Truck terminology

Longer wheelbase makes it harder to crunch your cab extenders. In other words, while it's true you need more room to make a corner or jackknife into a dock, the corners on the trailer won't be crunching your cab as much.
My FTLR Columbia has a wheelbase of 234", about in the middle of the range, I guess, and it's about like cornering an aircraft carrier. (I heard aircraft carriers need a lot of room, not that I've driven one myself)

Center of steer axle oil reservoir cover to mid-point between drives, or drives and tag, if you're not in a twin screw truck.

 

Wheel base and yes its important but more for owner operators...some company's won't allow you to bring a truck over a certain wheel base length.

 

If your in a company sleeper your prob gonna be somewhere around 216-240wb and anything from 48in to 72 hi-rise

 

Aim for this.

 

See that's what i always wanted to do for a rv...

 

Now to throw a monkey wrench into the game the truck will track much better if the pivot point is in the middle of the truck. Out west with tankers the smart companies will use truck and trailer. They'll have a long wheel base tractor and mount a tank onto the frame permanently. Then they will have a draw bar, the length will depend on the bridge law, that hooks to the tractor by way of a Pintle hook. The trailer will then set on top of a bearing circle also permanently mounted. So there's two pivot points 1 at the Pintle hook and 2 at the bearing circle. Some states will allow oversized trucks so they will have 4 axle tractors and 4 axles trailers. The axle right behind the steer is a drop axle. It has no power to it and does not steer. All it does is take the weight off the steer. This is the type I drove until the company pulled those truck and replaced them with the standard size.

With the 85 foot truck you could get into the older gasoline stations without any problems. They weighed up to 110,000lbs and a loaded gallons was 12,450 gallons. They rode very nice loaded or empty. Loved them.

 

There are 3 typical trailer hook ups for lack of a better word. The common 5th wheel semis and or con gear, T&T(pup) and cup & saucer(logger). There is a floating 5th wheel connection used in semi end dumps.

 

If you're just getting into this, the numbers 58 through 62 are probably the only ones you're really gonna be dwelling on.