How do the old-timers do this?
 

Can some of you old-timers care to explain how you are able to adjust your tandems by eyesight,without ever going to a scale? I drove with a guy, who could do this,although he did say he was once ticketed for being overweight on his drives. Not too bad considering he had been driving 13+ years. I assume this is years of experience that one has to have under one's belt to do this with some certainty.

I know it is wise o go to a scale and do it the "right way",but, I would just like to know what you guys take into account and what process determines how your tandems are adjusted ( or not) for each load.

Thank you to all who respond
Ron63

Probably because of a sticker that has an arrow, or I would imagine that the tandems would be somewhere around that sticker that says, "Do not air up tires to no more than 300lbs, etc" :p :lol:

Not bad, getting ticketed once for overweight on the drives.

Me, I'm lazy and new school. I pull a button and my 3rd axle magically drops and I'm legal to 42,000 on my trailer axles :)

I haven't hit a scale in about 18mo. but then again my loads are almost always under 35k and I've got my tandems set and they never get moved. I believe there set in the 10 hole but don't hold me to that. After awhile you'll get a rough idea of how the load "sits"in the trl and eyeball it. The few times Ive' been over 35k and would have scaled but the nerest scale is aprox 60 mi out of the way and I can't make that and complete the run in 11hr drive time, SO I send a msg and let the co. tell me to run with it.

Each hole represents between 200-400 pounds of shifting weight. In order to adequately know for certain whether you need to move your tandems or not you need to weigh. As a rule of thumb I usually use 250 pounds per hole to initially move my tandems. That is usually pretty close to where I need to be on my weight. I don't move my wheels without first weighing. I haven't pulled a tandem trailer in a while but if a forklift driver knows what he is doing then once your wheels are set they should rarely need to be adjusted. The problem is that not all forklift drivers understand or care about how to properly load a trailer. I never move my tandems without first weighing.

This is what I do.....If I do a load on over 40,000 lbs I check to see how far back the load goes in the trailer. Most 53's have a 45' mark and a 48' mark inside the trailer. This is a good starting reference. If your load is 45,000+ and it extends past the 48' mark chances are you are going to be way heavy on the trailer tandems. One the other hand, if your load doesn't even come back to the 45' mark you will more than likely be heavy on the drives. As far as getting it "close" prior to getting it scaled I usually position the rear most axle centered under the last 2 pallets on the trailer. This works probably 90% of the time, unless some heavier product was loaded in the nose or on the tail of the trailer.

Just remember there are not only weight restrictions, but also bridge restrictions although VA and CA are the only ones that seem to heavily enforce them.

If you can get meet both the bridge and weight limits I always made sure I got the weight right and usually you can slide through without geting caught, as they are concentrating mostly on weights.

Gotta be careful about eyeballing some loads, though.

I've got a 42K+ load of mixed "health and beauty aids" coming up this morning, and if it's a really mixed load, you can bet I'll be scaling that. I've had a few of these mixed loads, scaled them, and been like 11K/33700/28600 (or the drives and tandems reversed).

Makes for a real fine ride...ugh.

Dollarshort got it! The best eyeball bet is put the tandems aligned with the end of the product in the trailer, that will work 90% of the time on any run of the mill dry van.

If you know what to look for and feel for too, you can tell by how bouncy the truck is, and looking at the trailer and how it is sitting.

How about loads that shift while driving? I had a load of big paper rolls ( about 5 of them) and it took 3 trips across the scales to get legal, about 2 states away they had "walked enough that I had to slide again.
Anyone ever get a ticket for that?

Assuming you are properly loaded, and the load is fairly uniform, placing the tandems under the rear of the load works fairly well as a guesstimate.

After you have hauled enough loads and get a "feel" for how something is loaded you end up being able to guesstimate where to place your tandems on the odd loads.

I was pretty good at it after about a year of driving. I always scaled the heavy loads (my personal cutoff was 30,000 lbs) and any load that was odd (ie mixed weights) but it was very rare for me to have to rescale and if I did it was only to move them tandems one or two holes.

Since every company I worked for always reimbursed for scale tickets it was well worth the time and peace of mind to know I was legal.