Weird drive axle weight situation

Well, I would be curious to see how all the various GROSS weights looked like. Cat will only "guarantee" on the gross stated weight against a gross weight tickets. They are pretty much useless against axle weight tickets.

I have a feeling if we could see all the printed axle weights from the Cat scales and maybe the state scales, things would start to make more sense, rather than just being privy to the drives weights

 

You said 35,100 in your original post? Idk. I can promise you it's not your fifth wheel. If it is, the tickets are the least of your concerns.

 

Were you setting your brakes on the CAT scales and not on the DOT scales?

 

Holy cow son, slide those trailer tandems up. There's no reason for you to be that close to 34k on the drives with a 74k gross. I'd also knock the 5th wheel back a hole or two just to be a bit safe, but if that 12.5k was on full tanks it's not that big of a deal. I usually kept my steers at or below 12k as I just felt safer from unwanted attention that way. But man, if you had put your trailer tandem forward further you'd never have had this problem anyway.

BUT, since you do have this problem, CAT should stand by their tickets. Since being overweight isn't an inspection item I'm assuming you got a ticket. Inform CAT and they'll pay for your defense since all their scales are certified.

 

^^^^^^
Did you set the trailer brakes specifically? Some trailers will air down the suspensions when you kill the air supply. This too can jack the weights around.

 

There's your trouble

 

Just the opposite. Do NOT set your brakes on the CAT scale. What is happening is when you set your brakes, the air bags in the trailer are deflating causing the trailer to be lower on the rear, thus transferring weight to the back.
Heck, the sign even says to release the brakes.