Headache Rack, Headboard, Bulkhead

The day my company starts buying tractors without racks is the day I will quit working for them. I will NOT pull a flatbed without a rack on the tractor, period. I haul a lot of pipe - and that stuff CAN slide forward in serious braking situations or accident regardless of how well you have that stuff tied down. I had harp music playing on 5 straps - 2 bell straps and 3 on top - on a load of pipe. I had to slam on the brakes for a car that cut me off and then slammed on it's brakes to make a turn in front of me. A stick of pipe came flying forware out of the stack - if I didn't have that rack there, I would have had a piece of pipe visiting me inside the cab of my truck. I had 2 more straps on that load that I was legally required to, I had it tied down so tightly - well the harp music - and still one stick came out of it. The manufacturer that hauls this same pipe has both racks on the tractor AND bulkheads on the trailer.

 

so, 5% of your loads have the potential to make a mess of you. Glad I'm not in that cab.

Oh, there's a good reason not to do it. Do you not wear a seat belt because it wrinkles your shirt?

IIRC, there are specific requirements that a headboard device has to conform to. Similar to tie downs, the resistances in the headboard device are linked to the weight of the load.

In any event - even if I recall wrong, ANY protection is better than none.

Just my opinion

 

BINGO!! That pretty aluminum headache rack ain't going to stop that steel once inertia takes over!

 

Put a half or full twist in the strap on each side next time you strap your load down and there will be no vibration at all.

 

I was running North on IL47 one night when a four wheeler pulled out right in front of me. I had on a load of steel of various types, beams, channels, tubes, & such. I locked it down, missed the car but I heard a big thud. I got out & checked & a 6"x6" square tube was against the aluminum headache rack of the tractor. It put a big dent in it but didn't go through. If it wasn't for that rack I'm sure the tube would have went through the back of the tractor.

The tube was so tight in the rack that I couldn't turn the truck either direction, there was no give in the middle.

I dropped the trailer cranking the dollies down as far as I could. I dumped the air in the tractor bags so I could get completely under the pin without hitting it. Then started going backed smacking the headache rack against the tube till I got it to slide back far enough to clear the rack so I could turn.

 

I only do half twists if the load is something I can't really crank down too hard without damaging the product. On ductile iron pipe, twisting is unecessary as I can crank the winch to the point that the straps will not move while cruising down the freeway.

 

our headache racks were only rated at 12-15,000 pounds....and when most people build bulkheads they try and think of it as being an object for the material to slam into if it comes forward- that's not what a bulkhead is for- the material is supposed to be loaded AGAINST the bulkhead to prevent it from building up even more momentum in the first place in a sudden stop. If your load isn't pushed up against and touching the bulkhead you built- you didn't do it right. But granted anything is better then nothing. I've had shiny bar slide into my bulkhead (wasn't loaded right) and it did stop it. Thank God.

 

That might be fine in a perfect world but trailers are loaded according to weight distribution. It'd be pretty tough to put a 46,000 pound coil against the bulk head of a trailer. Or load a load of steel beams of various sizes & have all of them resting against the bulk head. Or even a 46,000 pound load of steel beams that are 25' long. There's no way that they could go against the bulk head & scale out. I pulled spread axles that had no bulk head & closed tandems with bulk heads. In all of my flat bedding years, very rarely did a load rest against the head board of the trailer & yes... they were loaded right.

 

Easy killer. I'm not talking about a bulkhead against a coil, 1st off. And 2nd I'm talking about loads where common sense dictates using a bulkhead....such as gray bar, shiny bar, or other equal length loads. And you'll notice I said the bulk head "you built"....not the one already attatched to the front of your trailer. And if you load like we loaded our trailers then the weight was center out, not old school with the load on front and back. AGAIN, where common sense dictates a bulkhead to be useable. Then you can figure the length of the material and build the bulkhead in the correct place. I've only been at this a couple years and have made mistakes but bviously I have enuff grasp of whats going on to not just make some useless and stupid comment. I'm just trying to point this out as I've seen allot of drivers missing this point on loads where it would be applicable and effective. On the other hand, I've been wrong before.... How on earth would you even build a bulkhead the heigth of steel i-beams?

 

depends on the size of the I-beams, ne?

I may be wrong (not being a flatbed driver - yet), but the way *I* look at it, the bulkhead is designed not to stop your load from entering the cab, but to deflect it away. So, absolute tensile strength might be a lot lower than the mass/momentum actually hitting it, but if the headache board "crumples" right, the load should kinds slide up and over the cab.

Just the thoughts of a guy on the outside, looking to get in.

Gotta find a door or window nobody's watching...