Pro tip: stop balancing governor tension with feel, use a spring scale instead

I used to guess on governor cable tension by hand for years until I messed up a 40-floor high-rise in Chicago last fall and the safety binds seized mid-test, now I keep a scale in my bag so I can set it to exact pounds every time has anyone else had a close call from just winging it?

2 comments

2 Comments

daniel21418d ago

Happened to me on a 15-stop hydraulic in Austin a couple years back. I thought I had the governor tension dialed in by feel like always, but I must have been off by maybe 2 or 3 pounds because the car overshot the terminal landing and the safeties caught so hard it bent a guide rail bracket. My foreman still gives me crap about it. Yeah, I mean I totally get why you'd switch to the scale after a close call like that, it's just not worth the risk when you're talking about that kind of weight and speed.

haydenj9018d ago

Yeah my buddy swears by feel too and he got burned bad on a job in Milwaukee last spring. He thought the governor cable was tight enough, but it slipped during the load test and the car slammed into the buffer so hard it cracked the pit floor slab. Now he's the one texting me scale pics from every site, learned the hard way like the rest of us.

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