Over axle weight

I've got 2 120 gallons. One was chopped to make room for the dry pump. I have a total of 110 gallons. I use 85 every day. It sucks when someone don't fuel her up on my weekends off. which are tuesday and wednesdays. OR if i have to take my loads south. And the truckstops are north. That's literally 90 minutes added to my day just to grab fuel.

My normal day usually fuels up at a truckstop close to the idaho border. It's usually 30 to 40 cents cheaper.

 

The gross will usually change with re-weighs but 120 is indeed a little high.

I would say you did everything exactly right, except as the other commenter mentioned, I'd probably put 12,300 on the steers instead of 34,160 on the drives. One reason would just be because I'm pretty sure fuel burns more weight off the steers than the drives. Not that anyone would actually do this, but it would be possible to estimate the ratio of weight drop on steers vs. drives by just measuring the distances from the front of the tanks to the steer axle and from the rear of the tanks to the midpoint between the two drive axles.

 

Ahem...

Okay, maybe I'm not normal.

 

I'm pretty big on measurement but I've never actually put a tape to that specific one. Last year I posted an app that measures the center of gravity of pallet patterns. (Sorry I can't say the name of it here since TTF would consider it free advertising and delete my comment.)

 

It's much easier then that. Weigh when you need fuel. Then top the tanks off. Then reweigh.

Find the difference between the steer weights and then the drive weights. Device those by whatever magical number you use for the weight of fuel (a weight that no 2 truckers will ever agree on) I use 7.5 lbs per gal. That tells you how many gals went to each axle. My truck is 50/50. Half to steers and half to drives.

 

No weighing sounds easier than weighing to me. Measuring those two distances I mentioned gives you the steers-to-drives ratio of fuel-weight burn off just as surely as weighing does (physics doesn't lie). What it doesn't give is the total amount of weight burned off after x miles---it only provides the ratio.

Truckers can argue about the actual weight per gallon until the cows come home and all the while it won't budge. Rudolf Diesel himself probably did a careful measurement of it. Google says it's 7.1 (which with what I'd say is about 99.9% certainty means it actually is), so you run the risk of overestimating pounds burned off using 7.5. You'll probably never be off by enough to matter, but then, why go to the trouble of using a number that's harder to multiply than just 7, to get a worse estimate than 7 would provide?

With regard to weight, about the worst thing a driver can ever do is think they're lighter than they actually are. Believe me I've done it and I know...it can lead to some very unpleasant surprises.

 

Didn't mention it but if I calculating burn off I will use 7 as I'd rather over estimate burn off then under.

No matter what, everyone has their own way and what works best for one may not work best for another.

 

Move that one more slot at least and make room for your fuel. Take about a thousand more off your drives and stick it on your tandems back there. If you think you can, load the tandems up to 34K, cat scale again, figure 8 pounds per gallon for desiel fuel. Put that amount of weight by gallons into your tanks and cat scale again. You should be pretty close to 80K gross with a decent amount of fuel this winter.

You are getting it. But my issue is a cornerstone of winter trucking Fuel = life.

If you had what I had, a Ravens Covered wagon with that 10 foot spread, I put everything back there to 40K and fill the tanks and then stop worrying about it.

 

I once pulled across the TN scales on I65 and had right at 38K on my drives. When I saw that number flash on the readout, I was just waiting for them to pull me around back. Surprisingly, they green lighted me and a headed on down the road.

Now I don't think they actually allowed me that much, I think either they weren't paying attention or just didn't want to fool with me, for whatever reason.