Jacking the truck
 

Just how far can you jack your truck when backing before you are in trouble and damage something?

Re: Jacking the truck
 

You know to stop when you hear breaking noises or your trailer flips.

Depends on the truck/trailer configuration! Some can go more than others. I have seen allot of orange trucks lately with bent side fairings(gap fillers)! And a spread axle, well that is a whole different animal, you can flip one if not careful!

The farther back the 5th wheel sits the more you can jack the truck before something goes crunch. Also if the truck has cab extenders/fairings or not will make a difference on how far you can go.

The main thing is to watch the damn mirrors. If you're paying attention, you won't punch a hole in the side of your trailer and/or rip up something on your cab.

One of the problems is that drivers pull the 5th wheel too close to the cab to make a real tight turn into a shipper, its all well and good, but they forget to slide the 5th wheel back...and thus you have bent tractor "wings" when they try to jackknife into a dock. There is no reason to for it, its just laziness.

They dont want to take the few extra pullups to decrease the severity of the angle when backing in , and they bend the wings.

When I was driving otr, I only needed to move the 5th wheel once to balance the load. I normally kept it centered.

Thanks I was worried this week trying to get into a dock and had to start backing with the truck and trailer in a straight line and jack it hard, so I could miss a ramp and AC unit on my right and a trailer to my left. If I started at any angle I was running my drives agianst a ramp. I am liking the OTR just wish I could get the backing down. I can straight line back and 45 back but when I cant get those perfect setups I strugle.

From the looks of many fleet trucks, you just keep backing till a crunch is heard, then pull up and try again.

Inmate, I have never seen a driver slide his 5th wheel to make a turn. The trailer axles yes, but not the 5th wheel. Are you speaking from experience perhaps? :lol:

Well yes and no. I was sent to some really small place in Florida. It had a very narrow entrance and a very tight left turn to get to the back of the place and you had employee parking on both sides. It definately was not designed with a '70 vehicle in mind.

Anyway I got it in there with very little hassle. But when I was going through the Qualcomm at the very bottom it said under special instructions "Slide tandems and 5th wheel all the way forward to make the left turn"

I guess this turn had hung up enough guys that this was the only way in. Granted If I did do it, my turning radius would be tighter for the corner.
But as it was, I still got it in there anyway :lol:

Never heard of that one. Learn something new everyday. :lol:

Well it does make sense to a degree. When I was towing using a conventional tow truck, to get around tight underground garages etc, I would lift the car the highest it would go and pull the wheel lift in closer to the truck to close the turning radius. But rarely did I have to do it, except for some those really tight alleys and garages in SF.

Didnt have to do it for TT though.

Look at volvos, tight turning raduis b/c they have the shortest wheelbase for otr tractors. 3/4 of the engine is under the cab as well...

Roehl has gotten smart and has placed a red tape line down the side of the trailer. Don't go beyond the line and nothing crunches. Works quite nicely.

Soladad

I think most of the new aero's have the same turning ability. Pete 387 has the same as the Volvo (50 degrees). They are both tighter turning than the long hoods. It must have something to do with the set back axle perhaps?

Man, where are you guys pulling into to have to jack up a truck that hard to get into a dock?

If you set yourself up right from the get go, you wouldn't have to pitch off-axis that hard at all, regardless of how tight it is.

I wish I had a picture but last week I had to put my truck on a stage dock with a water ballast on the passenger side and a pair of CAT generators on the drivers side and it was a blindside 90º only. I had 6 inches on my right side and 2 inches on my left of room, and all it took was a nice gentle curve to get in the hole... if I had jacked the truck like some of you guys, I'd be missing mudflaps and mirrors.

I used to hit a place with a 45' trailer and about 47' of room from the dock to the edge of a sheer 100' dropoff. Had to work it so you wound up in a hard jack, and square. Tricky.

We used to joke "The good thing about BJ's is that if you miss the shot and go over the cliff, the power lines down there will catch you before you can hit the ground."

Yea, I can picture that... sounds like the Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, Washington... but it seems like the exception to the rule to me. When I hauled freight, I saw one tight dock for every 12 easy dock... with entertainment, everything's small and tight.

I just had to pull 10' wide flatbed trucks into a deadend street in Brooklyn, NY to forklift about 96 or so loudspeakers on top of them for a parade... that was tight!

It was a place that I had three ramps, one next to the dock I was backing into and the other two were across from me. if you went straight from the dock one was to the left one to the right when I was trying to back it any way but from straight I would run into the ramps there to back over one found out how to rip your mud flaps off.