They wouldn’t work on any of the ones I pulled. Hand ratchets don’t work very well either honestly. If you have a wide load then comes out to the rail you really can only use the strap winches. One of the limitations of a conestoga.
This is like starting trucking all over on my first day!
Discussion in 'Flatbed Trucking Forum' started by A Bug, Dec 7, 2019.
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Cabinover101 and cke Thank this.
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cke and PoleCrusher Thank this.
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Without blowing up my spot too much.. Friday I was looking at a couple lot units at my local dealer. They have j hooks, no chain pulls, and the placement of some of the stops on the winch track are set up so that the winches don’t get right over the tires for clearance. Plenty of times the loads I’m hauling are right to the edge of the deck, and therefore a ratchet won’t fit inside the kit at the height that the ratchet would be.
However, the tie bar on these units is waaaaay inboard. Like 18”. Which had me thinking if needed I could run the hook end on the winch side and the ratchet on the tie bar, way underneath. I don’t like that idea for all the obvious reasons, but it would work in a pinch. I’ll have them put another tie bar on the winch side way underneath as well to facilitate doing it on either side when it’s in for more toolboxes.
I’m thinking on the next trailer I order: I may forgo stake pockets all together- all spools front to back. A lot of what I would use a open flat for, the straps go across one side to the other with 3-9’ of forward to back between the hook and winch. Also I think it’d be a lot handier having more options therein for a chase strap out back or a toe strap on the nose in the rare times I could use one.
for a Connie: least for what I do, it’s handier to be able to run a winch at ANY spot front to back because of that lack of ability to put a portable ratchet inside the kit; and have lots of winches for different options/ multiple layers, crossover tie backs, belly wrapping etcWheeljack, PoleCrusher and Tug Toy Thank this. -
I like the idea of all spools. You could even add a bolted on tie bar directly over the axles yourself. A few grade 8 bolts and a piece of flatbar. That’s the only place I would see the need in my opinion.
Unrelated: have you caught any flack for running your covered trailer with the kit removed? I know we generally will permit for 9’ wide when ever we remove a kit for repairs or a failure of the tarp.PoleCrusher and Tug Toy Thank this. -
The winches slide over the tires with plenty of clearance on my other flats that are Transcraft; these wagons are Manac and the winches will slide over both axles (just clears it) on a closed tandem or the front axle (just) on a spread, but not the rear. Which is weird bc my Transcrafts have the same Hendrickson intraax suspension.... (full store winches bc they are the only size offered all galvanized that I’ve found)
& that’s true that I could just put a tie bar over the wheels, but it would bother me pretty bad if I didn’t run it the full length front to back.
I’ve only run it without the tarp on a handful of times, and nobody had anything to say about it. And I would argue that it is still part of a tarping system, just because there isn’t a tarp on it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be exempt? Ie dump trailer tarp systems when empty. But also if I was going to get sweated over that, I think they probably have a lot of other little nitpick things to say as well.Last edited: Dec 17, 2019
Wheeljack, PoleCrusher, Tug Toy and 1 other person Thank this. -
I am starting to get the hang of this. Just chained down a coil and it could not have taken more than 20 minutes for the entire process of backing in, crane placing the coil, and then securing and closing the conestoga.
Coils seem to be the easiest loads to secure and my company does mainly that with every load out of Alcoa Tn, the backhaul is not always a coil but I am beginning to enjoy this still. -
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Six or so. Always been a single coil weighing 29 or 39 thousand pounds.
MACK E-6 Thanks this.
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