Heavy Haul Miscellaneous Thoughts, Ideas and Questions

I always feel
Like a rookie - so don't feel bad. You know how it is with 4 axle tractors - take all the room you have and still not enough

 

That's where I'm at, the old service manager speced my truck before I worked there, he swore you needed the big front end. He ordered it with 60" drive and cheater spacing then only got the fifth wheel slide to go 6" ahead of the forward driver and my trailer only has 108" swing clearance. when I put my pusher down it takes weight off the steer, I cant get them to understand the physics of the whole thing. They think "you have 8 axles you can get 152,000" sure on paper but not on the ground. I switched it to 11R 22.5 on the front and opened up the steering stops but it still turns like crap.

 

Yeah, I'm luckier than you I have a day cab. I sued to drive a 379/119" pete 4 axle it was 233" wheelbase with a 14,200 front end, I feel like I could go anywhere with that truck.

 

Ron, in that pic are you slid all the way up? I moved my whole slider forward and built ramp extensions, I can now get my 5th wheel centered between front drive and lift axle. I can get 17,000-17,500 up front now.

 

This thing rides like it has no suspension when loaded, the front doesn't give at all.

 

I have about 3 inches left but no neck room really. I can slide the last few inches but if I were to have more track I would have no swing room from the rear of the frame to the neck.

I am switching trailers in April I will have to shorten the rear frame overhang some. the new jeep will only have about 11' of neck but will not have rollers so I can cut the back of the newly rebuilt ramps down.

 

I'll try to remember to get a picture of how close my frame is to the neck. I've had people ask me if I can turn without hitting the light bars, it's close.

 

My next truck and trailer I want a flip box and enough slide to get up to the center of the pusher. My biggest problem I can see as I've measured things out isn't the frame rails, but keeping out of the fenders when I turn.

 

My question is for the guys that work OTR like Jason. How much time to you spend waiting between loads and what is your ball park dead head percentage? I am trying to decide if I want to setup a 7 axle rig. Our drivers are used to working 5-6 days and being home for 1-2 days every week. With our 6 axle rig we can still scale 40K so we can haul standard open deck loads. If we went to 7 axles, it seems like you would need to wait for another big load. I would imagine there are times when you have to wait several days for a load. I am thinking I would probably have to a pay a company driver a salary. We would also be building our network from scratch whereas your company has been doing it for a while. Discuss...

 

I personally hated driving a western star. Felt like it rode Rough and all the switches weren't layed out nicely. Having the radio abouve my head with my mirror controls was also annoying