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ODFL | Hooking sets backwards....question

seabreeze said:
Now we know where your AVATAR comes from, Fruitcake, I mean Fruitloop.
Keep this up you'll get bit in the butt
I think you are pulling our leg, how bout it?
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Well to be quite frank I'm not one of these guys that freaks out if it's hooked backwards. I don't prefer to pull one backwards but it's not the end of the world. I have pulled a set where the rear weighed 12k more than the front (long story) and it went through the TN/NC gorge just as nice as any. Now id imagine if an abrupt halt had to be made the rear would push the front right out of the way and it would look like a train derailment. The ones that wiggle the most in my experience are the ones that are loaded with nearly identical weights. I have also run city peddle routes fairly close to the terminal and I hooked them regardless of weight in the order that was of most convenience to me to save my balls and back an unnecessary unhook and rehook. Call it how you see it but I think some fellas blow all of this out of proportion and if you use a little common sense and precaution it really doesn't matter, especially if it's a measly couple hundred pound difference.
 
Frootloop said:
Well to be quite frank I'm not one of these guys that freaks out if it's hooked backwards. I don't prefer to pull one backwards but it's not the end of the world. I have pulled a set where the rear weighed 12k more than the front (long story) and it went through the TN/NC gorge just as nice as any. Now id imagine if an abrupt halt had to be made the rear would push the front right out of the way and it would look like a train derailment. The ones that wiggle the most in my experience are the ones that are loaded with nearly identical weights. I have also run city peddle routes fairly close to the terminal and I hooked them regardless of weight in the order that was of most convenience to me to save my balls and back an unnecessary unhook and rehook. Call it how you see it but I think some fellas blow all of this out of proportion and if you use a little common sense and precaution it really doesn't matter, especially if it's a measly couple hundred pound difference.
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I agree with what you say, I think may be how the trailers are loaded
I did the same thing in pouring rain, hooked a heavy on rear, got down the road, it pulled so bad I had to swap them around.
Again I think a few thousand lbs. makes little difference.
Works kinda like pushing a chain.
 
Remember if you hook a light trailer up front on a single you gain approximately 2500 lbs on a single axle. One of the tricks we use on triples. On triples we are allowed 1500 lbs variance. In our terminal all of the city guys have to hook the lift gate on the rear. Not sure about the weights.
Had a 11,300 lb rear trailer on triples that scaled out over 22,000 lbs on the gear and 16,000 on the trailer axle. ???????
 
freightman68 said:
I have a friend who works for another LTL. He has a route that has a full trailer drop trailer and usually a peddle. Every now and then they will give him a liftgate as his peddle and it has no pintle hook so it has to be the rear. The drop customer is in a different town then the town he peddles and it's about 20 miles up the interstate and it passes a scale. Usually he makes his drop, hooks back to his peddle and drags an empty to the next town. Obviously since the liftate makes this impossible his dispatch pressures him to hook an empty as his lead and the liftgate as his rear and today it had about 5 thousand in it. Most drivers at this company just do it so far everyone has gotten away with it. Here's the question, is it an actual law to have the heavy in the front??? and if so can someone post a link so I can share it with him?? Thank you.
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Some of you guys are not paying attention when due to the lift gate it has to be hooked this way.

Now, some states care some do not, I have pulled an mt and a 20 on the back and it pulled just fine. I have also pulled triples with them built completely backwards, ran 300 miles to meet and they pulled great! Even made it past scales too! Washington state does not care, however Oregon and Idaho do with 2 or 3 trailers but they do also allow a minimal variance which is around 2,000lbs. But in Idaho you can go 90,000 with 2 trailers (as long as the truck is permitted and axle weights of course). You need to find out what is legal in the state he is driving in, and then as always he must do only what he is comfortable with. A lot of it is also how it is loaded, I have had many triples, just like everyone who has pulled 3, that were hooked right and I couldn't go over 50 mph just to keep it in the lane. That's when you drop the 3rd by the way.
 
flybynite said:
Remember if you hook a light trailer up front on a single you gain approximately 2500 lbs on a single axle. One of the tricks we use on triples. On triples we are allowed 1500 lbs variance. In our terminal all of the city guys have to hook the lift gate on the rear. Not sure about the weights.
Had a 11,300 lb rear trailer on triples that scaled out over 22,000 lbs on the gear and 16,000 on the trailer axle. ???????
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Same here. I've ran doubles/triples completely out of whack...but I knew there were no scales to cross, or if they were, I knew if they were closed. The liftgate thing is a no-brainer, as we can't hook a trailer behind ours. A citation is a citation, no question. But this issue gets over-blown
 
I dragged a liftgate as my rear box once. Had the standard pup I was dragging suffer a suspension failure, so FedEx sent a city driver with a liftgate and a pump truck to shuffle the freight off the trailer. Got permission to haul it on to my terminal and dispatch sorted it out later.
 
White said:
We had a fella get a company ticket (weight was far in excess of manifest) & DOT had him switch the heavy lead to the tail & continue. I can't come to terms with a set limit on front/back weight difference. A percentage would be more sensible. An 18 in front of a 21 seems better than a 3 ahead of a 6. Just an opinion.
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They probably made him switch cause he was over on the drive axle and would not be over on his dolly ... with your tractor and your dolly the 2000 lb difference usually evens out to where you are under a 1000 lb difference between the lead and the kite ... I did it all the time at conway .. no one ever said a thing and I never had any problems
 
I do Foodservice, we don't have bulk liquids and generally they' loads are sorta balanced side to side. Depending who you ask at my company the rule of thumb is it's OK to load them backwards if the weights are within 1000 or 2000 lbs of each other. I've had to pull a couple where the set was way out of whack (5-7000 in the front 10-15k in the rear) and they've behaved. Of Course when I'm doing that I make sure to slow down more for ramps, curves etc. Funny story, I was running behind one night and didn't catch that the yard guy gave me the doors backwards, hauled butt all the way home and only realized when I got there that they were way out of whack. Depends on the weather, the equipment, and the load how big of a deal it is.

Flipping the trailers to get axle weights legal at the scale is a thing in Illinois as well so apparently the DOT doesn't take umbrage.
 
Oregon is 1500 lb variance on triples. What happens sometimes is LAS or a California driver will hook them out of sequence, usually it's acceptable. But there's been times when we've had to fix them.
 
I pull pup sets all night and every night. I don't think twice about hooking a set backwards as long as the weight difference is less than 5,000lbs or so. I've never had a problem. I should also mention that neither me or my meet man have scales to worry about. Having said that, I would never hook an empty as the lead trailer, if the rear trailer is loaded. If dispatch wants to use a liftgate and a drop trailer, then I would make the drop, single up the liftgate, do my P&D, and then return to pick up the drop trailer. If Dispatch has a problem with that, then call the Safety Department and let Dispatch and Safety fight it out. That decision needs to be made above your pay grade.
 
Dracula said:
I pull pup sets all night and every night. I don't think twice about hooking a set backwards as long as the weight difference is less than 5,000lbs or so. I've never had a problem. I should also mention that neither me or my meet man have scales to worry about. Having said that, I would never hook an empty as the lead trailer, if the rear trailer is loaded. If dispatch wants to use a liftgate and a drop trailer, then I would make the drop, single up the liftgate, do my P&D, and then return to pick up the drop trailer. If Dispatch has a problem with that, then call the Safety Department and let Dispatch and Safety fight it out. That decision needs to be made above your pay grade.
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Sounds like you're using common sense ond your ole noggin!
 
Frootloop said:
Well to be quite frank I'm not one of these guys that freaks out if it's hooked backwards. I don't prefer to pull one backwards but it's not the end of the world. I have pulled a set where the rear weighed 12k more than the front (long story) and it went through the TN/NC gorge just as nice as any. Now id imagine if an abrupt halt had to be made the rear would push the front right out of the way and it would look like a train derailment. The ones that wiggle the most in my experience are the ones that are loaded with nearly identical weights. I have also run city peddle routes fairly close to the terminal and I hooked them regardless of weight in the order that was of most convenience to me to save my balls and back an unnecessary unhook and rehook. Call it how you see it but I think some fellas blow all of this out of proportion and if you use a little common sense and precaution it really doesn't matter, especially if it's a measly couple hundred pound difference.
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Amen and the ? Is common sense.Don't think to many driver have that anymore.Has a city driver I never worry about what's heavier or not.I have alway's said that all new driver's should pull a set with heavier in rear to get a feel of it.Sooner or later you going to get one that is loaded crazy.Back when I first started running the road with OD.I hooked my set heavy in front lighter in back.Well,rear trailer axle was heavier than front and front steer was hydro planing all the way from Har to JCY and I just didn't know why because no one had ever told me.Glad I'm still here today.Trainee's need to know the thing's that are not taught to them.When I train which is very little now I teach and show the trainee what they need to help them from doing the same mistakes.Just like how to hook & unhook trailer's.Most do it in away that you will forget to pull line's or forget to roll gear down sooner or later.
 
kenneth said:
Amen and the ? Is common sense.Don't think to many driver have that anymore.Has a city driver I never worry about what's heavier or not.I have alway's said that all new driver's should pull a set with heavier in rear to get a feel of it.Sooner or later you going to get one that is loaded crazy.Back when I first started running the road with OD.I hooked my set heavy in front lighter in back.Well,rear trailer axle was heavier than front and front steer was hydro planing all the way from Har to JCY and I just didn't know why because no one had ever told me.Glad I'm still here today.Trainee's need to know the thing's that are not taught to them.When I train which is very little now I teach and show the trainee what they need to help them from doing the same mistakes.Just like how to hook & unhook trailer's.Most do it in away that you will forget to pull line's or forget to roll gear down sooner or later.
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I deliberately unhook by pulling the pin last. By doing it that way, you ensure that you're not getting back in the cab without having checked everything first.

That's a trick most often learned after dropping a trailer or breaking something with a flying glad hand. I used my noggin and developed this routine to ensure that if anything was forgotten, it'd be pulling the pin itself instead of something that could do damage.
 
Canadian Flyer said:
I deliberately unhook by pulling the pin last. By doing it that way, you ensure that you're not getting back in the cab without having checked everything first.

That's a trick most often learned after dropping a trailer or breaking something with a flying glad hand. I used my noggin and developed this routine to ensure that if anything was forgotten, it'd be pulling the pin itself instead of something that could do damage.
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Yes Sir!! I see so many just pull out from under trailer without even looking.If you get in the habit of alway's looking back to first double check hose's are unhooked .Also,You never know when a landing gear will go.So I alway's pull out just a little to make sure trailer is going to stand on it's on.
 
kenneth said:
Yes Sir!! I see so many just pull out from under trailer without even looking.If you get in the habit of alway's looking back to first double check hose's are unhooked .Also,You never know when a landing gear will go.So I alway's pull out just a little to make sure trailer is going to stand on it's on.
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I can see by your little quirks, I always did better pretrips than you guys.
I once left Charl, with a 45fter got down the road fifty miles, stopped to eat,got ready to leave and noticed I had lost
a set of wheels off the rear axle.
I called the shop supt, gave him the trailer number told him my problem, he said "hold the phone a min,"
comes back, says are you sure they were on when you left Charl?
Sure were I said, said "I think you are lying thru your teeth" that trailer burned a wheel bearing in Roanoke Va last night,
It was chained up and slipped by us here.
uh oh, guess I'll write it up in Atl.
Talk about egg on your face, never did live it down
 
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