Dropping a Trailer Properly

The pumpkin trucks are governed at 63mph. The flaw with your plan which you will eventually figure out is that when a lease operator or owner operator is pulling one of the mega fleet trailers they are usually not governed or at the very least governed at ~68 or higher. This confused the hell out of me when I first started. I would see a [insert mega fleet company trailer of choice here] blow my doors off while I was in a 65mph truck leaving me scratching my head. Eventually I realized what was going on... but it took me a minute or two.

I've only been on the road for two years so what do I know about anything but I swear I'm seeing at least double the amount of L/O or O/O pulling the mega fleet trailers this year versus last year. So keep this in mind and good luck to you...

 

None of the FFE trucks I saw through training, orientation (more training), talking to other drivers, etc.... had dump switches on them. Also all trucks (with the exception of o/o or lease operators possibly) were no more than 3 years old (normally). They were just cheap freightshakers, but hell this is also the company that the shop would WELD the sliding 5th wheel..... so yea....

 

haha Condo, but amazingly not hijacked.......yet

 

I think that possibly no one actually stated that the purpose of this method is to help keep the trailer at a common height and angle whether loaded or not.

An empty trailer sits at an angle that would be nearly flat or barely raised at the pin.

A loaded trailer sits much lower in the back and thus the pin is raised higher than an empty trailer.

Exaggerate the angle of a parked empty trailer by loading it heavy and you have an opportunity to put the pin far too high.

It took me the entire thread to figure out what was going on. Why didn't someone say this in the beginning ?

Students, like myself, are balancing the videos, instructors, DMV tests questions and Trainers trying to figure out just who is telling us the truth. It easy really, you see, because the one with my paycheck in his hand is the winner.

 

It bites when you miss out on all the fun...especially when it's your own thread.

The only time I crank the landing gear all the way down then give it a couple more turns is when I'm setting my fifth wheel. Doing this takes the pressure off the fifth wheel so you're not slamming it around while you're trying to set it. Oh, yeah...I'll be a jerk in the Memphis yard and leave it high too. Maybe Denver....

 

I had the auto valve on my Doonan, I had a manual valve on my Ravens, as well as an old transcraft company trailer I used to pull, the landing gear on the transcraft was really hard to move because the guy who was pulling it before I did never aired down the bags and it would slowly leak off over a couple of days and if the trailer was loaded it would put it in a pretty hard bind.

 

My last truck had that valve, it was a huge help in all kinds of different situations.

 

Whole time I was in school............never a mention of dropping the air bags?

Set your brakes, release your air lines, release the fifth wheel. lower your landing gear. If there is more....why isn't common knowledge or at least being taught?

 

Because the school is there to pump out people with CDL's as fast as possible. Not truck drivers.

If you look at your trailer and think about it, it will make perfect sense to you, you have air bags, you have MGM's that when you release the red handle the brakes are going to set up. If you dolly down before the air bags have been dumped then what will happen is as the bags on the trailer slowly deflate the trailer will push forward against the landing gear, and if it does it enough times it can bend the dollie legs.

I will also say if you own your own trailer and you do not have an air gage on it, you are doing something wrong.