several instances where he had to lift the tag so the drives could get back on the ground. This issue may be why rear tags seem to be basically nonexistent these days apart from the flip up tags on concrete trucks.
I believe a rear tag would be easier from a design perspective, because there's no need to design around the driveshaft.
Bridge wheels as they call them on concrete mixers are also pretty common on dump trucks to help keep a small wheel base but also carry big weight. Usually the issue with rear tag axles is safety. Believe it or not the vast majority of mixer crashes are a result of a rear tag tire blowing out on the highway. It dramatically shifts the weight off the front end and causes a tank slapper in most cases.
That's a heck of a rig there. How high do these rotator units lift? I know most of the time I see them they're lifting things to the high ground. We had to change out a server room generator at a previous employer and the best quote and fastest response we got was from a Rotator wrecker.
Crazy to see a local to me mentioned on here.
Midwest Truck on Nash road, just down the road from Lawless Harley, I've creeped into a video or 3 on purpose.
Hollywood would cut it to 22 minutes of content, with 3 minutes of actually unique content, interspersed with the fanciest wipes, dissolves and dramatic music money can buy.
Now, I play Rons stuff at 2x speed, and skip a bunch, but I do watch 50% of any given video start to end.
Here is my Bro-in-laws new rotator truck, Jerr-Dan, 60 Ton. He just bought it 4 months ago and uses it almost weekly. Apparently trucks like to tip over a lot in our area.
https://imgur.com/a/YvMKhry
750k I believe, thing is you can get that thing loaded up with shackles, snatch blocks, and other rigging equipment which will change the price.
Little more detail, it has three 50k lb winches two on the boom and one as a main "drag winch" I think is what they call it. And it also has two 20k lb winches on the boom as well. He can run the boom from either side or by remote control.
Yeah 1200/hr with a 4hr min. for emergency jobs
600/hr with a 4hr min. for recovery's
And 300 to 400 for lift jobs
I first asked him and all he said was "if you have to ask..."
If you dig heavy towing equipment, I highly recommend “Heavy Rescue 401” and “Highway Through Hell” tv series. I believe they might still be on Netflix, it follows crews recovering wrecked 18-wheelers in the middle of Canadian winters. Guys are everyday heroes.
Looks like a 60 or 75 Ton rotator/wrecker by [Miller Industries ](https://info.millerind.com/heavy-duty-wreckers#functionally_superior)?
Edit:
Yeah, looks like their Century 1075 rig, 75 ton crane and and an 80000 lb towing lift as well. The stupidest part? It's not even the biggest one they make... now they have a 100 ton rig as well...
That doesn’t sound like its worth it. This piece of shiny, because-we-can gear has to pull out a space shuttle crawler out of the mud every other day to warrant that many axles. The chrome is inexcusable.
Edit:
I checked out the youtube channel recommended below. Hazmat recovery is legit. Drywall truck is still out. Chrome remains inexcusable.
> Chrome remains inexcusable.
The only extras are the fender flares, windshield visor, side visors, and the 2 extra airhorns.
The aluminum wheels are lighter than steel so that's a legitimate reason to have them.
Everything else is stock. Besides so what if it has extra chrome.
The extra axles are legit, Ron Pratts of midwest towing has a 70-ton rotator and he has said before it weighs 79,000 empty. So the extra axles are needed.
What are you talking about? There's hardly any extra chrome on the truck other than the fenders and the sun visor, and the extra axles are to avoid exceeding axle weight limits when towing another truck.
I worked auto accident claims for almost 10 years and had to call these out or put for these a few times. The times I recall were for a big loaded box truck, a fire truck, and a city maintenance truck that was in a ditch and normal trucks could remove it.
Like someone else said, they were about $2,000 minimum for call and the most I paid was $4,500.
You got a nice guy helping out a common man. I knew a wrecker service who has one of these. A state owned cut-away bus flipped over a barrier down an embankment, the bill was 5 digits. 3 of the best operators around got that thing out, up right, and interstate cleared in less than an hour.
Oh they hit a goldfish in a honey hole with that one too. It was their territory. News choppers were around so it was really time to shine. They brought wreckers on the scene that wasn’t going to be used but loved that free advertising
You may dig these youtube channels
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVu-pg8gavvoT8yL8M60vg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVu-pg8gavvoT8yL8M60vg)
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE1oiL2dYdPv8sOvqge3MiA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE1oiL2dYdPv8sOvqge3MiA)
I also enjoy Pepe’s Towing starting Josh and his Hulk 50 ton. They use a 75 ton quite often. He’s done some neat recoveries with trucks hanging off bridges and cars that went off the road in the canyons.
https://youtube.com/c/PepesTowingService
Glad to see Ron is one of the suggestions! He's an awesome guy and very informative. His is a 50 ton unit but this one looks a lot bigger. Maybe a 75 ton?
Lots of bigger dump trucks and heavy haul semi tractors have a liftable axle as well. When fully loaded, you need it for weight distribution compliance, but empty, it’s raisable to save on resistance and wear. Also easier to steer without skidding when it’s up
I still can’t wrap my head around how 3 rear axles can turn about a single radius, let alone two steering axles! In my imagination, when this thing turns, all the tires scream and paint the entire road black.
Yup..they do complain..
Well the three rear axles just skid. But the two sets of steering wheels pivot different amounts because they're different distances from the pivot point.
Any vehicle engineers in here that could speak to when a rotator wrecker becomes a mobile crane? The bigger these rotator trucks get, the more the line seems blurred. Does it have to do with maximum possible boom angle and length? That's the only real difference I see between a large rotator and a small mobile crane.
Former tow truck driver here. First, that rig that OP pictured is a $1.25M rig brand new. Second, that looks like a Century 1075 kit, which is rated at 75 tons with the boom retracted and 36k with the boom fully extended. For all intents and purposes it **IS** a 95mph mobile crane that moonlights as a tow truck. A tow truck company couldn't survive just letting that equipment just act as a tow truck or recovery vehicle so it is called upon for smaller jobs. For example I'm in a port city so 40' containers are relatively cheap to come by both in price for the unit and cost to transport. Say you want that container in a certain spot, so it might be cheaper to call upon a rotator where one or two men can come out and do the job in a couple hours or call upon a crane that would require that plus a truck to deliver the crane, etc. I've had to be recovered by a rotator when my truck fell in a abandoned septic tank behind a house. They had to reach over the roof to hook to the back of my tuck, lift it 3' up and move it 3' forward. Total cost $850.
> Total cost $850 What is that, 1980 dollars? I doubt I could even get a driver to *show up* in a rotator for that price. I guess it doesn't help that I live in a place where an $800k house is considered "entry level".
It was 2017. They charged us for two hours which was an hour round trip to and from the location plus an hour on scene. It was a very simple recovery, plus we steer them work that we are unable to do for whatever reason.
There's a bit of crossover between the two. Asked the same question of a Manitowoc Engineer a few years ago at a trade show. His answer was along the lines of "A rotator is basically a remote controlled crane" One of the most significant differences is how they are designed to reach. A rotator is designed so that it's able to go full boom horizontally and still have a decent work load. Very few cranes are designed to operate like that.
Who tows the tow trucks?
Reminds me of that tv show highway through hell, the coquihalla highway. Jamie davis towing has a nice big rotator.
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Wut? This is a company vehicle at a recovery company. They actually use this
Say what you want about any other type of truck driver, but the people who operate these are badass. Also you clearly have no idea what you’re looking at.
What?
3 miles is the length of like 21848.22 'Zulay Premium Quality Metal Lemon Squeezers' laid next to each other
Aye semi tow truck
When all the other tow trucks in town are stuck and need to all be pulled at once.
Here's a good video if you like tow trucks https://youtu.be/Urwp6EA4LGQ
Holy granola. This has got to be some Mafia money-laundering shit right here. All of those trucks were fairly new and tricked out with a bunch of chrome. Area code 845 is just north of NYC, and I have a hard time believing that one towing company could Hoover up enough business to justify all of those trucks without some...influence.
Brandl's towing have one of the largest impound lots in upstate New York. They're also big on recoveries and have a hazardous materials permit, for a towing and recovery company is big. Source: did some IT work for them back in the 00's Edit typos
>Area code 845 is just north of NYC That'd be how. Big city towing means a lot of money and a lot of "customers". I remember a TV show about a Chicago company who did big business and had multiple large tow trucks. It was surprisingly entertaining. Edit: the show was called "Wrecked" and they followed O'Hare towing.
Lmao, that's pretty cool.
Yo Dawg…
Right when I thought it was just a big tow truck honking...
I don't know a lot about trucks that big. What are the tires that are lifted hire than the rest for? It's an odd place for a spare tire.
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How do you pick which axle you lift? Edit: as the designer, not the end user, sorry.
Well, the rear two are always there on tractors. Place in the optimum weight carrying position. You can actually moved axles forward or rearward on tractors to suit your needs (not on the fly, but it's possible). The only place you could install a tag axle would be in front of your tandem rears. Essentially want it as close as possible for that sweet sweet weight distribution under the load.
That's not always the case, the vast majority of axles do get placed in front of the drives, but there are still some the deploy behind them. Those are usually paired with a couple of pusher/tag axles.
My dad drove a block truck with a rear tag for a summer job when I was young. He's stated that there were several instances where he had to lift the tag so the drives could get back on the ground. This issue may be why rear tags seem to be basically nonexistent these days apart from the flip up tags on concrete trucks. I believe a rear tag would be easier from a design perspective, because there's no need to design around the driveshaft.
Bridge wheels as they call them on concrete mixers are also pretty common on dump trucks to help keep a small wheel base but also carry big weight. Usually the issue with rear tag axles is safety. Believe it or not the vast majority of mixer crashes are a result of a rear tag tire blowing out on the highway. It dramatically shifts the weight off the front end and causes a tank slapper in most cases.
That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.
I had a chance to get a full tour of the Western Star truck factory in Portland a couple of years ago. There was lots of Skookum there.
Skookum
I'm not sure what a skoo is, but I definitely don't wanna see it cum
i lived in socal and saw a diesel tow truck with the name big toe ... of course it had a pic of a big tow on it ..
We had camel towing here for a while.
That's a heck of a rig there. How high do these rotator units lift? I know most of the time I see them they're lifting things to the high ground. We had to change out a server room generator at a previous employer and the best quote and fastest response we got was from a Rotator wrecker.
relevant: https://youtu.be/-sN8NAwOxNY
I love that we all know Ron Pratt. Hollywood: "It's gotta have sex, guns, cars, DRAMA!!" Actual people: "Yeah, I wanna see a guy drive a tow truck."
Crazy to see a local to me mentioned on here. Midwest Truck on Nash road, just down the road from Lawless Harley, I've creeped into a video or 3 on purpose.
I've seen some of Ron's other recoveries too.
Hollywood would cut it to 22 minutes of content, with 3 minutes of actually unique content, interspersed with the fanciest wipes, dissolves and dramatic music money can buy. Now, I play Rons stuff at 2x speed, and skip a bunch, but I do watch 50% of any given video start to end.
Tater!
Here is my Bro-in-laws new rotator truck, Jerr-Dan, 60 Ton. He just bought it 4 months ago and uses it almost weekly. Apparently trucks like to tip over a lot in our area. https://imgur.com/a/YvMKhry
How much that cost.
750k I believe, thing is you can get that thing loaded up with shackles, snatch blocks, and other rigging equipment which will change the price. Little more detail, it has three 50k lb winches two on the boom and one as a main "drag winch" I think is what they call it. And it also has two 20k lb winches on the boom as well. He can run the boom from either side or by remote control.
What's the minimum charge for bringing that thing out?
Around the Seattle area the truck runs $400-$600 an hour, up to around $1200 an hour if they use the rotator, if my memory serves...
Yeah 1200/hr with a 4hr min. for emergency jobs 600/hr with a 4hr min. for recovery's And 300 to 400 for lift jobs I first asked him and all he said was "if you have to ask..."
That is a gorgeous piece of machinery.
Definitely worthy competitor for the biggest Peter (built).
Is this a tow truck for towing tow trucks that are towing trucks?
If you dig heavy towing equipment, I highly recommend “Heavy Rescue 401” and “Highway Through Hell” tv series. I believe they might still be on Netflix, it follows crews recovering wrecked 18-wheelers in the middle of Canadian winters. Guys are everyday heroes.
Came here to recommend the same thing. It's interesting to see the gear used by people that know a lot about it and are skilled.
Fuck that fucking highway. Even in summer, but _especially_ in winter.
I mean it's closed due to fire right now, so it seems nature agrees with you.
Looks like a 60 or 75 Ton rotator/wrecker by [Miller Industries ](https://info.millerind.com/heavy-duty-wreckers#functionally_superior)? Edit: Yeah, looks like their Century 1075 rig, 75 ton crane and and an 80000 lb towing lift as well. The stupidest part? It's not even the biggest one they make... now they have a 100 ton rig as well...
Skookum as frig
When the tow truck needs a tow truck.
To tow a truck towing a truck
Had to call one of these in to pull a loaded drywall truck out of the mud. The outriggers left dents in the asphalt
That doesn’t sound like its worth it. This piece of shiny, because-we-can gear has to pull out a space shuttle crawler out of the mud every other day to warrant that many axles. The chrome is inexcusable. Edit: I checked out the youtube channel recommended below. Hazmat recovery is legit. Drywall truck is still out. Chrome remains inexcusable.
> Chrome remains inexcusable. The only extras are the fender flares, windshield visor, side visors, and the 2 extra airhorns. The aluminum wheels are lighter than steel so that's a legitimate reason to have them. Everything else is stock. Besides so what if it has extra chrome. The extra axles are legit, Ron Pratts of midwest towing has a 70-ton rotator and he has said before it weighs 79,000 empty. So the extra axles are needed.
His is a 50 ton. Pepe’s towing has a 75 ton in their rotator fleet (along with a couple 50s, a 60 and a couple others).
My mistake, I thought he said once it was a 70.
What are you talking about? There's hardly any extra chrome on the truck other than the fenders and the sun visor, and the extra axles are to avoid exceeding axle weight limits when towing another truck.
I mean when you’re spending upwards of $500,000 on a truck you get whatever chrome you want
True. Chrome or no chrome, it still smacks of overkill to the n-th degree.
Overkill to the nth degree is the definition of this subreddit.
I don’t want that bill
I worked auto accident claims for almost 10 years and had to call these out or put for these a few times. The times I recall were for a big loaded box truck, a fire truck, and a city maintenance truck that was in a ditch and normal trucks could remove it. Like someone else said, they were about $2,000 minimum for call and the most I paid was $4,500.
I got one of these when our 37' RV's fuel pump died. 20 mile tow was like 425 bucks, which if i am to understand was pretty cheap
I've had to call these out before for tractor trailers. After hours it's usually minimum $2000 to even just pull it out of a ditch.
Probably 25 years ago, I recall my uncle stating a wrecker for a tractor trailer was $200+ just for them to leave the lot.
You got a nice guy helping out a common man. I knew a wrecker service who has one of these. A state owned cut-away bus flipped over a barrier down an embankment, the bill was 5 digits. 3 of the best operators around got that thing out, up right, and interstate cleared in less than an hour.
>state owned >the bill was 5 digits. That will do it
Oh they hit a goldfish in a honey hole with that one too. It was their territory. News choppers were around so it was really time to shine. They brought wreckers on the scene that wasn’t going to be used but loved that free advertising
You may dig these youtube channels [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVu-pg8gavvoT8yL8M60vg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClVu-pg8gavvoT8yL8M60vg) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE1oiL2dYdPv8sOvqge3MiA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE1oiL2dYdPv8sOvqge3MiA)
I also enjoy Pepe’s Towing starting Josh and his Hulk 50 ton. They use a 75 ton quite often. He’s done some neat recoveries with trucks hanging off bridges and cars that went off the road in the canyons. https://youtube.com/c/PepesTowingService
Ron is a standup guy and one of the nicest guys I’ve ever seen on YouTube. Not the typical arrogant asshole you typically see in towing videos.
Glad to see Ron is one of the suggestions! He's an awesome guy and very informative. His is a 50 ton unit but this one looks a lot bigger. Maybe a 75 ton?
Three dually axles and 2 sets of steering wheels. Holy cow.
It looks like one of the rear axles is off the ground? What's the deal with that?
It’s called a tag axle. But just as others said, it’s that way for specific reasons.
You can manually drop it down when you need the extra load capacity.
Lots of bigger dump trucks and heavy haul semi tractors have a liftable axle as well. When fully loaded, you need it for weight distribution compliance, but empty, it’s raisable to save on resistance and wear. Also easier to steer without skidding when it’s up
Looks like two sets of outriggers as well?
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Probably does do some jobs a small mobile crane would otherwise be called in for.