True weight savings with super singles

Set of drive tires only. I yank a different trailer everyday.

Tires were never rotated. Just kicked daily and air-gauged once i month.

 

Set of drive tires only. I yank a different trailer everyday.

Tires were never rotated. Just kicked daily and air-gauged once i month.

 

Set of drive tires only. I yank a different trailer everyday.

Tires were never rotated. Just kicked daily and air-gauged once i month.

 

You have not saved anything when 45000 in the box grosses you to 80000 due to obese newer tractors. When you can go back to the older tractors from my time and load a touch closer to 49000 into the box or 52000 onto the flatbed, then we can talk about that weight savings eh?

I myself am stumped. All this weight saving doings by stupid companies sinking money into singles. They forget their history of lighter tractors. I personally don't mind them really, run what you want. But that's the thought anyhow.

 

We changed landing gear manufacturers because Holland's are 7 pounds lighter. That 7 pounds, times 12000 trailers moving 425 miles a day results in a significant fuel savings.

Its also not about loading MORE cargo, its about axleing out. Modern engines are heavy, apus are heavy, so things change. How many otr tractors were specd with steer axles rated over 12,000 before 2010? Now it's on the way to being standard.

Finally you have to consider rolling resistance. Super singles have less resistance, thus more fuel savings.

These things do make sense when you start looking at a larger picture .

 

What some have said regarding weight savings is correct. I’ve been running them almost 3 years on my truck and trailer with no issues. They’re easy to take care of, save weight, and save fuel. My trailer had recap singles on it when I bought it and in the first two weeks I blew two of them. I’m meticulous with tire pressure and that didn’t help. Stick with virgins because I don’t think they’ve got it figured out yet to make a good recap single. When those blowouts happened it caused no damage and it didn’t take long to get it replaced.
I’m getting great tire wear out of them. My truck is a 6x2 and the powered axle is doing well with the tag wearing extremely slow, because I put trailer tires on it. The trailer and the tag last even longer than my powered axle is doing. If you’re running highway miles most of the time, I don’t see them being an issue.
I’m running Continental on the powered axle, Hankook on the tag, and Michelin on the trailer. I highly recommend Michelin and Hankook, the Continentals have been doing well too. I had Bridgestone previously but those weren’t getting the same life per 32nd like these are.

 

To double vehicle speed requires 8 times the power, while enduring 4 times the drag. This is what airplanes must endure. 18 wheelers do not go that fast and have suffered under 300 horse engines wound out to the bolts and 500 horse engines unable to get past a governed 63 while filling with carbon.

If we start putting only 130 pound truckers in there for the sake of weight, rolling resistance and so on then fine, let's start down at the race track barn and hire.

If you took a engine block of a heavy 18 wheeler and made it about 18 inches longer, offset gearing to a housing that contains a set of pistons and APU etc you can probably have a sort of a duplex transmission that will isolate the big engine while sleeping in parked and run the little end APU mode. When it's time for big engine to start running and pulling on the road the APU side can be isolated by the transfer case.

The engineering is possible.

What's next Carbon fibre frames?

 

Carbon fiber frames might still be off a while...

And if i had to guess... the apu thing might be better served by simply flipping a switch on the dash (10 hour break idle) that would use an alternate program or sub-routine to cut cyliners out or off altogether.

Might not be so hard on the emissions.