Dropping a Trailer Properly

There are no dumb questions, just dumb mistakes.

 

One yard mule vs I don't know how many trucks. Hmmm. If it has suspension dump, deflate the bags before you go under the trailer. If it doesn't, figure out a way to put it out of your misery so they can get one that is the right elevation. Or use a tractor for your yard stuff. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but I get tired of yard jockeys ....I mean messing up the trailers and equipment with their rough handling and don't give a crap attitude. I'm not running trailers for your convenience and quite frankly could do my job just fine without your assistance. Because I would park the trailer in a manner that the next condo truck would be able to get it out.

 

A lot of our trailers will creep out from the dock when you drop the bags. I always back in, pull the brake knobs, let it creep out, push the brakes back in and back it back in the few inches it crept out. The bags don't air up as quick as you can back it back in those few inches.

 

Don't worry Lonesome.
You are cussing at drivers that properly drop trailers due to your truck being high.
Every driver that comes in and has to hook at trailer at your location will cuss at you, since you will probably be dropping them properly with your high truck.
Thus they will be high hooking or over riding, and having to crank down.

 

I've seen a few of these 'professionals' drop trailers. They dump the air from the tractor suspension, then get out, and lower the gear til it's about an inch or so from the ground. Unhook the lines, and the fifth wheel. Then they pull out.
I'm aware this tractor sits higher, so I take that into consideration, when I have to drop one.
Also, I've found it much easier to crank down a trailer, than to crank one up.

What happens when you, with your tractor with lo pro 22.5 tires, and air ride, drops a trailer as mentioned in this thread, and the next guy has spring suspension, and 24.5's? Just curious.....

 

Funny how I found this thread, because this is exactly what happened to me today!!! Someone left a 42,000 lb paper load for me with the rusty landing gear cranked out to the stops. After two tries I still couldn't lock the kingpin, and the gear didn't want to budge with all that weight on it. Luckily, the yard jockey was pretty cool; he hooked up to it and raised it for me to take the pressure off the landing gear, and this made things much easier. I lowered the legs by about a couple of inches and heard that familiar, metallic "clank" when I hooked up.

BTW, this reminds me of another pet peeve of mine: don't you hate it when the yard mules parks the trailers so darned close that you can barely squeeze yourself between them, and there's little to absolutely no room to handle the landing gear or slide your tandems (happened to me one time at a Wal-mart DC; I had to crawl under the trailer next to mine just to raise the gear!)

 

Something to keep in mind, if you keep a couple of 4x4 blocks with you, you can place the 4x4's on the end of your frame with the air out of your truck suspension while it is under the trailer, then use it to lift the trailer and take the pressure off the landing gear.

If you do this, make sure the blocks are long enough to go from one side of your frame to the other, do not use individual blocks, and criss cross the layers as you stack.

This is also very helpful when a trailer has the legs all the way up and gets dropped on the ground, use the tractor to lift the trailer and keep adding blocks until you get it back up.

 

yes--in no way should you use blocks under the wheels to lift up truck so you can pin
i saw a guy do it once--the trailer was on the pad--but the ground was very low in front--and looked like it had maybe been parked by yard mule with the gear up high
wel it took awhile but this guy was determined(mind you there were mules and forklifts to use right there)---so anyways this guy has a big old pile of wood to back on--and he finally pins the trailer--the wood kicks out and he was sitting there with back end of truck up in the air--of course this only happens when you dont have a camera handy

 

BLOCKS on the FRAME of the truck !!!!!!!

 

Ha ha, yeah, that will really mess up your day right there.