Swerving trailor, heavy load????

MACK E-6 · Apr 13, 2019

TravR1 said: ↑

I have that sensation with my single 53 footer. Never pulled doubles, but with my single long trailer it happens when I am on uneven pavement. Like when my left side is higher than my right side, or vise versa.. usually when there is construction and one lane is freshly paved and the other is not and I am trying to lane change. I call it a "shimmy." And it tells me I should slow down.

As for doubles I have no idea. I got respect for doubles/triples drivers.
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I believe he was referring to dual wheels verses super singles, although you’re right. Bad pavement is fun with a wiggle wagon.

onthemove777 · May 1, 2019

Lepton1 said: ↑

I would be curious about the balance of the load. If you have maximum weight on the trailer tandems (34K on a dry van or reefer), but are light on the drives (like less than 25K), THAT'S a bad scenario in wind, slick conditions, or rutted roads. The trailer WILL wag the tractor.

If anything you want equal weight on the drive axles versus the trailer tandems. Better yet have a little bit more weight on your drives than your steers. Move the trailer tandems and/or slide the 5th wheel until you have a tad bit more weight on the drives than the steers.

OP...next time you have this issue get a CAT scale and post a picture of your scale ticket. If you see that your trailer axles are much heavier than your drives, then try to move weight to drives. Then report back if the handling characteristics improved.

The other simple thing is to make SURE that 5th wheel is greased properly (as others have noted). If I am hooked to a trailer for weeks at a time, at least once a week I unhook, use a paint scraper to clean off excess dirty grease, then regrease and rehook.
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I am having a similar problem as OP, which is why I looked up this thread. I've been driving 1.5 years but I came from LTL doing sets of pups (and not that heavy) and now I'm all van 70k and up.

CAT Scale ticket:
Steer 11440
Drive 28860
Trailer 30320
Gross 70620

So I'm "only" 1460 heavier on the tandems...I saw the difference when I scaled but didn't think it would make too much difference. Well. I had about 4 gusts of wind today coming through western PA and I was more worried about how she was handling than with 22k in the box in 40mph sustained winds on 80E in WY two weeks ago... It's been handling poorly out the gate since I picked it up yesterday. I cannot inspect the load configuration as it was preloaded and sealed. 5th wheel is freshly greased. Tandems are set maybe 2-3 holes longer than California legal.

Do you think that 1460 extra on the tandems would really make such a marked difference in handling?

Lepton1 · May 1, 2019

onthemove777 said: ↑

I am having a similar problem as OP, which is why I looked up this thread. I've been driving 1.5 years but I came from LTL doing sets of pups (and not that heavy) and now I'm all van 70k and up.

CAT Scale ticket:
Steer 11440
Drive 28860
Trailer 30320
Gross 70620

So I'm "only" 1460 heavier on the tandems...I saw the difference when I scaled but didn't think it would make too much difference. Well. I had about 4 gusts of wind today coming through western PA and I was more worried about how she was handling than with 22k in the box in 40mph sustained winds on 80E in WY two weeks ago... It's been handling poorly out the gate since I picked it up yesterday. I cannot inspect the load configuration as it was preloaded and sealed. 5th wheel is freshly greased. Tandems are set maybe 2-3 holes longer than California legal.

Do you think that 1460 extra on the tandems would really make such a marked difference in handling?
Click to expand...

That seems pretty evenly spread to me. Do you have room to legally slide the trailer tandem back a few notches to experiment?

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