Help getting axle weights correct on end dump with fixed tandems

If you do that, depending on what you're hauling, you can slide a whole lot more material that you wanted. Stuff like crushed rock or dry grain won't hardly stop once it gets moving.
I've seen tailgates get blown completely off doing that.

 

Yes. Three times. Two times with rip-rap for river banks and once with a load of boulders. In all three cases the driver raised the trailer and forgot to unlatch the gate first. The hinge pins failed first and then the latches.
You look at what holds tailgates on, at least on the kind of end dumps we use, and you'll usually see that the fittings aren't really very sturdy. Age takes it's toll on the hinge pins and and latches. Corrosion and the stress of thousands of openings and closings wears them down . We work on the coast a lot and the salt air environment doesn't do them any good either.

 

If your trailer has air ride, why not plumb a line in off the trailer bags and run it up to a gauge in the cab? Then you can tell the loaderman where to put the dirt in the trailer.

 

Sorry for the delayed response but yeah, exactly what @REO6205 said. Or if you’re lifting up and nothing, nothing, nothing, then all of a sudden the load breaks. By the time you hear it slide and can’t “catch” it in time, it’ll spill over the tailgate and you’ve got a bigger mess than what you started with. It’ll also result in some colorful language from the loader or mill operator as well.

 

Yea we drug around 40’ers, but I did not know this. Good to know and thanks for sharing! This is why TTR is such a great resource.

 

FWIW when I'm hauling anything but aluminum. I have the loader man start loading in front of the trailer tires all the way to the front, so no material is over the trailer tires. Slightly more in the center of the trailer than the nose. My suspension gauge reaches 60 psi I'm done. Dang near dead on every time.