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FedEx Freight | The proper way...

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HubbaRocks

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What is the proper way to drop a trailer? How far down do you crank the landing gear before you pull out from underneath the trailer?

I see some folk leave it an inch or so from the ground, then drop the air.
I also see some folks cranking until the tractor tires are about to come off the
ground.(figuratively speaking of course)
 
fedex says to leave them an inch from the ground and dump the air but i also see some jacka$$ cranking them as far down as they can.
 
HubbaRocks said:
What is the proper way to drop a trailer? How far down do you crank the landing gear before you pull out from underneath the trailer?

I see some folk leave it an inch or so from the ground, then drop the air.
I also see some folks cranking until the tractor tires are about to come off the
ground.(figuratively speaking of course)
Click to expand...

Leave the landing gear about an inch off the ground, then drop the air and pull out. The trailer will drop down enough, you should never have to get out in the middle of winter when the landing gear doesn't want to work properly anyway, and have to crank the trailer down to touch the fifth wheel. We have been trying to tell safety for years, if you would communicate this in meetings to employees, you would never have a high hook again. For years, it has gone nowhere, yet they still talk about high hooks. It gets really frustrating when you back up to, or back your Dollie up to a trailer, and the trailer is 3 to 4 inches above the fifth wheel. Some times I think drivers do it just to **** the next guy off.
 
What about the trailers with the pogo sticks and you have a heavy nose load? at that point, I put the gear on the ground and give it a few more cranks, then drop my air, and pull out SLOWLY to make sure that trailer will not nose dive and fall. It's happened, not to me, but when it does, there is no escaping that you did it, as the trailer takes out the water sprinkler pipe above and floods the yard, lol!
 
depends on the weight. If it's loaded, you can roll till it touches the ground. When they unload it, the rear will raise up, which lowers the front. If it's empty, leave it an inch or 2 off the ground.(the reverse happens when they load it, front rises) If it has the nose gear, (and your the one that has to put it down) the nose has to be high. If you drop it in the yard, drop it normally.
 
Even with nose stands you drop it normally. Then put the stand down. Those are worse then almost frozen landing gears when their wedged down on the ground.
 
With nose stands, if you drop it to the ground, then raise it up 2 or 3 inches, you should never have a problem with it being wedged to the ground. The nose stand is only to keep it from nosing all the way over. When they add more weight to the rear of the trailer or take the remaining weight off of the nose of the trailer, the nose stand will come back up.

When dropping a trailer, leave an inch or two, drop your air and pull out. You can always drop the air in your air bags to back under a trailer dropped low. cranking the landing gear on a loaded trailer or during the winter is a pain in the a$$
 
I was taught to lower the sand shoe until it touches the ground and then drop the air bags. The pogo stick hole should line up as well.

18
 
number18 said:
I was taught to lower the sand shoe until it touches the ground and then drop the air bags. The pogo stick hole should line up as well.

18
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Some of the old Watkins trailers you have to crank them a little higher to get the pogo stick hole to line up.

I crank them until they just touch the ground and then dump the bags (unless I'm in a 1/2 screw Binder) and pull out.
 
I can speak from experience here, I have one of the lowest riding trucks in the fleet (along with any of the other Super Single drive Volvos.) The western numbered KWs seem to be about the highest, with the rest falling in the middle.

When I do a swap with a West KW I need them to leave about 4-5 inches for me to even hit the plate at all. Oddly enough the Silver Eagle dollies are the highest generally and the west con-gears are the lowest.

I would say as a general rule though, leave 2 inches or so and dump the air. It's much easier to dump the airbags and get under a pup that way that it is than cranking up a trailer.

roog
 
I agree. Touch the ground then 1 full turn in high gear. Too many times I see the "1 inch" thing end up with the handle jammed against the upper floor frame.
 
leemcabee said:
I agree. Touch the ground then 1 full turn in high gear. Too many times I see the "1 inch" thing end up with the handle jammed against the upper floor frame.
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I do it so the landing gear loosely touches the ground. Enough so the pad touches but the pin sits at very top of the hole
 
Im hoping after this merger is done, those trailers with the nose stands are the first to go. Those are set up for twin screw tractors, and we don't need a screw to pull pups. Back when we were still AF, they cut all the nose stands off the pups, and said if you don't load more than 4,000lbs in the first 2 skid spots and 12,000lbs in the front half of the pup, it wont be over on the drives. Since they are buying heavier tractors now, the weight for the front half has gone down to 10,500 to 11,000lbs.
 
leemcabee said:
I agree. Touch the ground then 1 full turn in high gear. Too many times I see the "1 inch" thing end up with the handle jammed against the upper floor frame.
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This wouldn't happen if the driver puts the crank in low gear and doesn't place the handle in the clip. The clip is ONLY for when you are driving down the road so it won't swing out and hit something. You morons who drop these trailers and the crank ends up in the frame should be fired for all the times I've busted my hand or had to go to the shop to get a new handle put on. It's not rocket science to drop a trailer. Seems when this was AF, I never had a problem. Now the new breed has been told by some new college idiot who "thinks" he knows how to drive truck and sits in a nice warm office and tells us the roads aren't bad and "you should be used to it" since you live where you live. Most of the HRO personnel should be fired for the way they treat us.
 
Jumpy said:
This wouldn't happen if the driver puts the crank in low gear and doesn't place the handle in the clip. The clip is ONLY for when you are driving down the road so it won't swing out and hit something. You morons who drop these trailers and the crank ends up in the frame should be fired for all the times I've busted my hand or had to go to the shop to get a new handle put on. It's not rocket science to drop a trailer. Seems when this was AF, I never had a problem. Now the new breed has been told by some new college idiot who "thinks" he knows how to drive truck and sits in a nice warm office and tells us the roads aren't bad and "you should be used to it" since you live where you live. Most of the HRO personnel should be fired for the way they treat us.
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I agree Jumpy, but you have to remember the ole saying, you cant teach an old dog new tricks, well, you cant teach a newbie dog old tricks? It's the new college way of doing things. If you have that degree, they know it all, if ya don't believe me, just ask em???
 
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