How far to slide tandems?

12th hole? Are you counting from the back to the front? Another issue, terminology differences, no commonality...boy this really sizzles my bacon!!!

 

I count from the front of the rail.

If I see a problem, then I would scale. If the load was running to a place I went alot, I knew the hours of the scales and did not worry about them.

 

I've found the thickness of the pegs determines how much each "hole" will affect the weight moved. The bigger the pegs, the more weight. There's two types of hole systems that I've found too. Some trailers have holes every inch or so, and some have holes 4 inches or so apart. 5th wheel depends on the truck, and the system of pegs/holes. It's all trial and error. It took me a couple of heavy loads and dozens of reweighs to get an idea of what does what.

 

my exp. with great dane, wabash, and tralmobile. has been 250 OR 500. if the holes are 2-3 inches apart its a 250. 5-6 inches apart a 500

 

We run CA to GA almost exclusively- all heavy carpet loads. I have never hadan issuse with either state. We're usually at or almost at gross. Mudflaps athe back of the rolls work perfect. If we aren't haulng carpet we haul wire out of southwire in GA. Hauled lots of beer loads with SNI they are nice because they scale you up...weird about that fuel. We had te rule of each time we picked up high value had to drive 200 miles without stopping- they made us fuel up before pick ups.

Still all in all fuel fomula seems rather useless, unless you are hauling illegal loads over gross. paper loads can kill ya if loaded wrong- lettuce is another, because of the ice. Dont scare the new guys- as stated above by Icedogg atfter long enough you'll fgure out what does what by intuition.

 

Cripes! Shake a calculator at you guys, and ya'll wanna go hide behind Mama's skirts!

The deal with fuel is if you have a *very* heavy load, you may not be able to fill your tanks and still be legal. A little figurin' with the calculator beats a $450 overweight ticket.

Same deal with figurin' out which hole to put the tandems in. Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's fuel-efficient. And if the newbs "get scared" at this, lets not be putting them on Donner or Vail or Holliday in a winter storm at gross weight! OOOHHHH! Poor little babies might get scared!

 

I run heavy haul with Swift. Truck is a Freightshaker. That said, on my rig 1 5th wheel notch is 400-500 lbs, one tandem notch is 200-300lbs. Note: this is on 3 axle reefers loaded 45k-49k.

Tools I have found useful: Vice Grip pliers, 2-3 lbs sledgehammer, tire chalk.
Vice gribs to hold out the tandem lever, pull as much out as you can, take hammer, bang in pins. Repeat until all unlocked. Re-pull lever and lock with pliers. Now mark target hole with chalk. Slide until right and release lever. Slide til locked, get out of cab (brakes set) and VERIFY PINS ARE LOCKED!!!!!!!!!
10-15 minutes after a bit of practice.

 

Don't you also have a tag axle on the tractor?

 

Yes sir. A good point, and that does change it a bit... since most my loads are about 50k + in the box, I've set my 5th wheel to the point that I have to drop tags on most loads over 30k just to keep the steers legal. These numbers have worked with my 3 axle (loaners while Miss Daisy gets fixed) trucks too.

 

One thing to keep in mind when sliding tandems or 5th wheel, in addition to the weights on each axle group, is how the load will ride. If you get your weights off by too much, then the load (and you) will have a rough ride. It will take some experience to get to where both you and the load get a smooth ride.