Firewood...The Most Important Piece of Equipment

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I wasn't in the firewood business like some of you guys, this is just a load for personal use. I'll let the pictures do the talking, suffice to say that load was soaking wet mill ends that were free to me. I have a friend who made plywood for a living, back in the early 80's.
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What model is your truck? You know that VW is way too valuable to be hauling firewood don't you? Looks like it's doing a fine job tho.
 

That picture was taken 35 years ago. That poor VW truck passed away after a hard life of slavery hauling rock and wood and then contracting stage 5 cancer. Some of its organs may or may not have been transplanted...we just don't know, but we are hopeful that she was able to help another VW ease its suffering with some useful parts. RIP old VW truck...we will hold onto our fond memories of you!
 
Hindsight is 20/20. I have let go a few that I would love to have back now. Good memories tho.

Foresight was not one of my strong points and the hindsight is almost heartbreaking if I dwell on it to much. There are several vehicles I regret letting go including a few other VW's, a 1962 Pontiac Parisian 2 door convertible and a 1964 Datsun Fairlady 2000. I rarely meet anybody who has ever heard of a Fairlady. As far as roadsters go of that era, the 2 litre Datsun was light years ahead of Sunbeam Alpine, MGB, Fiat etc. I had a few other interesting and collectible vehicles back in the 70's but I miss the 1964 Fairlady and 1962 Pontiac the most although the 1967 VW truck was so useful to have around.
 
When I was 14 I got my first vehicle a 55 Ford F100 and yes still have after more than 50 years. It was how I got first involved with chainsaw use. Also I am still using my 67 C600 . Thanks goodness it is gas powered otherwise it would have been already melted for a new Honda. I have watched this thread with some interest as to where it will lead. In reality there is no important piece of equipment. If there is any failure there will not be any wood related operation. I have spent at least a hundred hours making out checklists for tool boxes with the right tools, checking to see if every vehicle has the common needed spares, backup chainsaws with spare parts, packing food when a surprise snow storm could leave me stranded for a couple extra weeks, and then there are simple things like extra water and fuel. Some thing so ridiculous like a spark plug fouling with out a spare can void out any production for several days. Yes it seems like a challenge. Thanks
 
Some trailers have breaks some don't. Most only have breaks on one axle if its a tandem axle trailer. Most single axle trailers don't have breaks at all. My tandem axle trailer only came with breaks on the front axle. I added new drum hubs and breaks on the rear axle so mine has breaks on both axles. I was a trucker for 30 years and most new trucks have plenty of power to get even a heavy load moving at highway speeds unless your pulling grades. And you are correct, it's not that your truck can pull the weight, but how well it can stop it. We have all topped a hill and seen nothing but break lights as far as you can see. Many roads don't have emergency lanes or have K rails blocking you from moving over into an emergency lane so you have no where to go if you can't stop. Pulling is one thing, stopping is another and far more important. Also most trailers that do have breaks are not self adjusting, so you need to manually adjust them periodically.
Also you must have a GOOD quality break controller and learn how to use it properly. A 50 dollar break controller is not going to work as well as a 350 dollar controller.
The cheap break controllers work off your break light circuit and suck when your in stop and go traffic.
The better ones have speed sensors and a mercury switch and G force sensors and adjustments for how hard you engage and how fast they engage. Most cheap controllers only have zero through 10 in increments of 1/10.
Mine has 1/10 but has increments of 10 on each number setting. So I can set it at 1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 and so on all the way up to 10. And it has an emergency lever or panic lever that will instantly go from zero to full lock with a simple lever. Once you come to a stop, if you have a cheap controller as long as the break light is lit, like if you holding your foot on the break at a stop light, the trailer breaks are fully engaged. Mine has a sensor so once your stopped it backs the break power down to a minimal amount.
Say I have it set at 5.5 and when I hit the breaks it goes to 5.5 till you start slowing down then it slowly starts backing the breaking power according to your relative speed. Once I'm stopped at a light it drops the breaking power sent to the trailer breaks down to 1.5 while your sitting still, even though you have your foot on the break and your truck break lights are on.
The cheap one's you have to take your foot off the break and let the break light go off before the trailer breaks will release.And that can be very annoying in stop and go traffic.
The good break controllers are worth every penny because they give you much more control and more adjustments to fit your breaking needs. You can dial it in to do exactly what you want and need over your trailer breaks. I can adjust mine to stop hard by the G force the mercury sensor picks up and it will go to that setting. But it also has a delay from instant breaking to 1 second or 2 seconds up to 3 seconds after you hit the breaks.
The good ones work much better then the cheap ones do. Mine even has LED light that tell you if your breaks are connected and are working, right on the controller module. If one or more of those indicator LEDs stops working or starts flashing, I know a light is out or there is a problem. Lastly, make sure you have a secondary detected ground wire from the trailer to the frame of your tow vehicle. Most ground through the ball hitch and if you don't have a good ground, it's not going to work properly or at all.
If you have break or light issues, always check the ground first. Thats is where most issues come from, not having a good ground.
Also change your incandescent lights to all LED's. Most light bulb failures come from the light filaments getting broken on bumpy roads. LED's last longer and don't break the filaments and work much better.
If you can afford them, get self adjusting trailer breaks. It's a pain in the ass to crawl under a low trailer and try to adjust the breaks.Especially if it's wet or muddy. Don't forget to check your break away switch and battery and make sure they are in working order.
What a great post!
 
Not really firewood equipment but just a lesson to be learned. Make sure you pack your gear correctly. I drove 150 miles to a jobsite to pump water out of the foundation hole so they could pour the concrete footings. Got to site, set up the 2 pumps and hoses. Unloaded my trusty Honda generator and pulled and pulled and it just wouldn't start. Man that thing always started on the 2nd pull no matter what. Checked everything and still no starting. Decided I might as well pull the spark plug and at least see if it had spark. Darn it the spark plug cap was broken right off. At home I had put the gennie into the back of my truck on the plastic bedliner and I guess on the ride up it had slid ahead and bumped my toolbox and broke the cap off. Had to cancel the concrete for a few hours while I could head back to a small engine shop, get a new cap, fix it and pump the water out. Almost as bad as the time I loaded everything into my plastic jobbox that fits on my loader forks, headed to the bush ready for a full day of dropping trees and making saw dust. Had everything thing I needed except for the thing I needed first. 25 chain saws and I left them all sitting at home. That set the tone for a bad day.
 
Most important piece of equipment to work my firewood? No question...My truck.

If my saw breaks, no worries, I have 27 more. If my splitter won't start...meh...I can get by doing something else productive or I can swing a maul. If my trailer burns up a bearing I can get by for a while just tossing into the bed of my truck.

But...gheeze...when my truck breaks down, EVERYTHING comes to a screeching halt. I mean EVERYTHING.

Certainly every tool we have plays a part in our entire operation, and they are all important. But, at least for me, my truck is the MOST important. The only one I have, only one I can afford. Today I burnt up another coil pack and decided to check out a clunking noise from the front end...ugh...ball joint. These are nothing I can defer until a rainy day and they got to be fixed now... which means no cutting, splitting, lugging, and stacking today.

God bless the trucks!

View attachment 674490
what oil do you burn in you truck and what ratio.
 
Not really firewood equipment but just a lesson to be learned. Make sure you pack your gear correctly. I drove 150 miles to a jobsite to pump water out of the foundation hole so they could pour the concrete footings. Got to site, set up the 2 pumps and hoses. Unloaded my trusty Honda generator and pulled and pulled and it just wouldn't start. Man that thing always started on the 2nd pull no matter what. Checked everything and still no starting. Decided I might as well pull the spark plug and at least see if it had spark. Darn it the spark plug cap was broken right off. At home I had put the gennie into the back of my truck on the plastic bedliner and I guess on the ride up it had slid ahead and bumped my toolbox and broke the cap off. Had to cancel the concrete for a few hours while I could head back to a small engine shop, get a new cap, fix it and pump the water out. Almost as bad as the time I loaded everything into my plastic jobbox that fits on my loader forks, headed to the bush ready for a full day of dropping trees and making saw dust. Had everything thing I needed except for the thing I needed first. 25 chain saws and I left them all sitting at home. That set the tone for a bad day.

My woodshed and splitting area is quite a ways from my house and garage, take what I need in the Wheel Horse and yard cart to the area. No matter how long I stand and think about it, always forget at least one thing and back I come. Always say I'm gonna make a list of what I need, forget that too by the end of the day!
 

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