An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

Did anybody offer to help him?

 

Had that happen years ago. Pulled up to one of our plants, a load of tarped extrusion had just backed in. The guy get's out looks at his load for about five minutes, and then starts removing bungees. Takes off about 12, walks them up to the tractor, and sets them on the step. Walks back, pulls about 12 more, walks them up to the tractor, sets them on the step. Did similar with straps, remove one, wind it up, and put it in the sidebox. On to #2, etc. Pulls one tarp out of three, folds it, etc. Took him about 75 minutes or so, before he was ready to unload. I don't think this guy had 52 cards he was playing with.....

 

If he wasn't moving like molasses in the arctic I would have, but he was in super slo-mo, #### if I am gonna do all his heavy lifting...he should have had most of that stuff done before backing in.

 

It would be nice it shippers/receivers skipped those people if the next guy is basically Ready. It won’t cost slow poke nothing and would save everyone else a bunch of time. It was 70 and sunny in Wichita today.

at those types of places I do my best to untarp outside if it’s nice. Even if it’s raining I’ll pull straps out from under my tarps and be basically ready to pull tarps when I back in.

the other day it was in the single digits with crazy wind. I waited to do everything inside, but once I got to it, I do everything to get the load ready to unload before I put anything away.


I must have missed you at the yard today. I didn’t see you when I pulled in a bit after 1. I was under the trailer cutting some
Mangled s cam bushing brackets off so the mechanic could weld a new one on. Before After: basically perfect, if you don’t look real closely.
This is the third time if had this bracket break on two different trailers.

 

Once pokey got empty it took 18 minutes from the time I backed in until I was pulling out to let the next guy in... that's how it's supposed to work.

I didn't end up getting to the yard until right before the gang in the office were leaving. I dropped my flatbed grabbed some of the 4x4's out of it's rack strapped them to my RGN (which is an XL) just in case I need them and got moving towards the shipper. The customer is in a small-ish industrial area without parking, and it's too close to Tulsa to find a decent parking spot this late so I stopped for the night in Tonkawa and will head out after a break.

 

We

just missed each other then. I left right before they did. I’m dropping this trailer in Dallas, grabbing a FST in Tulsa, and heading for the house. I’ll load a load on Wednesday after a dentist appointment Tuesday. If you need anything in Tulsa just holler.

the XL’s are easy to load, just watch the undercarriage when backing on. Hopefully it’s not too low slung.

 

are these plates on the XL trailers different than the Manac? (The 3 hole plates you remove before you disconnect the deck). I was told by Wichita, on the Manacs that they went back on using the same hole (left hole and left hole, or right and right)...are the XL's different? Or did someone put these back on incorrectly?

 

I don’t think it’s left or right. I think it’s inside or outside. When the trailer in on the ground, look at the distance between the bottom of the pin and the bottom of the hole. There will be about an inch difference between the two and you want them to be the same.

the bigger gap is the lowest setting, you may or may not be able to run that with your fifth wheel height. It also depends on how many heavy loads that trailer has hauled, the neck “sags” over time.

 

When I pulled that EV box truck with the Manac, when I put it back together I had it right, but when I loaded that airplane assembly unit near Detroit, it looked like it was leaning to one side, so I changed one side...a week or so later Wichita called me and said that when the next driver picked that trailer up at the Ravenel yard he noticed I had it set wrong (I changed that one to how this one is assembled...). They said it would damage the trailer so I didn't want to do it wrong again.

 

It ain’t going to damage #### in my opinion. Loading 70k in 10 foot on a trailer that’s rated for 70k in 16’ is way harder and we do that all the time.

just look at the distance below the pin, there’s no telling if the plate was put on the correct way and some trailers are different.