Post flatbed load photos here V2.0

It does happen. Our trailers have counterweights under the front of the deck, welded up in between the frame. It helps, but driving in snow is still problematic. In the winter I also keep a 5,000 LB. Block chained to the front of the deck.

 

Don’t know if the company is still open, they hauled sod out of I-da-ho. They had small drop areas near certain scale locations, drop the donkey on one side, pick one up on the other side.

 

both of mine are 5500 pounds or so// the newer ones with scissor action to reach across the deck, and crab mode, as well as emissions, seem to be about 9,000 pounds
Tare for me is just under 38k

 

I always had this vision in my mind of having some sort of an emergency moffett eject button in the truck that I could push whenever I encounter an open scale.

 

Ever check the garbage cans for OW spuds ?

 

In I-da-ho, there are a few places that
You can stop at, show your out of state license and they will give you bags of potatoes. Free.

 

Thanks Kyle, but that eats into your payload possibility, maybe someone needs to invent a way to mount the mounty on the deck and secure it at the front? Is the mounty allowed as extra weight by the law so that it itself does not eat into your payload?

In a similar way, years ago in the early days of electronic retarders in Europe, the weight of one, which was considerable, was allowed in France as an extra. In other words you were allowed to be overweight if you had one. A great safety device after a tanker lost everything down hill in Germany and killed lots of people.

However, the UK authorities never allowed the extra weight and, as a result, many hauliers refused to fit retarders. I found them great when I first encountered them here but I was always mindful that, like exhaust brakes and Jakes, they worked through the drive axle and, as such, especially in slippery conditions, could encourage a jacknife.

As a side issue, many years ago there were 2 makes in Britain, Bedford and Foden, that used transmission brakes as handbrakes. These clamped on the propshaft and stopped the drive axle from turning. Fine, but one day in my Foden I had a half shaft break on a slight slope. I had to stay in the cab with my foot on the footbrake as it started to roll backwards, fortunately there was a raised verge nearby and I was able to steer the rear of the tractor into it until help arrived. Some designers simply don't think things through properly, do they?

 

Sure it cuts into the payload but it's a necessary piece of safety equipment for the piggyback lift setup. It's a tradeoff that's worth it to avoid losing control of the vehicle. Also most of the time those trailers are pulled by lighter daycabs doing local work so being able to haul max weight isn't a huge deal when you can just make another trip that day and charge double to do it.

That's always the way it is. I have a lift axle and stretched frame on my truck for when I run overweight loads. I can't easily remove it for light legal loads so I just have to accept that my truck is heavier than most. I'm about 8-10K lbs heavier total compared to most normal trucks. It cuts into the total I can haul for legal freight but is worth having the heavy truck for all the heavy loads I do.

 

Doesn't sound much when you talk in pounds as you do over there, but to us over here 4 or 5 tons sounds like a helluva loss. Mind you, I am talking from the point of view of a haulier who maybe searching for anything as a backload rather than coming back empty or with a regular, known weight, load.

 

Going through some old emails, these are from 2007. I remember the job but didn’t realize they were so big. 85’ according to the email and one end was 16 wide. They got spliced together end to end at the jobsite (a hockey rink) Now that I think about it Massachusetts required police escorts…