Cranking up the trailer ?

Work smarter, not harder. If you are considerate of the next driver, you'll drop it with enough room for them to get at least under the trailer with the fifth wheel.

Personally, I laugh at anyone who views having to crank up a trailer loaded with 65,000 lbs of product as a positive. It's a waste of energy and time (you probably aren't getting paid for it either). Fastest and easiest way to do it is to use the truck's air suspension.

Drop air bags and back under trailer as far as it will go. Air up bags, crank down legs until it becomes "difficult". Drop air bags, pull out and back under again. Repeat process until regular hookup conditions exist.

Even if a loaded trailer is dropped that you can barely get the truck frame under the trailer plate, it'll take 3-4 repetitions (at most) of the above process to lift it up. Depending on the truck's air ride height, you'll gain about 2 inches every time you do it, and it'll go way faster than standing there cranking away sweating bullets.

EDIT: Forgot to add, try cranking dollies at -40°C. You'll think the grease has become glue.

 

if i see someone crank down the landing gear. and here the airbags fill. im looking for a 2x4 and coming at you. always leave a 2" gap on the ground. use your airbags and dump them. if you have no air bags. then pull out slowly. that kind of bs gets me really upset. its way to hot to be cranking landing gear for a hour.

 

so your trailer is 7" off your fifth wheel with 45,000lbs. if you dont crank it down then your lazy

 

just back your truck under trailer a few inches. use you trucks frame rails as a jack. when the air compressor kicks off. get out and roll the slack out. then drop and hook up.

 

oh and be aware of your tire size. if you are running 24.5 tall rubber or even 11r. plz dont roll the legs down all the way.

 

I said complaining, you do what you want to do, the ones that complain are the ones who are lazy.

You think someone complaining about raising the trailer or lowering it a few inches isn’t going to complain about any physical work required to do the job?

Come on man use common sense.

I personally don’t have a dump switch so I have to do what I have to do to get underneath it, and yes I have raised a fully loaded trailer inches with the handle to get my truck underneath.

 

why not use the trucks frame rails and wood. but the real fuss is someone didnt do it right from the start. and you had to take a hit. thats the issue.

 

I agree someone not doing it right, but I look at the bright side and that is that it’s a work out. We definitely need it in our line of work. To many drivers look like they need os/ow banners for themselves.

 

They can be hard to crank up, it depends on how far up it needs to go.

One landing gear can be on a hold so it puts pressure on it in an odd way it gets tough. Lack of grease, broken teeth in years, bent crank handles. Murphy's law says you will get a worn out turd trailer when you need to crank it up.

Alot of tractors have a switch to dump the air out of the airbags. If you can dump the air out and at least get the tractor frame under the trailer you can air it back up and lift the trailer a bit. Makes a huge difference when you get some weight off the legs.

It doesn't happen very often, I think you will be ok.

Peterbilt 5th wheels usually sit a few inches higher than Freightliner. At least the newer ones, 5th wheel brand probably makes a difference. if you are in a mixed fleet of trucks you might see it more often. But still, not a major ordeal.

 

I have a habit of busted bolts in that landing gear crank. Anything added to make more leverage would just bust the bolt easier.

I remember a driver doing a trailer drop in our yard deep in the tall grass at the far end that is not used much.

Once he got out from under it we hear this sort of "Squelch" as both legs sunk relative fast into the land. Next thing we see is that the king pin and it's plate is lying on the ground having sunk all the way down.

To this day I have never heard of whatever happened to that trailer. There is no way they moved that without a heavy wrecker's help.