TN portable scales

Found out today that the State of TN currently has no portable scales in use.

We have a boiler company using our crane and yard to outfit portable boilers. Basically what they are doing is getting trailers and attaching boilers to them. They were having us put a boiler in a van trailer that weighed 20,000 lbs, and they were wanting to pretty much center it up over the back closed tandems. I told them that I thought they were going to be overweight on the tandems, especially after they added everything else on the trailer, and told them they needed to weigh it before attached it in place. The problem with that was, there is no way to tie the boiler down to take it to the truck stop. One of the workers there said he would call his brother, who is a TN State Trooper, and see if he could get a set of portables brought out there. When he called his brother, he said they took them all away from them.

He said the last person at the State certified to maintain the portables, retired a few months ago, and they took them all away from them. Said he didn't know when they would get them back.

 

I told them there was probably a place that rented portables, but I haven't looked into it.

 

I’ve told them and we will go from there. The boss is modeling this setup based on another one he saw at a trade show, but I was talking to one of the workers that was at the same trade show, and he said the trailer they saw was a 3-axle.

The trailer they are using is an old United step van bed bug trailer, that has been “refurbished” by a local trailer dealer.

I’m just going to let them go ahead and attach everything to the trailer, and then we will take it to the truck stop and weigh. If they don’t want to change it then, they can get somebody else to pull it.

 

Yes, they can permit it as non-divisible fixed load, but you still can’t go over 46,000 on a tandem in TN, even with a permit.

The boiler weighs 22,000, and there is a bunch of other stuff in there that probably equals less than 40,000 total. I’m pretty sure it will be under 80k once it’s all said and done. The problem is the main 22k piece is sitting too far back. There is a lot of trailer overhang behind the fixed tandems, and the 22k boiler is pretty much centered over the tandems.

I even crawled under there and looked to see how hard it would be to add another axle, but the main frame pretty much ends at the back of the tandems. You also have to consider that this is an old furniture moving trailer, so it’s not the heaviest built.