[M J D]

That trailer reminds me of a guy I worked for.

If I simplify his normal instructions it goes like this...
"Cut a crappy hunk of junk off that POS truck and weld it on this rusted crappy POS and make it look excellent."

Anyone else work for that guy? :laugh:

Worked for some of them as well. There is so much fail on that last picture I wouldn't know where to start. Nice to see the strap " gussets" for extra insurance though.

 

[M J D]

Craziest thing I saw was a guy hauling a 580 Case backhoe by setting the bucket on top of the bed rails on a late 70s 3 quarter ton Chevy 4x4 and using the down pressure to pick the backhoes front tires off the ground . As bad as that is this was on a 4 lane state highway.

 

[M J D]

He was going about 35-40 mph. My thought was to put that picture in the rearview mirror ASAP.

 

[M J D]

Trailers like this don't usually have a manual air dump. I've pulled thousands over the last 10 years and they've all been set up to automatically dump the air when the brakes are applied and fill them when the brakes are released. I'm not aware of any companies that use manual air dumps except in specialty situations. This damage could be from a faulty system, but is more likely caused by riding on a rail car. My compamy ships a lot of freight by rail and we see a lot of this type damage, altho not this bad.

Your right on the air dump thing. It could of happened from blowing an air bag or having the ride height valve or linkage fail. What's hard to believe is the side panel didn't completely blow out.

 

[M J D]

Each wrap of tape should be equal to each weld pass. And ratchet straps certainly = safety chains.

 

[M J D]

Some guys run the inner duals in the winter so the front and rear track the same.

 

[M J D]

Looks like the frame on the ranger , between the cab and bed is starting to tweak.

 

[M J D]

I can't believe the dudes at the lumber yard loaded that.

 

[M J D]

In the rust belt you would be hard pressed to remove a reciever insert after being installed for any length of time

 

[M J D]

I like the heavy duty tailgate chains with the S hooks. No wimpy cables on that fine ride. Now that has MN Dave written all over it.

 

[M J D]

Maybe a weight distributing hitch next time? It's good to hear the rest of the well engineered setup worked out.

 

[M J D]

Yeah der A.

That would be the local Polish interpretation.

 

[M J D]

Is that a hitch, or the emptying of a hardware bin.

 

[M J D]

That's got dumbass written all over it....

But it has reflectors for safety

 

[M J D]

Probably for caution. Lol

 

[M J D]

Pretty safe for recovery. I have been involved in a few that had to be trussed with heavy timbers and multiple chains. Axles chained up, slider boxes chained to the trailer body. Sometimes whatever it takes. However , xtra credit to the orange cone on the trailer tounge.

 

[M J D]

Maybe a hack attempt at duplicating those green or yellow triangles that they use on garbage truck wheel studs, to tell if they came loose.

 

[M J D]

In addition to welding, I do quite a bit of heavy haul lowbed work, and assist the local tow companies with big rig wrecks and recovery, I've done this exact same thing many times. If the body structure of the trailer is still intact, that is by far the safest, fastest, and easiest way to move them. Most, not all but most, trailers with sliding axles only have two, 1" pins that hold the axle group and suspension in place, so there is a lot more holding it onto that tag trailer than there would be when it's normally going down the road. If they are damaged too badly, we will put them on the lowbed or a full size flatbed, but that is a last resort. On a lowbed, that thing is going to be hanging 20' off the back of the trailer, on a standard flat bed, it's going to be way over height. And in both cases, the entire load would be relying on the tie downs. By doing it this was, the front half of the trailer is going to stay hooked to the truck no matter what happens.

Speed is important with clearing roads, with this method, I can hook the tag trailer to the pintle hitch on the back of my truck, meet the tow truck on scene, the tow truck lifts the back of the trailer, I back the tag under an tie it down, then unhook, drive around to the front, hook up like normal, by this time the tow truck has hooked to the original tractor and we both drive off and clear the road. The trailer is ALWAYS emptied on site, or pulled down to the next wide spot or exit to be emptied, the are never hauled loaded.

If you think this is bad, you guys would freak out if you saw how we haul bridges, beams and structural columns!!

On those low moving vans the slider is typically fixed, since the rail and cross members are made to get the loading height as low as possible, and still stay under 13' 6". I agree that that method, most likely using crossed chains, is as safe a say, without major repair as your going to get. As mentioned the loaded trailer is typically moved to the closest spot where the load can be transferred.

 

[M J D]

How you going to carry that much weigh on just the tractor? They make trailers for hauling coils, I suspect this was not one of them. Either way that should not have happened. I suspect the trailer was damaged some how which caused the failure.

Probably referring to the front spread axle. Of course that would make weight on the steer axle pretty sketchy. I'm sure that trailer wasn't designed for that kind of concentrated weight.

 

[M J D]

Up to about 40,000 lbs of cargo should be fine on that trailer, provided it's spread out. I'm not that familiar with dedicated trailers for coils, but I would think shorter, provided the load will bridge, would be better. I'm guessing that was somebody's idea of a money making back haul. Many times those schemes don't pan out well. Kind of like huge paper rolls loaded into a reefer trailer.