For everyone that does this.....

Its even better when you get a set on an older trailer that only has a high gear and you have to crank the nose up.

 

I did my first 'operations' job at a small petroleum transporter who's trailers all had extendable 'stiff legs' instead of retractable landing gear.

You backed against the pin and the pulled the pins, dropped the inner leg and raised it till the pinholes lined up and pinned the leg to drop 'em.

Any uneven ground required a few tricks to get back under and everyone had a few odd sized blocks of wood including the greasy one used on the fifth wheel to lift the low side up to add a block.

We could only drop empty trailers, the wouldn't hold a load up!

 

One tool to help. A large pipe wrench, to use it simply twist the pipe between the land gear legs to roll the dollys up or down. Last way to get going if necessary.

 

That looks like fairly new and not neglected to me gotta be operator laziness.

 

I drove at a company where most of the drivers left the landing gear 4 inches off the ground before dropping the trailer. I argued against it until it was explained to me that it is that way because female drivers in the company cannot always get the landing ear up when hooking up to heavy loaded trailers.

 

We used to have an O/O that would pull his pin, then crank the gear down, then for good measure crank it two or three more times, especially with empty equipment, a few people high hooked and damaged mudflaps as a result till we figured out who was doing it.

 

That's actually the right way to do it (assuming you crank the legs all the way up once it's connected to the trailer). When you dump the airbags it sets the landing gear on the ground and takes weight off the fifth wheel. When the next driver backs under it the landing gear gets lifted off the ground, guaranteeing that the legs won't be bound and sparing the driver from having to crank the gear with weight on it.

 

I’m picking up right now at one of my dedicated Georgia Pacific plants. I dropped my empty and left the landing gear pads about an inch or 2 from the ground. Released the 5th wheel then let the air out of the bags and then pulled out after the pads were on the ground. My pick up trailers kingpin was about 6 inches above the 5th wheel. Why on earth do people not leave more space between the landing gear pads and the ground ? I can almost never remember a trailer being to low but a trailer being to high ? Every month at least if not more. Am I missing something here ??