Tandems Confuse Me - Please Advise

Not sure where you work. Where I work (reefer) I bet I'm not in a position to see the load being loaded but maybe once in every 30 loads. Either it's pre-loaded, or no drivers allowed on docks even if they wanted to over-see the loading. (and when you could, you'd be standing around in a freezer for 1 to 3 hours, no thanks)

 

You should also be able to feel it if there's an issue. Too much weight on the back and it flops like a fish out of water every time you hit a bump.

 

Maybe you should have taken your training as seriously as Dana did.

Move the axles toward where you want the weight off, guesstimate 250-500 lbs per hole moved. After you've done it a few times you'll have a better idea how much weight is moved with each hole.

For future reference, when some one more experienced than you speaks, listen. You have a history of bashing your trainers on these boards and here we are 10 months later.

 

Haha..love it..

Anyways, isnt rocket science going to the hobby shop, buying it, then lighting the fricken thing?
Or if your a NASA head, filling a grain bin full of fuel and lighting IT ?
Rocket science aint rocket science

DustyRoad, awesome post, had to read it a couple times..
When i was LTL, the loading of trailers was so inconsistent at my barn we were told to scale everything over 28k (listed on BOL)...It was interesting to see what it really was, and where it all was...I was surprised many times
My favorite was when the BOL said 46k, and I scale it and it comes out something like 11,100 / 29, 900 / 33, 200

My least favorite was when BOL would say 29k on board and the scale would have 37k on my rear..Id have to go to my little 15 dock barn, open up, dock it in the dark, fire up forklift etc etc, sit on hold with dispatch so they could clock me in on the dock and power up a scanner...hated it

 

Shippers make false weight claims on LTL shipping BOL's all the time. I imagine more then 2/3 of all LTL shipments prepared by shippers are UNDERstated on the weight. A 2,000 pound crate? ... 1,560 pounds, class 60 says the shipper How many shipments get audited? Very few I imagine.

 

At central, it was purely based on the weight listed on the item..so if you got 20 pallets of black and decker vacum cleaners, the math was probably good, and the weight on the BOL close..But, if you had a giant old lathe, helecopter blades, and a bunch of stuff a p&d driver picked up, and guessed the weight, BOLs so absurdly off it was funny..We were all CAT scale frequent flyers, got the hat and pins to prove it!!
We even got the board game "CAT scales, the game"

 

produce is always fun

 

To the original poster, if the gross vehicle weight is over 80,000 pounds, call dispatch and have the shipper remove some weight. There is nothing you can slide that will fix a vehicle that is over 80,000 pounds.
.
.If the steer axle is 12,000 pounds or less and the gross vehicle weight is under 80,000 pounds try the following:
.
. step 1 take the trailer tandem weight and subtract the drive tandem weight that is the difference between the two.
.step 2 take the difference and divide by 500. This gives you the number of holes to slide the trailer tandems.
.step 3 Slide the trailer tandems. If the answer is a negative number then shorten the trailer wheelbase by sliding the trailer tandems that number of holes. Otherwise, [positive number], increase the trailer wheelbase by sliding the trailer tandems that number of holes.
.step 4 re-weight the vehicle.
.step 5 determine how much weight was moved and divide by the number of holes that you slid the trailer tandems. Now you know exactly how much weight each hole moves on that trailer.

 

A little tip ... Post #29 is "generally good" for rule of thumb but by no means should be considered the end-all be-all method to guarantee success because the 500 number may in reality be 250 or 650 depending on load configuration, and it does't take into account the current fuel load (You may want to not equally spread the weight, drive to trailer)

But enough about that. For any mental sliding method to work, one first has to make a note of the original hole position number you're starting from and not just willy-nilly slide around. I mean, you can I suppose if you want to spend 30 minutes wearing out your clutch. BTW, how do guys with autos slide a difficult, heavy slider, anyway? Must be a PITA

You can physically COUNT the holes (I don't recommend this personally), or you can take your ball peen hammer/tire bumper [you should have between your seat and your door] and "scratch" a mark at your target hole (after you've done the mental estimations in your head based on what the current weight numbers say) The road grime/dirt underneath the trailer insures it's easy to scratch a target mark for easy and positive reference rather then getting cross-eyed trying to count holes, or burn an initial image into your brain that may or may not stick.

I've seen guys spend 2 minutes counting holes, determine they want to move maybe 3 holes, then slide forward maybe eight, then back maybe 2 then go back and count all over again