Ignorant Officer?

great link thumper

thanks

 

I'm not sure if his truck is like mine. I drive an 2001 Eagle and the u-bolts that hold the leaf springs together also hold the axle to the frame, unless I'm a blind crack addict. Which could also be true.

 

Thumper thats true But if you look at diff.setups some have small U bolts are just some cheap clamps at the ends of the springs not realy holding anything.

 

There is a reason for that though, all the LTL freight companies like yellow and roadway would hook up a dolly to their tractor and then hook a 48' or 53' tandem trailer loaded heavy (well heavy for them). Thinking that dolly would act as another axle when in reality it didnt do squat. They got caught with it numerous times, being over on that single axle on the tractor as the dolly didnt take any of the weight. Thats why IL started to do the split tandems thing.

 

they are not u bolts they are u clams or little metal bands that wrap around the spring leafs. They keep the leafs from seperating in the case of a broken leaf. Most trucks don't even have them.

 

i can understand it in that scenario, but i have been asked by those dot officers to backup until they are able to split my tandems

now tell me, if one axle is 17,200 and the other is 16,800, what am i to do?

 

They wont bother you in that scenario, as long as you got weight on both axles, they know there is no way to get the weight on evenly between the 2, if you had a dolly behind the tractor all it would show is the weight of the dolly (700lbs???) and 34k lbs on one axle, thats what they are mainly looking for.

 

i understand that logic, what i dont understand if that logic applied, why on earth did he ask me to back up?

and this didnt happen just once, within the past two years about four times, from four different scales only in illinois

i have no dolly, just a regular dry van

 

I had that happen on the backing up at the Litchfield scale and the Collinsville scale.


My guess is that to get an accurate reading on each of the tandems, they want them in the center of the scale.

 

Like Roadmedic said... Have you ever got a ticket for it? If not dont worry about it, maybe you were just to far forward and didnt split them properly.... I dont think they ever told me to back up but then again i dont go through IL coops much latley.

I dont know if you understand what im saying here with the dolly, yellow would hook up a converter dolly to the back of a single axle tractor, hook that tractor up to a 53' tandem trailer. Thinking the dolly hooked up to the tractor, on a draw bar, would act as a 2nd axle.... Well it doesent quite work that way.