Awesome Homemade 'Tator

By JIM "BUCK" SORRENTI - AT Field Editor It's not every day that anyone decides to build his own rotator in-house, but Stan Myers of Myers Towing in Belle River, Ontario, Canada, isn't just anyone; he is a long-time innovator and industry leader. Stan and his wife, Elaine, founded Myers in 1972. For more than 40 years the company has been serving the Southwestern Ontario community and other areas in Ontario, Quebec, and the United States. When he decided to build this rotator he needed look no further than his own shop to make it happen. It was built from the ground up by Stan and his crew over a 3-1/2-year period and finished in 2007. Stan came up with the idea, and Scott Wade and Conrad Beaupre made it happen. Wade is Myers' supervisor and a heavy-recovery specialist. Now retired, Beaupre worked in the shop as a licensed mechanic and an awesome welder and fabricator. They all put a lot of time and effort into the design, fabrication and manufacturing of this rig. They started with a 1990 Autocar twin-steer 6x8 extreme-duty chassis, stretched it out, triple-framed it and added another rear drive axle. "We purchased a vandalized crane for salvage that had the driver's cab fire-bombed," Wade said. "The turntable, outriggers and hydraulic cylinders were not hurt at all and formed the starting point for the back end. After many, many hours of leg work and miles traveled looking at other heavy-duty units, we came up with what we felt was the size and dimensions we wanted for our unit. "Working with a crane/hoisting engineer to verify our design and certify our boom was quite a learning experience for both of us," he said. "We scrapped the original boom; and a new one was made from T1 structural steel, as specified by our engineer, and certified." The rear spread is 72'', with 52'' to the front air-ride drive axle. Wade visited the Ontario Ministry of Transportation before they mounted the axles; this setup gave them a GVWR of 89,750 lbs. The boom has three sections, each 20' long. Their engineer gave them a preliminary boom rating during the design and material selection stage. As with any wrecker, the chassis specs and ratings are the responsibility of the owner, which would be Myers. So they chose the heaviest chassis they could find at the time without having to order a new one. "Based on our outrigger spread and our static weight (uncounterbalanced), our engineer said our worst picking point was over one of the rear corners; we could be able to lift 150,000 pounds, eight feet from the side of the truck. That is the truck's stability number," Wade said. "We have also added some counterbalancing to help improve stability. He approved the boom for a structural strength, which would include safety margins, at five-times that amount. Remember, once you have surpassed your unit's stability numbers, it doesn't matter how big, long or strong your boom is. "We tried to do a few things to make working with this truck a little easier and safer. The boss is only about 5'6'' and trying to attach your hooks to the boom when rigging multiple lines can be challenging at times, especially in bad weather. In positioning our lift cylinder attaching point on the boom, moving it eight inches further out towards the sheave wheels gave us the ability to drop the boom down to under six-feet high and I only gave up less than a foot off the top hook height." On the rear they mounted a Zacklift Z303 and equipped it with seven winches including: two 60,000-lbs. two-speed DP planetaries up top, two 20,000-lbs. DP planetaries under the boom, one 45,000-lbs. Garwood drag winch on the deck, one 8,000-lbs. high-speed winch in the rear, and one 30,000-lbs. military-style winch in the front bumper (just in case). At 41' long, weighing 90,000-lbs. on five axles (with four of them being drive axles), this 80-ton twin-steer rotator complete with a 120-ton boom is the largest wrecker/recovery vehicle in Ontario—completely custom engineered and manufactured by Stan Myers Service. Show Yours @ TIWDo you have a recovery to share with TIW readers? Send some pics and info to our Field Editor Jim "Buck" Sorrenti at jimchaos69@yahoo.com; your story may even be selected for print in American Towman Magazine!