What do you guys think of having the upper deck as short as 8'? If my wheelbase is 230", can such a short upper deck cause the trailer to hit the rear fenders of the truck?

How important is the total weight for the stepdeck trailer? All steel ones with wooden floor are so much cheaper. My company requires flats not heavier than 11k lbs, but when I talked to the fleet manager he didn't mention anything like that for a stepdeck, just recommended a 48' transcraft combo. I'd think the weight capacity isn't as important for a step as for a flat. Am I right or wrong?

I think it would create problems. I slid my 5th wheel about 5 notches fwd the other day and if I had an 8' deck I think it would have hit.

Weight is really important for me. Just offloaded two loads this AM. One was a Link Belt 210LX and it weighed 49,000 lbs. The other step had a wheel loader and a dozer that totaled 45,000. You can compete with RGN freight because they can't scale 49,000. You can compete with extendable double drops because regular double drops don't have 42' long decks. The wheel loader was 10' - 7" high by the way.

I shouldn't be telling you this because you run my lanes LOL.

All combos are not created equal. Some only have a aluminum floor and the rest of the trailer is steel. Others have a wood deck and they can be heavy. They also have different cross member spacings and thicknesses. I have heard Transcraft are not solidly built....but that is just hearsay.

Where is that?

So what do you think is the OPTIMUM LENGTH for the upper deck? 10'? 11'? I never pulled a stepdeck before, hence all the stupid questions. I did flatbed last summer, and the rest of the time it was dry van. Worked a 5 ton roll-off tow-truck for 2.5 years though in Toronto, ON ... that gave me lots of experience with smaller machinery and equipment: bobcats, scissorlifts, mini-exacavators etc. Loved working with them.

I would run as shallow kingpin setting as practical (18-20") with a 10' upper deck and a 40' lower deck and a 10'1" spread. I know before we would get containers out of Baltimore for decent money because they were high cube units and wouldn't go on a flat. If your truck carries a lot of weight on the front axle you could get away with a shorter upper deck because you won't have run your fifth wheel so far ahead. When I pulled a step I was always wishing the upper deck was longer.

I prefer an 11' upper deck. It offers greater flexibility. I would not personally buy anything smaller than a 10' upper deck.

I don't follow the logic here ... So you slide the fifth wheel forward because there's too little weight on the front axle? So you like having a long upper deck so that you can bring the trailer closer to the truck in order to compensate for the lack of weight on the front, which you wouldn't have to deal with if you had a shorter upper deck? :) Something's amiss here.

With a 10 ft upper deck, you'd have 43' at the bottom. I thought that would be a plus?