Understanding non air ride trailer

We have two spring ride 48 foot flat bed trailers. They are steel and wood so very little bow if any in them. If your trailer is only an inch above the tires with 44000 lbs check it in the daylight. We put 48000 or more on ours and it doesn't hardly move. As for sliding the tandoms. It won't happen with our trailers. They haven't been moved in years. Reposition the load or avoid the scales.

 

Find your flashlight and ck. if all pins are pulled back out of holes in slider rail, use hammer if ness.

 

The suspension type, air or spring doesn't have a lot to do with the fact that this sounds like an older poorly maintained trailer. The sliding mechanisms have evolved and improved over the years, and the older ones were not easy to deal with when they were brand new. Let them get corroded with the chemicals used on the highways now, and they simply will not slide, particularly with a full load on them. You will burn out a clutch or two trying.

 

How much weight do you have available on the steer axle? Might be easier to slide the 5th wheel if you can not get the tandems to slide. Probably will not get all the weight off the drives but then you have less to slide the tandems.

 

That is one way to do it, if the steers are light enough.
And don't forget, you can get away with the steers being 12,250 easily.

Another consideration that I haven't seen mentioned is that the tandems are already as forward as they will go, and won't go any farther. Trying to force it will only damage something.
If it slides backwards, then forwards, it is not stuck - right? But it simply may not have the travel you are expecting.
With many of our new trailers the tandems are all the way forward, but it looks like there are three holes left to go.

If that is the case, and sliding the 5th wheel won't help, the load may have to be reworked to get some weight more in the back.

2,000 over on the drives is very hard to get rid of by a 5th wheel adjustment, I might add.

 

If you back up against a curb, don't tear the mudflaps off. Use a bungee to hold them up & out of the way.