This is what happens when you have too much tongue weight...

[RobG]

Is this an old image? I've seen images LIKE this before, but not this one specifically. Oddly, they've all been on Fords too. I don't want to be "that guy" who posts something like this when the image has been out there for many years. 🙂

How much tongue weight do you think he had? This is what I preach to people about towing big trailers behind big truck campers with long overhangs. I've noticed that a trailer that normally would have 1000 lbs of tongue weight now has 2000 lbs when you have a 48" extension.

Notice too that it's a fairly late-model F450 with the newer 6.7L motor, so I'm thinking it's at least a 2012 or newer.

Rob

[deltabravo]

That guy's driver's license needs taken away after he's destroyed two trucks using the same technique.

Here's my all time favorite "folding truck":

The Aftermath Of The Incredible Folding Plow Truck Video

There used to be a video, but the link to it is busted.

[NRALIFR]

OK, Kayteg. You’re a skeptic. :B

I honestly don’t see what’s so hard to believe, though. Some people are just slow learners. (The truck bender, not you).

Get on YouTube and search on “Overloaded Truck Wheelie” and you’ll get dozens of videos of trucks lifting their front wheels off the ground because of the crazy loads they’re hauling. Most of them are way beyond what this guy was doing, but the physics are the same, and there’s a huge middle ground where the front wheels are still on the ground, but the truck is definitely a$$ heavy and you can feel it in the steering and front suspension.

Remember your concrete statue hoist on the back of your truck, Kayteg? I bet you couldn’t have driven that around very long without breaking something on the truck, even if you could have secured the statue so it wouldn’t swing around. I personally don’t think some of you guys are appreciating where the COG on the camper is likely to be. That is no lightweight TC there, even dry with no gear. And the owner isn’t a light packer, I can promise you that. I’d bet it weighs every bit of 6000 lbs wet with gear, and if the COG is any less than 12” BEHIND the rear axle, I’ll eat my IPad. :W (provided there are no carcinogenic compounds known to the state of California).

It wouldn’t have to actually lift the front wheels off the ground to damage the truck. It could have just caused the frame to flex enough under acceleration or rough road conditions that it eventually failed at the frames weakened point.

To the owner, it may have been a case of “Everything was just fine, until it wasn’t “.

:):)

[Grit_dog]

Derrrrrr....

[Kayteg1]

Call me skeptic, but even when I have hard time to believe Superduty frame bend this way under camper and some hitch weight (although if it was welded, that could provide explanation).
Having the same guy with the same camper/trailer bending 2 truck in short period? Naahhhh. that ain't happening.
All that evidence happen "sometimes, somewhere" so how do you comprehend it?

[trail-explorer]

Kayteg1 wrote:
When videos are hard to photoshop, there is no chance the same guy with the same TC+ trailer broke 2 trucks in the same way.
It has to be some kind of stunt.

THe videos prove that it happened twice, with the same camper and same trailer. Why is it so hard for you to comprehend that? The video proves it.

People in a FB gorup I'm in that are also in a FB group for Canada truck camper owners said it happened up in Canada somewhere.

[trail-explorer]

Grit dog wrote:
...same dumbarse actually broke 2 separate trucks the same way with the same gear on it!

Yep, that's what happened. Someone shared a video of the truck driving down the road with the bent frame.... so it's true, it did indeed happen.

[bigfootgrey]

[JRscooby]

Grit dog wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:

adamis wrote:


The real story is,

Is it?
For me too many unexplained things come to play here.
When videos are hard to photoshop, there is no chance the same guy with the same TC+ trailer broke 2 trucks in the same way.
It has to be some kind of stunt.

Never underestimate the power of stupidity.
Back in high school, I worked as a mechanic at a landscape nursery. One of the trucks was a new dually with a dump box. Newest truck in the fleet and only dually except for the class 6/7 trucks we had.
Inside of 30k miles, they broke or bent a staggering list of chassis and drivetrain parts using it like it was a 2019 F550 30 years ahead of its time!
They snapped the frame on one side over the rear axle. Had a shop weld it up and reinforce it. About 6 months later snapped the other side of the frame! I copied the fix from the shop and repaired it in house.
I made a good portion of my wages just replacing busted parts on that truck regularly.
If we had cell phone cameras back then, the fail pics of this truck would make bent truck guy here look like an amateur!

There is no doubt stupid can tear up anything. Back in the day I had a F-350 with a small Holmes leased to a tow company, and a old F-750 I used mostly for junking. The tow company called, needed my big truck for a U haul 1 ton. A company had a sale on computer paper, more you bought the cheaper it was. Collage class figured how big box needed to haul the paper, U-Haul rented that size box on F 350. Cross RR tracks, frame broke. Tow driver tried to pick up, broke worse. Tried to winch onto a trailer, trailer bent, and truck broke more. Buy the time I got there police where insisting the street get open. Blue wrench for a few minutes, little truck took cab, I towed the box.

[Grit_dog]

Kayteg1 wrote:

adamis wrote:


The real story is,

Is it?
For me too many unexplained things come to play here.
When videos are hard to photoshop, there is no chance the same guy with the same TC+ trailer broke 2 trucks in the same way.
It has to be some kind of stunt.

Never underestimate the power of stupidity.
Back in high school, I worked as a mechanic at a landscape nursery. One of the trucks was a new dually with a dump box. Newest truck in the fleet and only dually except for the class 6/7 trucks we had.
Inside of 30k miles, they broke or bent a staggering list of chassis and drivetrain parts using it like it was a 2019 F550 30 years ahead of its time!
They snapped the frame on one side over the rear axle. Had a shop weld it up and reinforce it. About 6 months later snapped the other side of the frame! I copied the fix from the shop and repaired it in house.
I made a good portion of my wages just replacing busted parts on that truck regularly.
If we had cell phone cameras back then, the fail pics of this truck would make bent truck guy here look like an amateur!

[Grit_dog]

Probably a combo of all of the above, IMO.
No, the torque of the driveshaft wouldn't be enough on its own. Something in the driveline would snap, assuming it was stock.
No, the tongue weight wouldn't do it alone and neither would the camper overhang.
Tie downs welded to the frame if that wuz the case before the accident(s)? Would also contribute.
As well as road conditions (bumps).
Usually not one to revel in others failures, but there's still some wow factor to these fails!

[JRscooby]

NRALIFR wrote:
I agree the trailer tongue weight had nothing to do with this failure, but I do think the trailer played a role: the trailer gives the truck something to pull against, and I don’t believe the frame could have folded up like that unless it had something trying to prevent forward motion. Remember that Newton’s first law says that objects at rest tend to stay at rest, and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force. The trailer is the external force.

This could have happened either accelerating away from a stop, or while driving on a rough potholed road that was causing the trailer to put dynamic resistive forces on the truck. We’ve probably all felt how trailers can both push and pull on the tow vehicle under different conditions.

Imagine what would happen if you took that same truck and camper, chained the rear bumper to a big oak tree, and then tried to drive away. I believe the results would look much the same. As the pinion gear tries (and fails) to drive the ring gear, the rear axle would then rotate and lift the front of the truck up, and the frame would fail at the weakest point.

I think it’s also likely that this camper’s COG is behind the rear axle, which would help the rear axle’s attempt to lift the front of the truck.

:):)

"Imagine what would happen if you took that same truck and camper, chained the rear bumper to a big oak tree, and then tried to drive away. I believe the results would look much the same. As the pinion gear tries (and fails) to drive the ring gear, the rear axle would then rotate and lift the front of the truck up, and the frame would fail at the weakest point. "

As a matter of fact, a truck hooked to a load that will not move will most likely spin the wheels. Now in the imaginary situation where tire grip, the front end will come up. But no way a factory frame is too weak to lift the front axle. Now when driver cuts power and stuff slams back down? Things could break, but if it was the frame (doubtful) it would be down in center.
If TW was the main cause of a broken frame, that break would most likely be behind the rear spring hangers...

[NRALIFR]

I agree the trailer tongue weight had nothing to do with this failure, but I do think the trailer played a role: the trailer gives the truck something to pull against, and I don’t believe the frame could have folded up like that unless it had something trying to prevent forward motion. Remember that Newton’s first law says that objects at rest tend to stay at rest, and that an object in uniform motion tends to stay in uniform motion unless acted upon by a net external force. The trailer is the external force.

This could have happened either accelerating away from a stop, or while driving on a rough potholed road that was causing the trailer to put dynamic resistive forces on the truck. We’ve probably all felt how trailers can both push and pull on the tow vehicle under different conditions.

Imagine what would happen if you took that same truck and camper, chained the rear bumper to a big oak tree, and then tried to drive away. I believe the results would look much the same. As the pinion gear tries (and fails) to drive the ring gear, the rear axle would then rotate and lift the front of the truck up, and the frame would fail at the weakest point.

I think it’s also likely that this camper’s COG is behind the rear axle, which would help the rear axle’s attempt to lift the front of the truck.

:):)

[burningman]

You tongue-weight scientists need to sit back down.
The truck had its frame welded on in the center where it failed. That’s why it failed.
There’s absolutely no way a camper and a trailer with a tongue that long would break an F350 frame, and then an F450 frame.
The reason it bent upwards is axle torque. The axle is trying to twist the opposite way the wheels are rotating. That’s why drag cars try to lift the front on launch.

My own setup is just like that. 11.5 camper on a dually, three different ones over two decades, with a 10,000 pound trailer with an extended tongue, no hitch extension.
My frames don’t fail because my tie downs are bolted on, I haven’t compromised the frames by welding on them in the middle.

You couldn’t put enough tongue weight on that truck, with a trailer tongue that long, to break it and if you did that’s not where and how it would fail.

[Kayteg1]

adamis wrote:


The real story is,

Is it?
For me too many unexplained things come to play here.
When videos are hard to photoshop, there is no chance the same guy with the same TC+ trailer broke 2 trucks in the same way.
It has to be some kind of stunt.