Stop it with the high trailers!

Yep, same here. No sense killing yourself just so you can hear a little air, if ya got bags.

Is it possible Sequoia that even though the previous driver had the same truck, he might have had different size tires?

 

If it's that hard to crank it down a bit and the guy that dropped it had the identical set up imagine how hard it was to crank it up that far.

Depending on the trailer putting air to the (trailer) bags can make a big difference. Before you kill yourself trying to crank it down air it up.

 

The ones that drive me nuts are the guys that dump their air BEFORE they lower the landing gear. I crank em til they just barely touch the ground, then one more turn, then drop my air and pull out. It can be kind of annoying when some of the trucks in the same fleet have 11r24.5, some have 11r22.5, some have 22.5 LP... then you're pretty well guaranteed to be standing there cranking and cursing for a while.

 

I don't know why but I've been to some places where the yard jockeys seem to leave the loaded trailers staged like that. Some glass place in Tulsa left them like that all the time.

 

WOW......I'm glad I own my trailer and don't have to deal with all of those who don't know how to drop a trailer!


If you can dump your suspension, Crank the gear down to about an inch from the ground and then dump them and pull out slowly.

If you can't dump your suspension, Crank the gear down to about an inch from the ground and pull out slowly.

If you have spring ride suspension, Crank the gear down to about an inch from the ground and pull out slowly.

Wasn't that easy?


Anyone who cranks the gear down till it's on the ground and then keeps cranking it till they hear air hissing is a moron!

Anyone who pulls out really fast is a moron!


Class dismissed!

 

When I drop/hook our flat bed or end dump that's what I do as well. Let the truck do the work!

 

http://www.jostinternational.com/lg_files/docs/Landing%20Gear%20Documents/LT%20LG400-01%20revC%20-%20Landing%20Gear%20Operate,%20Maintain%20and%20Repair.pdf

this is Not how I do it,

this is just for reference,

before the old pharts have a stroke !!!!

 

I am not understanding your thought process here. How is letting the air out of your air bags and lowering the trl . to the ground bending the cross members.??? It's the way you are doing it is what is weakening the cross members. Nobody is perfect in backing under a trl. and we all know that being in straight with the kingpin does not happen and now you are moving a loaded trl. to the side one way or another to get it straight with the kingpin and that is what weakens the cross members over time. Even when you drop your own trl. like you say you do, and then back under it with a tractor that has been sitting without a trl. on it, your 5th. wheel will be a little lower than when it's loaded. Been there done that for the last 11 and a half years being a dedicated driver for the same customer doing drop and hooks for a good part of the work day. The name of the customer was Smurfit-Stone Corp.

 

That's how my Swift trainer wanted to do it so he could save 13 seconds on drops/hooks. I would ask, "what about the next guy to come get it has to crank this heavy batard back up to height?" He looked at me like I was speaking Martian -- clueless.

 

There are other factors too you can't avoid like terrain. If you drop a trailer in a lot on an incline and the yard jockey takes it to get loaded and then puts it back on a flat spot or vise versa, the height just changed.

You can look at the legs too and tell by the coloration about where the normal height is if you drop on an incline or your tractor is in a hole. Meat haulers deal with some rough lots.

Scarecrow, sounds like you were pulling out prematurely. You wait a little longer and the trailer settles like putting a baby down. Then you pull out.