The "Spread" of Ignorance

It's sad how many of you drivers can't read or at least comprehend what you have read. I've had several flatbed trailers with both lift and dump axles which I used accordingly.

 

get usedto that around here 359

 

Since I never pulled a spread,I was wondering if this idea was worth looking into. Is there a way to make the front axle steerable. When you're backing up the front axle counter steers so that the trailer turns sharper into the slot.When your driving the front axle steers with your steers. I have a lot of time on hand recovering from my eye surgery.

 

Good thought, but backing up would be impossible with it. Even if you had locks on the steerable it would just tear up to much.

 

It was just a through, thanks.

 

You'd think I'd advocated a ban on dump valves altogether the way some of these dudes reply. :smt075
My guess is these cats are the ones that "overdo it" cuz they think it makes em look more important.

 

You hit the nail on the head!
Alot of these guy have no clue as to the damage they can cause. They all think that when they flip that switch the air is gone and the back axle magically has no weight on it. It doesn't work that way.

The easiest way to get people to understand.... Give them a tape measure, have them measure from the ground up to the rubrail then dump the air. Tell them to start counting till the trailer comes back up to that height or even up an inch or two. They usually get bored and stop, then they get the point.

 

Your right, there's a time a place for everything. On the flats we use for lumber a dump valve is absolutely necessary. Some of the places we deliver to were not made for semis. As an example one of our drivers had a new stop so he asked a older guy who was working in his yard if he could turn on this street to get to the business. The guys honest answer was "you should be able to, the UPS truck goes down there all the time"
BUT every trailer is rated WAY higher than is needed for the job. All air lines to the valves and air bags are replaced if their too small (some trailer mfg's only use 1/4") so they dump and recover FAST. Leveling valves are put on the rear axles so the front is over inflated to compensate for trailer flex when the rear is dumped. Nothing can beat experience, after you buy equipment to do a certain job and see how it performs in that application you adjust and modify to make it work for you. For most people OTR just about any off the shelf stuff will work. However when your running local or specialized "off the shelf" doesn't always work. The original thread was about a spread axle hopper. Having owned hoppers since they've been out I can tell you most hoppers are not going to live with a lot of the suggestions listed in this thread. "make a u-turn loaded" "Lift front axle to turn"

 

Yeah sorry 5mouths we made a wrong turn somewhere.

A spread on a hopper just doesn't sound good. ALot of stress on a flimsy trailer?

 

We have 5 spread axle hoppers, none of them have dump valves. Timpte will void your warranty if they find one. We're usually running 38,000 to 39,000 on the trailer axles all the time, and we haven't experienced any problems with the tailers in the frame/suspension department. Granted, we don't get more than 100,000 miles out of trailer tires. I'm hesitant to run a dump valve because I think any benefits are negated by overloading the non dumped axle. Our practice is to NEVER make U - turns loaded, and to turn as wide as possible every time we turn. It takes a little pre-planning to keep from getting yourself in a position where you'd stress the trailer too much, but it's doable.