I’m with you on that one. I like the overall concept of relocating the lines, but I think there should be something a little safer than what I see in these pictures. It is definitely food for thought and I plan on devoting some brain power to coming up with an improvement in the design. “Ideating” as my wordsmith father would call it.

 

I would think those lines would be pretty tight possibly even pull apart a glad handle in some of the places I back into.

 

They look like they have about the same room as they would mounted in the traditional above frame location. I just think you’re playing with fire having something so important to your safety placed so low to the ground. I could be wrong on both counts though.

 

rank, I see you don't have anything strapped to the top of your rack. Do you carry tarps? Where do you keep them if you do? What about a ladder? I was thinking I'd strap my tarps to the top of the rack and the collapsible ladder I bought might fit in a trailer tool box. My two boxes are 60”L x 18” D x 12 H and my ladder collapses to 48” long and about 22” at the widest point at the base. The diagonal of the tool box should be just under 22” (according to Pythagoras of course), so I won’t know if it will fit in there until I try it out. I could also strap the ladder to the rack as well, but it is a lot lighter and a lot easier to steal than the tarps, so I'm hesitant to keep it out in the open unchained.

 

Not if you're behind me!

I made a smoke tarp out of discarded 2/3 piece of 8' drop half. 10.5'x11' works great.

I like mine bolted to frame. I wanted to hang my lines out the back but didn't want to take off even longer to F with the trailer. I just fabbed this setup with 12' coils.
I hate tripping over these but it's better than have some chit hanging like vines in front of my doors.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]962[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]961[/ATTACH]

 

I bought the smoke tarp when I bought my three piece 8 foot drop tarp set. I just don't want to have to use it anymore than I have to.

Isn’t it a safety violation to have even the electrical line dangling on the catwalk like that?

I’m torn with what to do about the lines. I finished the project of relocating my muffle and removing the one fuel tank a couple days ago and got the rack mounted (temporarily) to the rails. My welder / fab / CNC guy just ordered the diamond plate to make my full fenders and catwalk today so I need to figure out what I’m doing with the lines ASAP because we’ll be doing the fenders and catwalk no later than Friday (I hope).

I have several ideas in mind. Right now I have the troublesome stock coiled lines (removed from the truck right now) with the old “springy dick” suspension for them. I’m thinking about keeping the aluminum angle that all the lines mounted to the frame though and placing it 12 to 18” beneath the front of the rack. Then I could bolt one of the shorter grab rails I cut off the back of the cab, to the top face of the rack, and attach one of those long springs that are commonly used with straight lines to the rail with a carabiner that would allow the spring to freely slide, but also allow me to quickly disconnect it if it’s in my way. This method would be best if I went to the straight lines, because when I dropped them from the cabiner, they’d fall flat to the catwalk and be less of a tripping hazard.

The second solution is to mount the slider rail underneath the rack (either directly to the bottom of the box or to the top of the legs) and then attach the clamps that hold the lines together to the rail with the carabiner. The only advantage to this method is that it would keep the lines below the doors of my cabinet and negate the requirement of having to drill holes in and cause possible leaks in the top of my box. Tomorrow I’ll probably have to make poopy or get off the pot and do something.

If anybody wants to see pics of anything I’ve done so far just let me know and I’ll post what I’ve done so far.

 

What's a tarp?

Just kidding. Mostly we do equipment so I don't tarp that often...mostly they just sit on the floor in the shop. When I do need them, I put them in the trailer tool box. Keep in mind I am only out for 1-2 nights at the most before I am back to the yard to reload outbound. I always know what my backhaul is...and whether or not I need a tarp before I leave the yard.

4x4 dunnage has always been placed on the trailer knee braces between the braces and the main beams and ladders have always been bungeed to the knee braces. That has worked well for many many years, but know the DOT has developed an affliction to that and started ticketing us for "loose cargo" and using a securement device that doesn't have a wll. Now I have to come up with a better means of securing that stuff.

Matter of fact, just got letter in the mail today. My CSA score increased by something like 75 points because of "cargo violations" between June and Oct. So we went from being in the best 20% of carriers in my peer group to being in the worst 2.5%....even though nothing fell off the trailer or even shifted. Now we have to go ticketless for another 12-24 months until those infractions drop off......and that is impossible these days. Not sure what is going to happen, but we will be facing fines, sanctions or suspension of authority for sure. This is pretty much a load of BS.

 

With my trailer, the landing gear is designed in a way that there is no place for dunnage. I will probably just place it between my two load levelers and the step and throw a strap over the stack. That’s one of the nice things about having a 53 foot trailer… space usually isn’t at a premium. I thought about using a hand strap and securing the ladder to the front of the landing gear legs and then maybe adding a small locking cable to make thieves work a little harder to take it. I still didn’t check today to see if the ladder would fit in the either the trailer tool box or even in the headache rack. I did manage to go out and neatly place all the straps I have into one of the tool boxes and then I sat down and bent the ends of a hundred bungees, so I did actually do SOMETHING.

I wondered if the DOT was going to crack down on guys storing dunnage loose in the landing gear. I know they started making a stink about spare tires in racks that weren’t properly secured. My ISS score is 12, my “Unsafe Driving” BASIC is 4.37 (the wife got popped in NM in 2010… no seatbelt ). Everything else is zero. I’ve been very, very lucky, believe me.

I hope everything works out with your scores. I’d like to think that you’re not going to be shut down if everything else is and has been clean. GOOD LUCK!

 

I might be flirting with disaster with the electric cord depending on a D-bag inspector. As far as I can read it's legal. There is conduit around the cord so technically it doesn't rub on anything. The conduit rests on my "slider" plate (catwalk) and is actually wearing the aluminum not the plastic. The air lines are free. They don't touch anything which definitely would be a violation. Electric wires can be found touching in many places on every truck you'll find.

I cleared all my inspections violation free so far. 0 CSA pts.

 

Nobody likes a bragger.
I bet rank would like to slap you right right about now for being a show-off.