Please help-need to do serpentine backing.

This is gonna sound stupid but it was the only way I could get to some guys.

Go to a store and buy a toy tractor trailer. Put three bottle caps on a table and have someone do the maneuver with the toy while you sit in a chair mimicking the actions the driver should be taking to perform what the toy is doing.

 

Just think of it as 2 parallel parks...back thru the first set and try to have the trailer parallel to the cone line as the tandems pass the center cone. Then just do another parallel maneuver in the opposite direction as the first move. And just like parallel parking, the key is to keep your angles as shallow as possible, jacking the trailer only enough to get it over to the other lane. I'm just visualizing here, as I never went to a school, but I'd say 25-30 degrees should be the max. You do want the trailer in it's proper lateral position as early as possible in the first, as you'll be able to get it parallel to the cones before the tandems pass the middle cone. hope this makes sense!

 

Turn the wheel as little as possible. Your wheel will be straight longer than you turn it. If you turn to much on the first turn you magnify how much you have to turn the wheel on the next cone and so forth. Start turning the wheel as soon as the wheels are NEXT to the cone, by the time you turn the steering wheel enough to start the trailer wheels turning they will be in the perfect place, then look in your spot mirror and straighten the wheel as soon as you see the cone so you are straight then do it again. I always put my hand at the bottom of the steering wheel, then push whatever way I want the trailer to go. Push left, front wheels go right trailer goes left.

 

If you're a visual learner, just sit and think it through. If you're more hands on, try the toy as Tazz suggests.

The key to this is to be early: Have the trailer starting over before the first cone, parallel before the middle one, and starting the trailer back towards parallel before the last cone.

 

Now that is actually a really darn good idea.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtYkkncb4B4

 

Try training foreign students how to back a feed wagon down a free stall barn and you'll get creative


Kids had lot's of smarts but the majority had never even driven a car, which in some cases was a blessing, let alone 40,000 lb trailer on a draw bar of an articulting tractor.

What a farm boy considers normal most drivers term impossible.