Hello Everybody Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls viewers of all ages. Good day to you! Welcome back! I'm glad you guys are here! Uh, this particular video is going to be a staggering departure from our normal content. We had a kind of a tragedy here at the workplace. Uh, my neighbor who uh, whom I share in the park, whom I share the parking lot with words had uh, he had an unfortunate accident in his tow truck uh, the other day he was delivering a vehicle to uh to somewhere in Tampa and he was coming back over the Skyway Bridge and as he was uh, traveling over the Skyway Bridge he uh, smelled some smoke and uh, looked out of his window and saw some Flames I believe you said they were like right around this area over here he uh, he went to hit the brakes, stopped the vehicle and uh, the vehicle had no brakes it.

uh there was no pedal reaction to anything he said. he opened up the driver door and that's when the Flames came out from under the cab and started kind of coming into the vehicle or very close. So he slammed the door shut and keep in mind the vehicle is still moving uh, down the interstate So he slams the door shut, steers left, goes across the two lanes. He then moved over into the other side of the truck, opened up the drive passenger side door, and then jumped out of the moving vehicle.

What? I want to do today and what we're going to do is we're kind of going to walk through And see if we can't figure out or speculate or at least docutate or take a look at what happened here because this thing completely burnt to the ground. We can see that this vehicle has got soot like all over the driver's side of it. over here. it's even back here in the wheels.

Everything down here. Oh wow look at that. There was Flames or a lot of heat at least back here. That's the uh, the cap for the fuel tank.

I Believe there's still fuel in the tank I Don't think that the tank ruptured but we're gonna crawl under and then sort of take a look moving around to the back. Yeah, there's some more soot or Ash or something that's melted so there was an excessive amount of heat all the way back here and I believe the fire started under the cab. That's what it looks like. Yeah, there was heat and Flames back here.

Uh, let's see any other damage on the bed. Now not on this side. Oh yeah, there's some more. There's more melted.

uh, melted wires here. Wow, Yeah, there's a lot going on with this truck. Yeah, look here. even on the back of this axle, there's some melted action on, uh, on these wheel speed sensor wires.

Take a look at that. These guys are all melted from the heat that's melted That's melted. All this here is melted. Yeah, there was there was Flames all the way back on the on the back side of this thing.

Wow now. I have not. Uh I Have not snooped around this particular truck much. I mean we walked around it earlier after it got dropped off.

but I haven't crawled under it I haven't opened anything just yet. So my point of view is going to be just as fresh as uh as you guys's point of view. Now he said something about uh, an 18-wheeler running into the back of this thing that's wedged in pretty sideways. This is the wheel lift for uh, picking up cars by the axles.

Looks like looks like it's kind of wedged in. Oh yeah, yeah, it got caught on. uh on this piece of metal here. What these things do is these will slide out and they attach here that way.

When you back this wheel lift up to uh, well. a wheel. You can put this on the other side and it will capture the Wheel from two sides so it looks like the lift got shoved into one of the brackets. Oh, what else happened here? Oh, we've got some bending action here.

Look at that. This piece of the frame is distorted. This is distorted and pushed in. Yeah, there was an impact here if it was a semi truck that hit this.

I Uh I Imagine that the frame rail caught this area right here and probably pushed it right up into that frame rail. This frame's bent. See how it's bent down right there. That's not good.

That's a hard hit. Oh yeah, look at that. We can see this frame's kind of crinkled up like an accordion. That's a hard hit for a frame wheel to buckle like that.

Look at that right there. Buckled here. That's wild. Pulled some bolts out here.

we've got. there's some impact marks right there. You guys see that walking around over here. Not much damage on this side.

I Don't think there's anything else over here. Let's move forward some more and see what else is going on. Oh wow, that's melted up there. so Flames must have been or at least heat was coming up the back of the cab.

We've got some melted cab vents here. All that melted plastic. There's more soot more melted plastic on that cab vent. So yeah, it was.

This thing was hot. It was very hot. Wow. Door panels melted.

Yeah, this is the side that the that he jumped out of. We've got a drive shaft hitting here sitting here. I Think that it would have had to have removed. this.

looks like the rear shaft. I Believe they would have had to have removed that rear drive shaft before the thing was towed. Let's make sure that's from this truck. And yeah, yeah, survey says that was unbalted deliberately for towing.

Okay, there's the front side of the slip yoke. that would have just uh, the way they would have done that is just unbolted it here and then dropped the shaft down and then pulled the shaft out of those splines right there Separated the two shafts because this is a two-piece rear drive shaft. See, we can see our particulate filter. This is a diesel.

I Think it's the Six seven. Cummins Oh yeah I forgot I think a 2016 Ram 4500 I Don't know what the mileage is and we're never gonna find out because the gauge cluster is no longer present. So I don't know what the mileage was. Um, it was a really, really nice truck.

So anyway, we can see that there is no more. Dash Uh, this would have been a container that holds the airbag. Uh, that's the crossbar for inside of the dash. This is a it's an impact bar.

so if the vehicle were to take a collision like a T-bone style Collision This helps to distribute and spread out some of the forces. that way the whole side of the cab doesn't just get crunched in so both sides of the cab will actually share share some of that impact. Looking down a little further at the AC Condenser evaporator. That's the evaporator.

All the wires. Those wires come through the firewall hole right there. There should have been a fuse box right around here somewhere that's gone. I Don't know what this was or used to be.

It could be Dash Pieces could be headliner pieces that actually felt like aluminum might have been the heater core. A lot of glass down here. The floor mat survived. Okay, yeah, here's some airbag right here.

That's airbag pieces. Here's the splines on the drive shaft, a little electric motor probably for one of the door actuators in the dash, and that wasn't from the fire. that's probably from the tow guy. Yeah, we can't really see.

I'm not going to disturb too much because I don't want to contact all of this, uh, burnt debris stuff. I don't know what it is. There's a lot of fiberglass in here that this right here. that's part of the headliner.

You can see how that fell down. There's holes in the cab for where the cab lights were supposed to go. Looks like those things are melted off. Oh big time.

look at that. Yeah, those are gone. Heater core is down under there. There's not much left here.

Wow. Before store panel is gone, look at this. The glass is like, uh, glazed over. it.

Might be the window tint. but yeah, that's window tint there. But there's all this smoke damage on the inside of the tent. This thing was full of smoke.

It's crazy flat. This was on fire at some point. There's no tread left on it. See what's down here? in the engine compartment? There's our turbine.

I Believe there's nothing left here. Look at the alternator. That's the internals of a Nader right there. Oh wow.

Look at this. This fire got so hot that it reshaped the Springs These are the coil springs. This is what holds up the front of the truck. This thing got so hot that those Springs sagged and then collapsed.

Wow. Probably nothing left made of rubber. That's either the radiator or the AC condenser. Look how much heat was here.

It's melted into a ball like that. all near is locked up. It's gonna need an alternator. Yep, everything's locked up.

Nothing's gonna move or turn. This is power steering again. That's so hot it probably melted the internals. Turn the Chrome Rainbow colored.

So much heat was in this thing. This is right. Fire damage to the wheel over here. That's odd.

Look at that. Front drive shaft is separated at the Yoke. See that there's our front axle. That's the differential.

There's a there's a gear set in there and that's the drive shaft that runs back to the transfer case which connects to the transmission. Again, no brakes. That's where a brake line used to be. Brake line attached right here.

So it probably went from right here to up here and then attached from this point to this point. right here on the caliper. A Lot of heat. Yep, all the metal cords inside of the tire cab mounts are melted.

The through-hole plastic pieces are melted. Those are gone. That right there. That's the ABS pump.

That's the Hydro Boost brake assist right there. steering column coming through. right there and again. we see that melty spring sagging thing going on.

This used to be a battery terminal post. Oh, look at this. There's our fuse block. fuse block right there.

Fuses and relays. Holy smokes, that's filed. Yep, that's the inside of a relay. You can catch that.

Oh, it's a 5500, not a 4500. Cummins 500. door panels melted on this side. more glass.

There's our steering column. A lot of wires. Okay, one of the connectors survived from something. A little red thing down there.

Yep, there's our radio. That's what this is. I'm not gonna I Don't want to get poked I'm not gonna pry too hard on much, but yeah, that looks like it's the radio. Yeah, it could be the HVAC control module.

All these used to be insulated in loom together wires, but all the insulation is burnt off. so all that's left is uh is the copper strands right here. We've got the inside of the brake booster. You can see the the rod connecting to the brake lever and the entire bracket that holds the lever to the uh.

the firewall is melted away. There's it. Must have been aluminum. There is no bracket holding on to that.

It's just gone, melted, evaporated, no longer present. Oops. Hmm. Looks like it was hit by a Freightliner Okay, interesting, some broken metal pieces.

That's a drive shaft piece right here. I Don't know what this is? Yeah, let's crawl under and see what's uh, see where that thing came from? That's interesting? Yep. Wow. All right real quick.

Let's uh, let's get this hood open if we can. I think it'll it'll open yeah. I think come on. Hood Help me out guys.

Push! Oh here it comes. okay. wow. I Brought a prop rod for us.

the uh, there is no prop Rod left over that used to be a good shot. More glass and we can see that all the rubber lines for the brake system are gone. Look at that. Nothing broke right off.

That's the accumulator piston. Uh, for the Hydro Boost See, we've got our intake heater grid again. this is the straight. Six five, nine, six, seven.

Cummins Excuse me, six seven, what's this? EGR I think that's a I think that's the EGR valve. Yeah. exhaust gas recirculation. Looks like the charge air cooler is melted.

Don't know what went there. Maybe some gears that's melted all the wirings wiring. There's our starter motor down there. fuel rails, fuel lines.

you know, all the stainless steel stuff stayed. That stuff's okay. let's check the transmission fluid. It's not coming out.

That's two. Oh wow. Maybe it is melted and there is no transmission fluid. Yeah, that got so hot it pulled all the fluid out of the transmission.

That's that's telling. Let's put that thing back. let's see what else is down there. Yep, we can see again.

there's the top of the drive shaft. Look at that. That drive shaft has got brake lines wrapped around it. You guys see that down there? Yeah, there's the brake lines.

Yep, here's brake line right here. They're coming up to the ABS pump. Those brake lines are going down past the frame rail and they are wrapped up in the drive shaft. No way that's interesting.

There's the impeller for our turbo. Let's see if this thing's locked up. Ah, it works. Guaranteed that turbo is junk.

There's no seals in it. Let's see that, uh, some kind of electronic device right there. Another power wire. Okay, we're not gonna see much else up here.

There's the wiper motor and transmission right here. Wiper cow is gone. Wiper blades are gone. Wiper arms are gone that's melted.

Okay, let's uh. let's crawl down under here. take a look at that drive shaft. I'm curious to see what that's about coming right for us.

Stay, stay closed. Please see how this is going to work out here. That right there. that's our DEF tank diesel exhaust fluid.

You can tell there's death in there because of that crystally stuff. Looks like some of it spilled and death will crystallize once it dries. I Don't know if I can squeeze under this thing. Hmm I don't know if I want to.

It's sitting on jack stands. but uh, not very good. I Think let's make sure this is safe to go under that's a little sketchy right there. I don't know.

Um I Really do want to go down there and take a look because we found that piece of metal up there and then we've got this drive shaft with all the it's got looks like electrical wires wrapped around it. All kinds of stuff. There's some more melted stuff right here. Uh, there's more wiring wrapped around, uh, wrapped around the the yolk right here on the differential.

So that tells me that somehow all that stuff got wrapped up in the drive shaft. But how did how did the drive shaft grab a hold of all the wires and and brake lines for that matter? How did it? How did it get a hold of that, wrap it all up, and then snap it all off? Because that's that. Must have happened fast. That's crazy.

Um I'll tell you what. I kind of really do want to go down here, but I'm a little scared of this Jack stands. so maybe since there's no space really to fit in here, we got 18 inches and I'm a little bigger than that. Let's try it from the other side.

we'll just crawl under very far. Well let's try it from the front. first. let's see how far we can get see what's down here.

So we've got a solid front axle. There's a U-joint running into the axle shaft which goes into the axle which has our gear set inside. There's another one on the passenger side over here. so this is a full time axle.

meaning anytime these wheels are turning, the gear is inside are turning and if the gear is inside are turning, then that yoke on the back is turning. And if that yoke in the back is turning, then the drive shaft is turning. So looks like four-wheel drive is actuated. Uh, at the transfer case.

So if we select 4x4, then the transfer case will apply power to that drive shaft and send it forward or engine torque rather. Oh, that's pretty Molten Aluminum shards. Whoa. Look out.

Not breathing that. Get out of here. I Don't know what that was. but I'm not breathing it? No, not okay, yeah, that's definitely a aluminum.

I'm aware that's not how you say it, but things are fun sometimes. Wow, How about that? It's almost artwork that's melted to nothing. Again, that's the charge air cooler. Let's see.

let's try to crawl under from from this side here. this thing this: uh AC I don't know what this is for? Yeah. I can't identify that without it. I Don't know.

Again, more melted away brake lines? That one's gone. Yep, that's where the other end of the hose comes right there. So anything that was rubber that's gone looks like the steel brake line is still here on this side. Okay, all right, I'm crawling in a little bit deeper.

Oh wow. Check that out. Look at that. All right guys.

We're uh, we're doing the army crawl thing to kind of get under this. uh, this vehicle. Not exactly extremely easy to do trying to avoid getting contaminated with all the melted contaminants. Okay, coming in a little closer.

Yeah, we see most of this is electrical wire that looks like brake line. This right here is definitely brake line. Um, what's this thing here? Stuff for the PTO So this thing caught this thing. got a hold of everything in this area.

Brake Lines PTO lines. Electrical wires. All these electrical wires are usually connected to the frame over there through. Uh, see those little holes.

There'll be plastic clips that holds all that stuff to those holes and it would have run down right there, under the cab and then back. So it looks like at some point this, uh, this drive shaft was still spinning and it caught a hold of all those. uh, all those lines and hoses and wires and whatnot. rip them clean apart.

It also appears that during that event, this thing right here was rotating. We can see, we can't. we can't turn that by hand because the wheels are still on the ground. So that was turning there.

That was turning and at some point, this thing was yanked out. see I Want to see if the slip yoke was in during that event or if. Oh, you know what? I wonder if this stuff wrapped up in here so tight that it pushed the slip yoke out? It made that thing come apart I Don't know yet? Okay, let's uh. let's go back and examine this drive shaft a little bit further because we got some kind of clue action here.

Something's going on. Let's see above us that's our trans pan. A big deal. That's the engine oil pan.

that's the bell housing. I believe these are maybe coolant lines? I don't really know things. Super hot? Okay, let's migrate back. some interesting that.

oh no, no, there's our PTO Never mind. that's the power takeoff. That's the power unit for the bed and the controls and whatnot. Okay, more crawling around.

Let's see what we've got going on back here. Look at here. There's still diesel fuel right there. That's fuel.

So there's still diesel dripping out of the fuel lines even though those fuel lines burnt up. What is that? I didn't even look at that. Look at this right here. That's crazy.

The transfer case is broken in half. Look at this right here. Hang on. Let me get some more light in that that's that's something else.

Look at that right there. I Can barely see what's going on, but we're looking at the inside of a transfer case and I don't know what's in there or not. Look yeah. there's a couple gears.

There's the chain. I Think we're looking at the chain. right in front of us. I Can't see it straight on.

I'm looking through the camera lens. but that's the chain and the transfer case and it appears that the Drive Unit is not there. That's the unit. Yeah, yeah, there should be a gear like right here right where we're looking.

Let me point at it. There should be a gear right in here that that chain wraps around and that's how power is sent forward through the Yoke that's supposed to connect to the drive shaft. Which is. well.

here's the other side of it. Look at that. There's more more stuff wrapped up in it. There's like a fuel line or a hydraulic line or something.

More wires. See all this. Look at this right here. Oh man.

Then this drive shaft was flopping around everywhere and it was still turning from the thing rolling down the road. Which means this flippy, floppy drive shaft collected all of the wires and hoses and fuel lines and hydraulic lines and turned them into a ball. Yep, you can see right here. it's all wrapped up.

That's a main wiring harness right there. and it's twisted. Look how much? Look at all the twists in those wires. Yeah, it gets worse the farther you go back.

So all that flopping around? That's probably what caught the brake lines up there and ripped the brakes out of it now. I Don't know if it happened up front or if it happened right here because we're still looking at brake line right here. I Think and those lines would have run along the top of this or the side of this frame rail all the way back. All right, Let's uh, let's scooch back some get a better.

View Yeah, See, here's our part of the wiring harness that's intact right here. There's one of the brackets brackets for brake lines. That's crazy. Yeah, back here, there's a There's some fuel lines that's melted from the fire.

Oddly enough, there's still fuel dripping out of that. Look at that. That's fuel right there. Yep, that's our filter assembly for our fuel.

That's the water in fuel sensor. Surprise. These hydraulic lines? uh, kind of fared so well. Yeah, that's the reservoir for the hydraulic system right here.

That's the tank. and then that's the line that runs up to the PTO on the other side. Okay, wow. I Did not expect to find half of a transfer case down here.

Let's uh, let's go back up top and see if that, uh, that piece on the bed is what goes here because I think it is. and for reference, we're right behind the back of the cab. We started off up there and crawled over and now I'm kind of stuck I need to I think I'll just keep crawling I'm getting out of here Army Style I'm gonna put you guys down real quick I'm gonna crawl out of here Get rid of that. Oh Army Crawling around under a tow truck.

Oh I know it's free Mountain Entertainment isn't it up top now? and I'm looking at clearly a piece of the housing from the transfer case. Looks like it was mounted kind of in this position. So when we were looking at the transfer case, we were looking down the hole. This would have been the section of the unit that, uh, that was missing.

So that tells me this is the back side. This is the front side right here. We have the yoke that uh, goes into the unit and then this is where the gear would have been. The chain would have wrapped around this in some fashion.

I Haven't been able to locate the gear or the rear roller bearing. It's got a fairly large roller bearing here and that's intact. I Don't know where the rear bearing is. Maybe it flew off.

There's a there's some yellow paint on it so this thing must have flown off. Something was struck or this thing struck something. or something struck this that was hit there. Now Interestingly enough, this is the Yoke which stays in the transfer case.

that's part of this unit. This right here is the other side of the drive shaft. We can see where the bearing cups for the shaft were were supposed to have been sitting. Um, it looks like those are not serviceable.

You can't bolt those on and bolt them on both of them. Some of these are multiple pieces where it'll have half of a cup and then your drive shaft will sit inside of it. Then there'll be a cap that goes over it with two bolts that holds that cap on. This appears that those have to be pressed in during assembly, and then the end of this yoke is bolted to the drive shaft or to the transfer case from the drive shaft side.

Let me. uh, let me go back down and kind of show you the counterpart of this piece right here. I Think we can see it on the front side of of the drive shaft? Yeah, yeah, we can see right here. See how that, uh, there's that joint right there between this? this piece of the Yoke here? that's part of the drive shaft, the other part of the drive shaft.

There's a universal joint right inside of there. Let me try to zoom in on it. See that universal joint inside of these little round guys? right here. There's a bunch of very small needle bearings that surround the circumference or the inner diameter of that cup.

So just like the one in the back, we can see that this one does not bolt on and off. So in order to service this, we'd have to remove those clips and then use a press to press that sideways to remove the unit. And just like the rear side, this one is going to bolt on to the Yoke that goes into the drive unit. So just like what we're seeing right here, the front drive shaft emulates that exact same design with this right here.

Now, the reason that that is significant to me is that these are broken. so this would have taken some kind of tremendous Force to break these guys off. Now if if the failure occurred inside of the transfer case and this thing locked up, it very easily could have exploded the case and broken off those uh, those U-joint caps. However, it appears that on this side here, something was also striking many, many times.

This was struck and stricken here here here very hard. Right Here, it was hit here here. which tells me that at some point one of these parts was stationary or relatively stationary and then one of them was still moving around. Now we know that drive shaft stayed moving around because it stayed connected to the front and as the vehicle was moving, the gear train in that front axle would have kept that rear front drive shaft.

excuse me, would have kept that front drive shaft in rotation. So this thing could have broken off around here somewhere and allowed that drive shaft to start to come apart. or this thing could have locked up, exploded the transfer case, and then this remain turning. It's really tough to tell.

Oh, what is this Hang on more lumens. Is that a casting flaw? Look right here. See that void right there in the middle? That might be a casting flaw? Look at the brakes on all of these. Uh, let me try to turn this for some some better light.

We're outside in the sun, so I'm not. uh, not really set up for some good lighting. See right here. That's pretty clean inside.

There's no, there's no flaws and or irregular damage this one. right here. It's got this huge void in it so that right there, there's more of that void right here that's running diagonally. So this void went all the way through that unit.

This this actually right here. could have been the point of failure. and then the drive shaft flopping around. Turning could have just been slamming into this thing, banging it sideways left and right until it exploded the transfer case.

We can see that this thing slid along the pavement a little bit. This is kind of a that's chewed up pretty bad right there. and there appears to be some yellow paint in there. See the yellow speck right there.

So this thing slid and probably tumbled around. It was making contact with the ground here. probably right here. Made contact here.

See, we've got some scrapes here. From where it slid and rolled around, this thing would have been bouncing everywhere. Made contact here. See how this is kind of peeled away and bent a little bit.

So whenever this thing came apart, this was probably one of the last pieces that held on so everything would have broken away and then this piece was like that's whatever was left so the crack just migrated and then it snapped off right here. Let's go down real quick to that back axle just because it's easier to get access to. And I'll show you an example of a of the universal joint so you can see how it moves. Let's get some light in there if I can, but not really the best, but we'll work with it again.

This is the back section of the rear drive shaft which we found in the passenger seat which was removed so the tow truck could tow this tow truck. See how we can move this direction in this direction and this direction in this direction. Well, if one of these were to break off, half of it's going to be secured. which means the remainder of that shaft is going to become oblong in its rotation and it's going to flop around put tremendous loads on the other piece of it.

and that explains a lot of the damages and dents. Right around the areas where, uh, where the U-joint caps would have been pressed into those little flanges right there. See that? Okay, climbing back out. Yeah, so back up top I'm uh, kind of based on these brake patterns right here.

I am very inclined to believe that this is actually a casting flaw that's a void in the material. and that void was a weak spot. and that weak spot would have developed into a crack. and it potentially that's the uh, the failure.

Point Here and I'm inclined to believe that that's a that's the situation that we're looking at. I Think a casting flaw is highly probable for the cause of this accident. So yeah, that's a nice fresh break. There's no voids in this.

No voids here. and that's what you do not want when you cast metal. When I refer to casting metal is what you do is: you'll make a die, which is the shape of your part. Then you pour in liquid metal and then liquid metal will conform to the shape of whatever you poured it in of the die and then it'll As it cools, it'll take that shape and then you can do some finishing work later on.

For the the finer machine surfaces, this, that's a void That's definitely a void. I Don't I don't really care for that. We can see here, there's no damage to the interior bore where that driveshaft cup would have been mounted. This one right here is starting to get damaged.

It's damaged over here also, so if that, if that U-joint cup. Broke Free Right here, it would have been free to move around, flop around, and flop around. Independent of this, and again, that would have caused the side load. At some point it broke away free.

it was still spinning because these guys were hit right here. Those bolts. This is the seal. That's the grease seal that's going to ride right here.

that'll keep all the oil inside the unit, that's the dust shield that protects the seal and again, the very large roller bearing right here. Alrighty, so I Didn't actually notice this earlier, but uh, I have found out that there is a substantial piece of this drive shaft that's actually missing. So we're again at the rear of the front drive shaft and we can see that fuel line wiring harness all this stuff right here. It's all twisted up.

but if we look, see if I can't get my hand up there. if we take a look right here, we'll see that there's not a U-joint right here. That is the brace piece for a double Cardone joint which is actually a uh, a U-joint assembly that has two U-joints in it. Now we can see right here there is the piece of one of uh of a bearing cup.

All right. Uh, let me back up right in here. past that little Rat's Nest that's where the other U-joint bearing cup goes and then this little Bridge area right here. you see how it has that uh, little protrusion right there that is supposed to fit into the center of the U-joint and then there's going to be hang on, Heal Me Move is going to be kind of a duplicate U-joint so we don't have just one joint as we did in the front.

we're going to have one joint and then another joint and then that second U-joint is the one that's going to bolt on to, uh, the flange which is, uh, up top the piece that has the casting flaw in it. What I believe has happened here is that the U-joint or uh, or that cap back here on the flange suffered the failure and that actually makes more sense because if there was a another a whole separate set of U-joints here, one U-joint there, and then the housing for it, then the other one and then the housing which is down on the axle. If that thing broke off here, that would have given a lot of space for that piece to swing out, which is what would have allowed it to reach over effectively and collect the the brake lines and the wiring harness from that frame rail. Because this would have been riding, let's maybe 12 inches 10 12 inches away from the frame rail, which is where all those uh, critical critical components would have been located.

So if this thing broke right here and that joint was able to swing outwards as that drive shaft was flopping around, it could have reached in, scooped up, grabbed a hold of all that assembly, and as soon as it got a hold of some of it chain reaction it would have just grabbed everything, ripped it all to pieces, which is what we saw. And that's where the the failure of the brakes occurred, the fear of electronics occurred, and more importantly the failure of the fuel lines occurred. See the issue is, although this is a diesel, it does have a lift pump if my knowledge is correct. Yeah, yeah, there is a there is an electronic pump inside of this tank.

So once that fuel system was opened up for a brief time, the pressure that that pump was providing would have been spraying loud truck noises would have been spraying some fuel at that failure point. That combined with stripped wires that are all strung up together that would have probably produced an immense amount of heat and or some Sparks and that is very well in my estimation. that is the most probable source of the ignition for this specific fire. So we had a hard component that collected a bunch of electrical and Fuel and hydraulic components and it mixed all that with some heat and some flame and some spark and then poof.

That's what gave us our ignition. So there's one other little detail here. I'd like to pay attention to do we see this broken piece of metal right here? Okay, now on this side, that's the side where I suspected the original failure had occurred. Now if there was this this U-joint running through these two caps.

here, this piece broke off. It allowed the U-joint to turn sideways. Now that turning sideways again would have initiated that side load, and there would have had to have been an extreme side load here. In order to break away this piece of metal, we can see that there's some of it intact right here, and there's a bit of a lip right there.

See that Now that lip is what is going to hold on to the little retaining clip that keeps those U-joint caps from sliding in and out. So once those are pressed into position, you would install a little clip from the outside and it would ride inside of this groove. Now, the reason Now we can see that since this has been broken off right here, there must have been an incredible side load put on that in order to overcome the physical strength of that piece of Steel And that's what snapped that off. Um, again.

that all happened like right in the right when the failure occurred. But it was a chain of events, but they all happened in extremely fast order. You know one thing after the other, and fractions of a second would have passed between. Uh, between these events.

So I think we had a breakage. We had a Twist. We had a lot of spinning some side load. It broke, that this thing broke free and that's what really set it all out, set it all off and allowed that U-joint to separate in order to collect all those pieces of Uh of wiring, harness, fuel line, and brake line.

All right. I've crawled Back Down Under and I'm looking for more evidence to support that the driveshaft failure was the original point of failure. and we're looking up at the bottom of the uh, the floor pan and we can see bunch of damage right there. See that, that big dent, that big dent, that big dent.

those dents there were caused from that rotating drive shaft in that flopping Cardone joint running into the the top of the bed here and we can also see oh yeah, there's some. There's also a bunch of damage over here on the side where all those wires and hoses would have been run. many many little impact points. Focus Please Yeah, lots of impact damage there from that piece flopping around.

So at this point I think I've collected enough to at least support my thesis that uh, this was caused by that U-joint failure and that set off the chain of reaction to start the fire, damage the brakes, and ultimately damage the vehicle. So at this point I think we're pretty much done with the tour. Let me know in the comments below if there's anything else you'd like to see on this truck in any greater detail. it's going to be here for a while, so I'll be able to revisit it.

Uh, like I said I Know this was a stark departure from my normal format, but this year these are special circumstances right here. so I just had to I Had to make a video about this Anyway, Again, let me know what you think about this in the comment section down below. Drop that like button while you're down there. And most importantly, uh, don't forget to have yourselves a better day than what this truck had.

See you guys later in a transmission.