lack of empty trailers

Grease your fifth wheel.

The MS Carriers usually have air ride, and the flip up lever for the sliders on the tandems.

 

Greasing the 5th wheel doesn't do anything. I've pulled a trailer just after getting serviced and greased that still tracked crooked. Greasing might help in some cases, but sometimes it is just the trailer.

 

IIRC too far off track? OOS from the DOT. If they were to actually see it and needed to write a ticket. I pulled a 38ft flat bed for 18 months. Bent axel. Boss just kept putting tires on it. I had to reverse them as they wore at an angle.

 

A trailer dog tracking means that there is either a bad bearing, bushing, or alignment.

Greasing a 5th wheel will not cure the problem...

 

If the trailer can't pivot freely the low side of the road will make it track crooked.

 

Being able to slide the tandems without using the vice grips, a sledge and spending 15 minutes rocking the trailer is also a nice touch.

 

never seen any extra cash for crossing this bridge

 

If that was true, then it would track to the right in the right hand lane and to the left in the left hand lane, following the crown of the road. All the trailers I've had that want to dog track will do it to one side only.

 

Yeah, that would be nice, but then so would being wealthy enough so I didn't have to do this. Since that's not going to happen, deal with it.

And for the drivers using a 5lb sledge hammer, why the overkill? Are you trying to comensate for some other deficiency or something? I use a 16oz ball peen hammer for anything I need to hammer on and it's more than enough hammer to get the job done.

 

When I was there, Sumner paid $12/hr for anything under 50 miles. I had a good DM so he paid pretrip to drop.