Stop it with the high trailers!

Exactly, as the air leaks out of the air bags the trailer creeps forward an inch or more. This kinks the inside piece against the outer piece of the legs, making it more difficult to crank them up,,,or down. Add air, wait for air bags to fill & crank away.

 

I didn't see it mentioned. Once you do have the gear down, pin released, etc, and you start pulling ahead, as soon as the apron clears the 5th wheel STOP, with the apron still over the back of the frame. Stay there a second or three. That way if the gear does collapse, the nose of the trailer isn't driven into the ground, and causing more problems. Then again, you may have to put the cell phone down, and spend a couple extra seconds, yeah, I know, you saved 3 seconds, this time.

I see deflating the bags is mentioned a number of times, and it's a good thing, but all tractors don't have that feature. On fleet trucks it might cost 3-5 dollars per truck, and you know how that goes.

 

The problem with not getting some weight on the dollies before pulling out..... Its usually to late when you figure out there is a problem. Waiting on a wrecker or someone to pick it up would suck big time, IMO.

Your dollie teetering theory works when you drop an empty that is to be loaded. I forgot to mention that last night.

Alot also depends on where you are dropping the trailer. If its a concrete pad you don't have to worry about it sinking, if its a gravel lot, you need to take that into consideration.

Wrong! Do not air up the trailer until you are under it and dollies off the ground. Doin it the way you described will still put tension on them.

 

No Les, you're wrong. Airing up your deflated air bags returns your trailer to the condition that you dropped it in.... level for the most part, with the dolly legs straight up and down not binding. Simple physics.

Another thought for the "drop em low" crowd. Take a look at a disassembled dolly leg. The gears inside are a crown and pinion type and are usually cast rather than forged like a rear end gearset. Repeated shocks on them will crack,break, strip teeth on them real easy and then they go neither up or down. It's the commonest damage to dollys.

 

I get it, I think. You're saying if you drop it then dump the air? You're not supposed to do that in the first place, but I understand your point now.

 

Well, if you have a dump valve on the trailer you deflate the bags before you dolly down and unhook,yes. On a non-dump the bags will usually deflate themselves in a couple of hours.

Also, especially in cold weather, airing up the suspension first lets you be sure you don't have a buggered up air control valve. You do not want to haul your trailer with deflated air bags..... veddy expensive mistake.

 

Did ya ever think of.... back up where the fifth wheel almost touches the trailer, stop, take a quick look at the height, THEN back under and hook up. I know, I know, walking is hard work.

 

Exactly. That way when you do your tug test, there is no way to bind up a dolly leg since they shouldn't be touching the ground.

 

What was worse was when some moron had a tractor with those 19.5 tires on and pulled a regular trailer. They'd drop them at their height and then I'd have to crank like hell to bring it up to mine. Empty wasn't too bad, but a loaded one was a bear.

 

I always tried to get the regular trailers cranked up to a proper height if I ended up with one. It was hard sometimes, since I'm a little thing, but I did it.