Heavy Haul Miscellaneous Thoughts, Ideas and Questions

No worries, this gets kicked around in this section at least twice a year.

I know as someone in heavy haul, I only have to count to one when loading, thank god, any higher and I would be ascrewed, as they say.

 

The really scary part is when you have to count your axles when your lift is down...I was so relieved when you removed your socks...

 

Hahahahaha

Everything good in your world?

 

Big Ronnie is right. If you are picking up stuff like pipe and lumber, or anything like that, it is a divisible load. It is not legal to permit that load overweight. Yes, it is a state by state thing, and even an interstate thing. Safest thing to do is limit your loads to 80000 lbs if you are going multi state. You don't want to book a load and get burned in a state that only allows 80000lbs.

That being said, if you have a non divisible load (MEANING 1 SINGLE PIECE, not 2, or 3) and over 80000 on 5 axles, safest thing to do is plan on being no more than 20000lbs per axle on your drives and trailer. There too are states that will give you more axle weight, but you don't to get burned doing that either.

DO NOT TRY TO PERMIT A DIVISIBLE LOAD. The fine will be higher than what the load pays PLUS you will have to book another truck and a loader to transfer part of the load.

 

Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and North Dakota you can license for 86k on that setup without dealing with overweight. The only thing that you have to worry about is the inner bridge length. We have one truck around 244" wheelbase pulling a 53' quad. It should be legal for 105,500 (you would think) but because of the inner bridge length (drop axle on tractor to last axle on the trailer) he can only legally scale 102k. If that tractor was longer so the drop axle could be moved forward and the kingpin was not so deep he would be able to stretch out so he could scale the whole 105,500.

 

Just for my own understanding, ideally you would move the pusher forward to extend the internal bridge?

 

Nothing but palm trees & umbrela drinks buddy...

 

Based on your handle thought you would have drinks that came "neat" not ones with umbrellas (Shirley temple)!!

 

Yes, that's one option.

With 8+ axles, you need an outer bridge of 69' to scale 105,5 in Oregon.

What's ideal? I would say it really depends on what your wheelbase is. If you're spec'ing a new truck, you'll have more options to move your pusher forward and being able to slide your fifth wheel back to increase your inner bridge. My calculations seem to indicate that a 269" WB tractor seems to about as short as you can go to maintain a 69' 8 axle 105,5 bridge.

 

Yeah that is the purpose but also having a shorter kingpin setting helps with that too. Does no good to push the drop axle forward if you can not slide the fifth wheel to get weight on the steers and keep the needed bridge distance.