bed lift cylinder extends 3" on each side of my 102" specialized car carrier, am i legal?

You"re not going to like my answer. But the way I read the regs that would need to be permitted. Now most are never going to look and 6" would be hard to spot with the human eye.

Car haulers keep their rams inside of the 102" mark. If the 3" provision applied I would guess they would utilize it to make loading full size trucks and SUV's easier.

However I would tell our trailer guy to keep his panties on and talk with your local DOT.

 

There's all kinds of stuff on a carhauler that hangs out past 102", but as @06driver said, it's not anything load-bearing. It's all steps and locks... safety equipment that's excluded from the measurement.

Federal Register :: Truck Length and Width Exclusive Devices

 

In your other thread you posted a picture of a single axle truck. Im taking it your drop is fixed/non stearing sense you say it has 4 tires. How much weight are you needing the drop to carry?

 

Why not go one size larger cylinder and move the mount forward to clear the tires?

 

I'd be more worried about how big of a hole is going to have to cut that sleeper

 

Is there enought height with your drop raised to put a wide base tire on it? I've seen some short sidewall wide tires on the front of car haulers but have never seen which brand they are. I know you can get 295/75r22.5's 16 ply rated for 7100 pounds each as a single or 295/80r22.5's 16ply rated for 7830 pounds each as a single. These are bridgestones and what our company trucks run as steer tires.

 

Check the measurement but I believe Accuride makes a 22.5 by 14 near 0 offset wheel that might give you enough room to maintain your payload and narrow you up enough to clear your cylinders I don’t know if it would fit but the singles on the front of some heavy front axle dump trucks and cement mixers are rated around 9920-11400 lbs that wheel would narrow you up quite a bit mounted on a narrower axle