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Deuce/5 ton ROPS Kit?

FMJ

In Memorial
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Your posting is nonsensical and clearly isn't responsive to what I said. My post did not suggest any deficiences with M35 trucks, it would seem that is your position. Get a grip. This isn't going to personally hurt you or the MV hobby. Rather than being selfish, uncaring, or worrying about boogy-men lawyers that aren't going to hurt you, you should take a moment to think about this man and his family and quit posting ignorant rants in defense of a thoughtless post by papercu. I suspect he can defend himself.
The victim was a friend of mine, you have no f ing idea. I was not referring to your post, but to all the others in this thread.

Take your briefcase, and your link to your firm, and your link to your contact info, and get lost!
 

FMJ

In Memorial
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I am sincerely sorry that you lost a friend.

If you weren't referring to my post, why did you quote me and then rant? I stand by my post and certainly don't deserve any negative comments from you.

I suspect that you already know what I think you should do with your negative attitude and stupid comments. Man up. You quoted my post, said something stupid and got called on it. Don't try to say that your comments weren't directed at me.
I also suspect you know what I think you should do with your opinion as well.
 

TexAndy

Active member
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Bee County, Texas
Good lord you people wear your feelings on your shirtsleeves.

Anyhoo, not talking about this because of what some lawyer might read is pretty dumb. Who is the lawyer going to sue? AM General?


It's a big freakin truck with a soft top. Well, duh. Of course you're not going to fare well in a rollover.

So let's fix that and leave the bickering for another time.

I've got a buddy who does alot of gate work with a cnc plasma. And I've got some CAD experience (Rhino only). However, I'm not a mechanical engineer (but I do know one), so this would take quite a bit of thought.

1. What kind of materials is this going to take to keep the driver from being crushed by the weight of the front end of the vehicle? Size, thickness, grade etc...
2. Will the assembly fit on the truck without excessive modification of the cab and/or bed?
3. How will this affect the performance of the truck?

These are the basic questions as I see them.
 

moosebgy

Member
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Valdez, AK
Since the guys driving the "monster trucks" have made a cage that works for them and their trucks are around 10K lbs, a viable cage/ROPS seems very possilbe. And whether to have it outside of the cab or inside would depend on what the individual would want. It's just going to take a little head scrathing and fabbing.
 

tm america

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merrillville in
Could a cage be built to do a reasonable job on these trucks probably> would it put the cage builder in a bad legal situation if it failed in an accident. YES.One could build a pretty good cage-rollbar for slow speeds but for a high speed roll over THere isn't much that willl help you out.THat's why semi's don't have roll bars or heavily braced rear cab walls.. They would be useless with that kind of load and force. this whole thread should be renamed and peoples names ommitted in respect of the victim.THere isnt much chance a roll bar would have done much good in a accident that had enough force to remove the bed from one of ' these trucks. fighting with eachother isn't gonna help anyone .
 

Mike929

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Wow. And this is useful in what manner? After all of that fighting FMJ did for you, this is what you post???
I would love to go buy a Jerry Can for my Deuce.... oh wait some freaking lawyer decided that people are not capable of operating a normal fuel can and now the entire country via CARB laws are not allowed to buy a freaking normal fuel can.

THAT is the issue. If someone wants to put a ROPS in their truck fine, I don't want to be told in 5 years that I can't drive my truck without one because some lawyer decided he could make more money with a class action lawsuit that makes them millions and leaves us screwed. :rant:

As for ROPS, yes one can be be built to take a full speed roll over, but then you have issues with hard surfaces inside the vehicle, restraints, etc. If you want to be safe in your truck, park it in your drive way and make engine noises as you pretend to drive it. Life is a risk, calculate what you feel comfortable in the area of risk and do it.
 

13 MIKE

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Could a cage be built to do a reasonable job on these trucks probably> would it put the cage builder in a bad legal situation if it failed in an accident.

Now it's Jleasure's time for some honest lawyer answers. If somebody were to come up with a ROPS kit, did the engineering, and due diligence, but it did fail in a crash similar to this.

How would you tackle this as your fighting for compensation for the family?

Would my good intentions keep you from coming after me, or my company?

What if the main parties responsible didn't have deep pockets?

Personal injury lawyers have given themselves a bad name. Every product now needs a warning label to fend off lawsuits from the product being misused.

For every good, decent lawyer, and i count you as one till proven otherwise, there are 50 who are not.

Lets keep things civil in this thread, we lost a good man, but we can use the situation to find out how best to prevent it from happening again.

I think if all trucks seeing highway time ran a strobe light it would go a long way to help us be seen. When i recovered my wrecker last year i kept mine on the whole time.
 

AceHigh

Well-known member
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Princeton WV Lake City FL
Build the ROPS and call it an internal light bar. Put a warning on it that it has not been tested as a ROPS. Whatever. It is bound to help.

In my area there are steep hills shared by coal trucks and fast cars. Accidents happen. I used to drive a fire tanker truck and going up a hill with lights on cars passed all the time. Sometimes trucks gear down to 20, cars still going top speed. Just part of the daily grind.
 

jleasure

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Take this for what it is worth, it isn’t legal advice:

13 MIKE, You make some interesting points. I appreciated reading your post because it was objective. It would seem to me that the real issue is whether somebody engineered a fully developed product for sale, for profit, and described it as being a safe ROPS. If that happened, it is going to have to be safe because the designer/builder might be liable if it doesn't function properly. I can't imagine how that could be a sound financial move because it is unlikely that enough products could be sold to make it a viable business. I suspect that is the reason many good ideas never come to market. But, that shouldn't stop the smart guys here, who could figure this out, from developing some good ideas that could be used on a non-commercial basis.

and:
For every good, decent lawyer, and i count you as one till proven otherwise, there are 50 who are not.
I sincerely appreciate the benefit of the doubt you have given me. I hope I don't do or say anything that changes that opinion.

AceHigh, You are probably on to something with your post. Any liability would be almost certainly be tied to the claimed uses and capabilities by the manufacturer. Some years ago, I bought a roll cage kit for a CJ-7 that was a front hoop and bars to connect it to the existing rear roll bar. I think there was a disclaimer that said it was a light bar, or for cosmetic purposes, or something like that---probably for the same reasons you bring up. I bought it anyway. It may not have been perfect in every situation, but was clearly better than nothing. Being a WV guy too, I understand the winding roads and the big hills. I would rather take my chances with something that might help than with nothing at all.

Mike929, CA is a different world. I feel your pain with CARB. That is a whole different can of worms. You have a right to be upset about some of the dumb choices they make.

Lawyer issues, whether a lawyer is good or bad is a personal consideration for each person. It usually depends on which side of the "v" a person sides with. If a person sides with the lawyer’s position, he is a good guy. If the lawyer stands in opposition, he is viewed as a bad guy. That is simply human nature. I know that as a profession, we will always be looked at with suspicion.

Just remember that the so-called "ambulance chasers" are the attorneys who work to help the regular people, like most people here. The "defense" or "corporate" lawyers work for big businesses, insurance companies, and the like. I know. I have worked on both sides. They get paid, up-front, and without regard to whether they win or lose. They, in most cases, wouldn't take the time to help a regular person who can't pay in advance. Even then, they might not help for fear of damaging contacts and relationships with their regular clients. The "ambulance chasers" invest their own time, money, and effort into helping people who have no other way to help themselves. They help people with no guarantee of ever being paid anything. Finally, the other big issue that people simply don't know is that most "ambulance chasers" don't routinely seek to take money from uninsured defendants. Most of those attorneys generally only pursue cases to the extent of insurance coverage. That's one reason why they are so fiercely hated by the insurance lobby. I bet most people don’t know that.

To all of the lawyer bashers reading this, take a moment to think about this: If you or a loved one was severely injured or killed, which I hope never happens, who is going to help you? Are you going to be able to pay for legal services up-front, with no guarantee of a return (In light of the fact that your income will probably be reduced and you have a mountain of medical bills), or are you going to call an "ambulance chaser" (what I call a trial lawyer) for help? I hope you call a good trial lawyer who helps you and proves your ideas about the profession wrong.

With this post, I close my part the lawyer discussion in this thread. It isn’t fair of me to allow this thread to be completely hijacked when the OP brought up such a good idea. I will be happy to discuss any of these lawyer issues via pm or telephone if anybody has the desire.

I hope people really think about a viable ROPS solution. Maybe it can happen, one step at a time. I will help any way that I can.
 
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FMJ

In Memorial
In Memorial
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Lets go with DELETE.

And perhaps as someone else mentioned in another thread, wait until James' family has had time to reconcile what has happened.

Sometime later discuss this topic, ROPS.

Also, having slept on it, I apologize for my outburst last evening, alcohol and sadness got the better of me.

Ed
 
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exbrown

Member
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Location
West Union, SC
What we need is an "Open Source" set of plans for a heavy duty Light Bar.

Roll bars are very expensive to get certified. It takes a good design, an engineer willing to sign off on it and several vehicles that are destroyed in testing. I would seriously doubt if it would even be possible to get one certified for a bobbed deuce, as they are not standard. It would also be very difficult to sell enough to ever make it profitable.

A "Heavy Duty Light Bar" that was designed to be built locally with a set of plans would be of great benefit.

One factor I have not seen discussed is crush height. A line is drawn from the top of the bar to the front of the frame, and the occupants need to be enclosed in the resulting triangle.

I plan on putting one on my bobbed Deuce, but it may be a while before it comes up on my agenda.

With as many good people as we have on this site, there should be plenty of help for this project.

Maybe someone will step up and take the lead.
 

dozer1

Member
833
13
18
Location
Sargeant, Minnesota
A frame mounted roll bar (ahem...heavy duty light bar) behind the cab would be a good idea. As far as how to do it , what material to use and such, I would just go with an old saying my neighbor told me when I was a young lad. He, who is a fellow farmer, was building a staircase one of the outbuildings and was really putting the materials in it. Nice heavy treated 2" lumber and screw construction with a liquid nail bead squirted on before each new peice was installed. I remembered commenting on how rigid that seemed it would be. He said "When in doubt, build it stout". Its a little phrase I went on to live by when I go to build something. Forget about factoring in cost effectiveness, ease of shipping, setting it up so a caveman could do it, all of that and build yourself a good stout, redundant light bar with materials that you can get locally. 2cents
 

exbrown

Member
548
13
18
Location
West Union, SC
I have contacted 2 mfgs of roll bars and requested a price on 25 roll bars for an M35A2, we will see how this goes.

I will post the price when I get them and we'll see how many would be intetested in making an order.
 

wehring

Active member
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38
Location
Angleton, TX
Rops

The idea of this was not based on ROPS but it will also apply. I am woring on replacing the top bows on one of my trucks with tubing tied into the bed floor. I want the same quantity, size, shape as the current bows but only tie each corner into the bed.

Justin Wehring
979 997 3112
 
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