First steel coils

I personally don't see the use in friction mats. But I'm not driving your truck so you do what makes you comfortable. Best advice I got since I started pulling a flat.

 

Ain't no big. Like I said, plenty of drivers don't bother with them. They are sorta like security blankets, really.

 

I pull all coils now. Been doing it for just a little bit. On 40k+ coils I'll toss out the mats depending on suicide/shotgun. With suicides I'll just throw one down widthwise and only on the front of the cradle. Prefer her to be leaning back on that hard brake.


The real magic is in the cradle. Them chains are nice an all but a well built cradle does your heavy holding.

 

My flatbed days were with Maverick. They trained us to use the thin rubber mats under the coil racks to add friction between the metal coil racks and the aluminum trailer bed. Same thing for the thicker rubber mats between the coil and the dunnage. It was all about adding friction so that the coil didn't try to slide.

My heaviest single coil was 50,750#... suicide, no tarp. I loaded it a couple ft behind the center mark. We had 8 chains, I used em ALL and threw 2 straps over the top in an X pattern (straps on steel were a no-no at Maverick, but I wanted all I could get..lol). On a heavy coil like that, I used one chain straight through the eye and down to the stake pocket, then 3 angled to the front, 3 to the back..the 8th chain would be angled toward the back of the trailer...waaaay back, to help stop the forward energy. I figured the X straps would help keep the coil seated in the racks.

It did happen that day that I topped a small hill to find traffic backed up, an on ramp with cars to my right, cars to my left. I had exactly 0 places to go. I had to brake waaaay harder than I wanted to with that monster coil. Long story short, it held.

That was my heaviest coil, but we hauled quite a few heavy, single coils. I was very, very happy with my over securement. Heavy, single coils were one of my favorite loads in flatbed. You do have to be careful on the curves and in tight turns. I've seen those trailers rocking pretty hard just trying to get parked at a truckstop..lol.

 

Wow. Lots of good info in here. This is getting bookmarked.

 

OSHA QUAD COPS IN THE STEEL MILL GUARD SHACK

 

around here . it is the law. you have to have some sort of rubber material between the deck & the coil racks. I took some thin, but tough rubber mat from when I used to haul out of wise alloy & I gorilla glued them to the bottom of my coil racks, & cut off all excess.

 

How do I learn load placement on large loads, as in a lumber or steel load?

I will try and take pictures tomorrow in dayliight. I always seem to end up with more weight on the trailer axles than on the tractor drives.

Currently the load I'm under only has one foot to move forward, the forklift op had it tucked right to the headache rack. I asked him to shift it back 6-10 inches so I could get the front tarp flap in there.

My tractor drives are about 30,000, trailer drives about 32,000. I know I'm under gross, so I don't really care about the weight difference. I'm just trying ot treat it as a learning episode, because this is the 4th or 5th load lately scaling out this way.

Are there some loads you just CAN'T get the drives and trailer axles to at least balance?

 

Friend, if you only knew...

There are loads that wind up being oversized, not because they won't fit between the rub rail, but because of the weight, you have to load them overhanging one side. The first one that comes to mind is a "banjo". It's a dump truck axle, with the hubs, diff and the yoke. You don't load it to fit on the trailer, you load it to ride evenly on the trailer. So, part of the diff and the yoke hang off the passenger side of the trailer.

Stuff like lumber and gypsum and whatnot is a full truck load. As long as you know your empty weight, and what you can scale, and what PSI your suspension gauge will be at 34000, you get the drives right, stay under GVW80k, you run with it. Wait until you get that single heavy object and try to get the axle even.

Next time you empty, scale your truck and we will go from there.

 

The truck I usually drive is in the shop for awhile, so driving a beater this week. Also lots of reason to scale more, see where things are, figure out the pressure gauges, etc. It looks like on this truck, and on the trailer, 2 psi equals 1000 pounds of weight. Roughly.

Empty with 1/2 tanks was steer 11220, drives 12320, trailer 9240, gross 32780.

So IF I did the math right, center of kingpin on the tractor to the center of the trailer axles was 40 fet 8 inches. So that means 20 feet 4" from the KINGPIN is the LOAD center on the trailer? It's a 53' deckover, nothing special.

It's been a long day. I'm going to go back and reread some of this thread. I'm in no frame of mind to try to figure out the math on where to place the coil question.