Legal weights and how to maximize the Load and staying Legal

There are several things, that need to be known to help you. Day cab or sleeper? How many total pallets?

 

If you are putting standard dimension pallets in the 53 ft trailer, I see customers load 2-3 single pallets in the nose on the trailer center-line, not side by side. Then they load side by side skids to about the 45 foot distance from the nose, then single skids on the center-line to finish.

 

Can be a rock and a hard place on a driver. I'm usually heavy. And, on occasion it can be difficult. Had a load that had me at 79,800 lbs. gross weight and shipper gave me flack about removing some cargo to get my axle weights legal. Hard to explain that only so much weight shuffling a driver can do and with only 200 lbs of slack between 3 axle groups it's virtually impossible to get everything legal. In the end they took off about 600 lbs and I was able to get it all legal. But, I had to get a bit persistent.
Overall, it's kind of an experience thing, the more you shuffle your tandems and 5th wheel around to get everything legal, the easier it becomes to do. I usually try and run my 5th wheel in a neutral spot where drive weights don't effect Steer tire weights. I usually have around 11,400 lbs on steers axles and will shift less than 100 lbs between empty and full. But, if my weights are too great, slide my 5th wheel up 2 notches and usually gives me an extra 400 to 500 lbs of slack on drive and tandem axles, without going over 12,000 lbs on steer axle. Then, it's just adjusting my tandems to distribute the rest. It is hard to get them all legal with anything below 600 lbs of slack (79,400 lbs gross), and usually only luck will get it all to work.
Also heard that most states give a couple hundred pounds of leeway on things, so if an exle is only over by 100 or 200 lbs, they let it slide. But, no direct experience with that and I'm anal enough that I don't tempt fate if I don't have to.

 

Yeah, every load can be different. In general, you move about 250 lbs when you move your 5th wheel one notch and 500 lbs when you move your tandems one hole ( or 250 lbs when tandems have the closely spaced holes). But, each load is unique. I've moved as little as 200 lbs when sliding tandems 1 hole and as much as 900 lbs.
It can seem daunting in the beginning, don't be discouraged. It becomes old hat after some experience. Hardest thing in the long run is keeping yourself from getting lazy about it and saying, it's good enough without doing the work. That laziness cost me $150 in an overweight ticket coming into Oregon and no one to blame but myself.

 

I doubt it. Lol. My 3rd load solo was 79,400 lbs gross weight. Had to slide 5th wheel twice ( I had never slide it before and had to look up YouTube videos on how to do it) and moved my tandems numerous times. Ended up with 5 reweighs (total of 6 times across the scales) before I was legal. BUT, I got myself legal!!!

 

Ok. I obviously also depends on the weight of the pallets, and how much the entire load weighs. But because you have a day cab, start with 1 single in the nose, however if you are going to load 28 or 30 pallets you will need to have the entire load doubled. There will be times you need to be creative, and load some sideways or pinwheel.