It's a young mans game. I still remember how to rig alright, but even with modern recovery equipment, it's still dammed hard work with long hours. I seriously doubt they would appreciate me telling them how to do it before I went down for my nap. I do run across Heavy Duty Towing blogs & such from time to time, and it's fun to read how they all marvel at how "Dangerous" our recovery trucks were back then. I suppose there is some degree of Truth in it, but if your working with really big things, getting squashed is the price paid for stupid. Risk management by limiting unintended consequences is the preferred path to travel.
The old equipment is long gone anyway, as are the companies I worked for running them. On a side note, I know Continentals big recovery units were very well built, and much stronger than anything factory made today. The 3 stage booms & twin 60k winches were the heart of the wrecker beds, all the frames were double railed steel, and the rest of the beds were hand built around the booms & winches, it took about a years labor to build one, and they were very strong. The booms & winches were actually original shipboard units installed on Liberty & Victory ships built for WWII, and then removed when ships were salvaged for scrap at wars end. They were overbuilt & would lift well past 100k with ease all day long. Tex Freeman that founded Continental Truck & Towing bought about a dozen of them on a bid as War Surplus, & built them into wreckers to tow Continental Trailways Buses, which was his first big contract customer. That's the origin story anyway. As for how safe they were? Well, the old saying "Guns Don't Kill People,,," kind of applies, like, "Wreckers Don't Kill Operators..." I did get rear ended by a drunk Mexican over in Boyle Hgts one time, & yes, he died, so, I guess they could be dangerous sometimes. Moot point anyway, since they are all gone out of working service these days. Here's a pic of #40, which was a 1965 Pete COE powered by a 335 Cummings & had a 5 & a 4 for transmissions. It was my favorite out of them all. Heavy though, it tipped the scales at a bit over 40k. The boom fullly extended had enough reach to undeck 3 flatbeds up at Utility Trailer on Alameda, Great working truck. which is all I really cared about anyway.
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