Method for tandem sliding?

I had an overweight issue and have asked for a lot of advice and studied so now I feel confident about this and my last five guesses were correct. One trick that no one mentioned except for my trucking buddy was to look at the tires and if they look flatter than the others than it is a good sign that it may be overweight. Always try to keep it 6, 7, or 8 holes from the front and most likely you will be OK. However always try to weigh it at the nearest cat scale before you hit the interstate or highway. Make sure to use your map to locate the gay station and avoid it. They set up those weigh stations purposely in the right spots that make it hard for you to get to a scale right after being loaded so they can make money from you.

Always slide your tandems toward the problem. If you have 2000 pounds over on your drive axle, slide your tandems four or five holes to the front and re-weigh (our trailers are rated at 500 pounds per hole but more like 450). I recently had a load that was 45,700 pounds and had to put it in the third hole from the front which was different than my usual 6, 7, or 8th hole. I believe it was because it was evenly loaded from front to back so the whole trailer had an even distribution of weight so I just had to make the tandems match it. Oh yeah, when you are also overweight you can feel it. When my tandems are in the wrong spot it feels like the truck is struggling up hills and dragging the trailer. When I put the tandems in the right spot the trailer feels light and using momentum to roll.

I dont use anything on the ground to indicate how far I need to go back or forward. I just go really slow and look in the mirror and can tell how far it moved. Sometimes I am one hole over but not really a big problem.

 

What map are you using?

Mine doesn't show gay stations, but it sure would be nice to avoid them.

 

Using a Great Dane trailer it was more like 250 lbs per hole, and fifth wheel slide is 500 lbs per slot.

 

here's my tip: if you need to slide 3 holes, grab your wheel chock and place it that distance in front of (or behind) your tandems. rock the trailer to release the pin, then slowly pull until you feel the chock..

 

Here are a couple of my tricks to dealing with those stubborn non spring loaded tandems.

First try and get on level ground, go forward really slow and coast to a stop or brake very lightly, usually they stick because the hole have gotten bigger that the pins and they are not centered and being heavy one the brakes tend to have the pins move around and bind up.

Vice grips are your friend, use them. If you pull the handle and it only comes only part way out, vice grip it there, go back to the cab and push or pull the trailer whatever way it needs to go to try and center the pins in the hole. Then go back, pull again and it probably will come all the way out, if not repeat.

If you are having problems actually sliding the trailer once the handle is pulled all the way out check the pins and make sure the came all the way out of the whole. If not, pull the handle out as far as it will go, past the little notch that holds it out and use your vice grips to keep it there. If the pins are all the way out and it won't slide but you are dragging the brake (wheels are turning) your brakes probably need to be adjusted as they are failing a simple tug test. You can try releasing the brakes and applying 80-100 psi of pressure and this should get the auto adjusters to kick in if not you have bigger problems than your tandems. If the brakes are holding and you are dragging the tires then something else is wrong, try wd40, maybe the rail is bent and so on.

Using these methods I have yet to meet the tandems I can't slide, and even the #####iest ones only take me a few minutes to get. All beating on the pins or release handle does it mess them up more for the next driver and I have yet to have to resort to that.

As far as where to set them, if the load is uniform, say 20 identical pallets just put them so the back of the tandems are even with the back of the last pallet, 9 out of 10 times this works. If its a bunch or random stuff like a retail delivery or the trailer is sealed I just set them on the 6th hole or so and go scale it. We run mostly Wabash Duraplates and they are usually 250lbs a hole.

 

Wow.
Were your math skills this good when you went to school?

435 is 1% of 43,500 -- not 10%.

By your reasoning, each hole would be 4,356 with a 43,560 pound load.

 

Ummm...

Since the tandems are not moving, how would they contact the chock?
Wouldn't it be better to place the chock in front of, or behind, a drive tire?

 

Good catch, I didn't even think about that lol.

 

brain fart... drives is indeed what I meant

 

after making sure forward and/or behind is clear, I look out the driver's window and watch the ground to see how much the truck is moving. One hole is such a tiny amount of truck movement...

Mikeeee