weight limits?

It really depends on the trailer. The Utilities I pull have holes 6" apart and it moves around 350 per hole. I have seen trailers with holes 4" apart and was told they move 200lbs.

Also the way I kept it straight in my head in which way to slide, is to move towards the problem, meaning if you are heavy on the drives, slide the tandems toward the front, if you are heavy in the back, slide the tandems further back. Move toward the problem.

 

Uh, that would be 40 feet, not inches unless you are just playing with a toy truck.

 

One thing I don't think has been mentioned yet is about sliding 5th wheels. That should only be done as a last resort. Typically, once it is set up right for the truck, you shouldn't have to slide a 5th wheel. Just the trailer tandems. Of course, if the steers are regularly over 12k#, it is probably set too far forward and should be moved back.

You should weigh your truck with an empty trailer sometime after you fuel up to get an idea of how much you can load and still gross under 80k#. Most loads are under 44k#, because not many rigs can be legal with too much more than, say, 46k#. The problems come from heavy loads that fill the entire trailer, forcing you to "stretch the trailer out" (slide the tandems way back) to balance the weights, which as mentioned before violates different state's length restrictions. Then it's a Catch-22.

You should weigh all loads until you get a feel for how it all works. Before you scale, look inside at the last row of skids and aim to get your tandems underneath them. This will get you in the ballpark, and you might not have to reweigh it. I never scaled a load unless it weighed over 35k#, because it is almost impossible for typical palletized freight to cause problems when the load is that light. But you can have issues with really dense stuff, like large paper rolls or steel that has to be spaced a certain way in the trailer, so stuff like that should always be scaled to be safe.

Good luck. You'll get it. Piece of cake.

 

APU stands for “Auxiliary Power Unit”. They are used for when you are parked for providing power and heat/air instead of running your truck engine.

States are all over the place for how much extra weight if any they allow for them. The chart at http://www.ooida.com/EducationTools/Info/weight-exemptions.asp will show you what states allow what additional weight for them.

 

1), your Company pays for the scale ticket.
(Then, Get the load scaled out & make sure the king pin setting is correct).

So, you think you can trim a corner or two:

a), Skip the scale when the BOL reads 36,000lbs or less.

b), Humph: when your BOL states, the load weighs more than 36,000lbs...get a scale ticket.