Tandem Setting Question

I set trailer tandems as far forward as I can get them while A) Being legal on the trailer and B) getting the trailer within about 3-4k of the drives. I set them forward as far as I can to make my turning radius shorter and do B because if the trailer tandem is significantly heavier then the truck tandem you tend to get bounced around alot in the cab.

 

First figure out which state you're traveling thru is the most restrictive, that's the maximum you can go back.

Then you set the tandems as close to balanced as possible with the drives being up to 500.lbs heavier. That will give you the best ride with the best fuel economy.

 

I may be wrong but there is only two states that I know of that actually enforce the " bridge law", that is Cali and Illinois. Having said that if you set your axles to cali bridge law, and not load anything over I think it's 43k past the 48' mark inside the trailer you should be golden anywhere, at least till you can scale. I know that a lot of people will prob get irked at what I just typed , but it's true,,, figure a standard pallet is roughly 4' ,,, ask how many pallets your getting and figure out how to load it from there. I mean single in the nose, then a double (side by side) then either another single and double the rest or what ever you have to do to get it to the 48' mark. A lot of the trucks now a days have air gauges on dash that you can pretty much eyeball it from there. You also have to take into consideration are you pulling a dry van, refer , whatever. My advice to you would be next time your empty get full of fuel and invest the 11 bucks or whatever it is now to get your empty weight. That way you know how much weight you can legally load without running on half tanks,,, that sucks,,, then it will give you and idea of what your guage on the dash says. And then next time your loaded heavy,,, scale it and mark on that gauge on your dash where 34k is with whiteout or something that wont rub off easily, then you can adjust your trailer tandems accordingly. But again, this works better with a trailer that your "married" to, but can be used if you drop and hook. As far as crossing state lines empty to load,,, other then cali and il, it don't matter where you put the tandems on the trailer cause yhou don't have to worry about weight. the farther back you put them the smoother ride, the closer in that you put them the shorter turning area you need, so it's six of one half dozen of the other. Good luck and I hope this helps you.

 

i delivered to downtown Boston, 2 stops, 5 nights a week.. my trailer is a 53 footer. you had better believe my tandems are all the way forward.

wish i could tell you about OTR, but when i did that, i had them as forward as possible (on average 15 holes from the rear) to make sure i was with-in limits. and i'd usually had my 5th wheel's pivot point in the middle of the drives.

 

I don't have to worry about the Ca issue since I don't run there.

I set it to the load. I'll start at the 41' mark since that's usually where I end up at most of the time with the loads I carry but I like it to be as even as possible drives/tandems.

Certain loads over time I learn to set farther forward to get even weight.

Certain areas/customers I run/deliver I'll run it farther farther due to the location I'm going to be running in and/or known tight turns or docks/dock areas, weight not being an issue.

The only real answer is there isn't a one size fits all answer.

 

Depending on the day of the week, what mood they're in, what side of the bed they got up on who knows.......lol......but Tn, Ct, and Fl make a big deal out of it from time to time.

 

8.5 ft from the back and you are legal everywhere I do believe. As far as weight 250lbs per hole. This works for my anyways except this week when I was to heavy on my drives and I was bridged all the way out and 3 pallets short of a full truck. Masonite idiots couldn't spread it out with that much room. I ended up 400 lbs over on my drives with no more holes left to adjust to. Typical drop and hook, if it was a beer run I would have found scales faster than a midnite concrete fiber fun.

 

Post #5 pretty much says all that needs to be said. Get legal weight-wise first and hopefully you're pretty close to CA setting.

If you run heavy often, you'll probably run +/- 2 holes of a given position 95% of the time, as you tweak to keep trailer under 34k.

I don't like to run trailer tandems ALL the way forward, even empty, but find the "near CA setting" to be preferable in terms of ride comfort, backing reaction and minimal tail-swing.

As long as you're not "obviously way back" with the tandems, you're probably not going to run into scale house problems.

I saw a local daycab truck for a large LTL carrier running into local retail business area with a 53' trailer. Tandems were all the way to the rear. WTF? A lot of docks want tandems all the way back when loading/unloading, but it's not worth driving around with them there. This will get you into trouble sooner or later.