Proper way to drop n hook?

This is a website filled with folks that ask things like "I've got a bad air leakwhen bobtail and I push the red button in my truck loses air pressure, but everything is fine when hooked to a trailer. what could be wrong?"so ive stopped assuming people know basic ####.

And ya, if some nitwit drops a trailer in a hole instead of pulling forward or back 5 feet to be on halfway flat ground there isn't much you can do about it.

 

Loaded or empty my landing gear doesn't touch the ground until I dump the air bags. If I'm heavy I'll leave the legs about an inch above the ground.

 

Ok let me try this for a third time.

If you got a fleet specced truck sitting on low pro 22.5s and drop it an inch off the ground and the next guy has a real truck on 11r24.5s he literally can not get under the trailer unless he cranks it up. His tires are taller than the height you dropped the trailer. And if he cranks all the way down, the trailer will be too tall for you to hook to, you will jump the kingpin or high hook it.

Now if the guy on low pros can behave like a semi decent human being and take the minimum effort to give it a couple extra cranks the guy on tall rubber can get under it and so can the guys on lo pro 22.5s. The reverse is also true, if the guy on tall rubber drops it an inch off the ground everyone can still get under it without high hooking.

Look at your drive tires and either drop it a little high or drip it a little low. No crystal ball need to know what truck will next be hooking to it.

 

glad i didnt see u.

 

same goes for docks. leave a small space between dock and trailer. thats what dock plates are for

 

There is a half inch bolt or 9/16th bolt inside the crank arm of your landing gear connecting YOU to the two gears inside the shaft.

Cranking on them will sometimes break them. You carry a box of spares. Toss another bolt on there and keep cranking.

Im sorry your boss runs 22.5's that introduces a whole another set of problems. A game of inches that will cause no end of frustration and heavy lifting.

I'll run 24.5's or not at all. The fuel will just have to take care of itself. If the boss really cared I'll take a APU with it.

 

always leave a 1" or 2" from the ground. use air bags to drop the trailer. adjust this to the ground type. if you crank down the gear to the ground. when trailer is unload its to high. or its too high when reloaded for the next one. dont drop air bags on a empty. it can make your 5th wheel pop up and cause snake eyes on the next hook up.

 

You do see what’s on the majority of trucks these days, right? Especially the big fleets that drop and hook? Even the guy I pull for with 40 trailers, all the trailers are on 22.5’s and I’d say 3/4 of the trucks here are on 22.5’s.

Go down to the tire shop and see what they have in stock for truck tires. I’d be willing to guess about anything you’d want could be had in 22.5 while only having a handful of 24.5. And when any new technology or rubber compound comes out where does it go first? To the 22.5’s because the fleets want them. Then it trickles into other sizes.

Certain applications for sure require 24.5’s but if you’re running down the road dropping and hooking you’re going to be dealing with a lot of guys on 22.5 so why not run what they run?

 

No, getting 24.5s now is hard. When I got a new set last, the store had to run to 3 different shops to get a set of 10. Hardly anybody runs them and fewer sell them.