Might be interesting to see Dipper Dave’s take on “dropping suspension when going under”…
I reverse up to trailer and gently put turntable under trailer. I then apply handbrake and switch off engine. Leave cab with keys in pocket and check that the trailer is street legal, i.e. tyres have tread on them, curtains and lights are all there and handbrake is applied. I then return to cab start engine and reverse slowly until kingpin engages, check that it is engaged and switch off engine and place keys in pocket. I the attach safety clip and connect susies, wind up legs and release handbrake. Return to cab and switch on lights and check that they all work. Another quick look at trailer and if loaded check that load is secure.
It takes time but saves problems later.
Whats the various “company procedures” for picking up a trailer that is 2" or less from it’s neighbours at 5 am on a dark wet Monday morning? 
As per Juddian ( old school )…back up to the trailer…handbrake on …get out,.,.look at the height and adjust as necessary…back under…lock on…number plate…trailer brake…legs up…ie, walk up one side, and down the other…airlines on…electrics on, walk round check etc…the only exception is a split couple ( fridge ) in which i check the trailer brake, put the airlines on before coupling.
Juddian:
Whats all this stopping the engine multiple times ■■■■■■■■, must put the starting and charging systems through extra strain for no reason at all.
I got re-assessed a month or so back, did the drop and re-pick up routine as requested, never once stopping the engine, got the all clear with no issues to correct.
Are you for real■■? Clearly YOU’RE GOING TO KILL SOMEONE!!!11 so you MUST switch off the engine every time and hand the keys to a manager as you are just a driver that cannot be trusted to think for yourself. Sheesh man 
.
/sarcasm
But I agree. I always leave the engine running and in fact I’ve got it down a tee to reverse under trailer, coupled it all up and do my checks (are the tyres black and round? Does the night heater work? 
) and return to the cab before the timer shuts down the engine . I think the timer on most of them is around 2 mins? DHL et al would have kittens! 
@Rob K, less of the cheek I ain’t over 50. I was trained like that on my class 1 training & it’s pretty much how we’ve been asked to drop trailers by my employer, it works for me.
selby newcomer:
@Rob K,
You’ve been “trained” how to drop trailers by your employer? Seriously? What kind of outfit do you work for?
I guess replacing mud guards and ramps is cheaper than replacing suzi rails, rear light clusters and straightening out the back of the cabs then .
If drivers used the tools at their disposal instead of still using methods that became redundant 15 years ago there wouldn’t be any of these issues.
Funny you should mention about redundant methods RobK.
Until about 9 years ago i’d spent most of the previous 20 years on car transporters, and we never ever separated or connected the vehicle, that was always left to the mechanics, when i returned to artics everything seemed to be different.
But agreeing with your point, i’d have given my eye teeth for tractor unit air suspension in’t olden days, especially as we had one particular brain donor with a Marathon that sat about 3" higher than the rest of our tackle…oh joy when he wound the legs right down, and then some, when he dropped an empty to be loaded, especially when one of our three flats had only one gear on the landing legs
Tickover time out doesn’t exist on ours, thankfully, what a bore that is.
Rob K:
selby newcomer:
@Rob K,You’ve been “trained” how to drop trailers by your employer? Seriously? What kind of outfit do you work for?
I guess replacing mud guards and ramps is cheaper than replacing suzi rails, rear light clusters and straightening out the back of the cabs then
If drivers used the tools at their disposal instead of still using methods that became redundant 15 years ago there wouldn’t be any of these issues.
A supermarket, Any big company these days has their way of how they want their drivers to do things, it’s their kit so who am I to argue
selby newcomer:
Rob K:
selby newcomer:
@Rob K,You’ve been “trained” how to drop trailers by your employer? Seriously? What kind of outfit do you work for?
I guess replacing mud guards and ramps is cheaper than replacing suzi rails, rear light clusters and straightening out the back of the cabs then
If drivers used the tools at their disposal instead of still using methods that became redundant 15 years ago there wouldn’t be any of these issues.
A supermarket, Any big company these days has their way of how they want their drivers to do things, it’s their kit so who am I to argue
And it doesn’t matter how much damage is done they’ll stick to it.
A quick anecdote for you, one morning i’m on agency at a supermarket rdc and i’m at the back of the trailer checking the tail lift works ok.
Tractor unit reverses up to trailer beside mine, bang, another few seconds bang, another few seconds bang, this carried on for a few more so i minced down to see what was going on.
Driver(full timer) standing beside tractor unit wondering why the thing won’t connect up, i pointed out the fifth wheel which was kicked up at the back because it was scoring its way up the front of the trailer, when i looked at the line of trailers they all had the tell tale marks of dozens of fifth wheels being rammed up the nicely painted front.
The practice here was to wind the legs down to the ground and lower the suspension immediately after disengaging the pin, so the fifth wheel was always flat or if you dropped at some parts of the yard where the trailer was up a slight incline the fifth wheel would already be kicked slightly upwards.
Surely to God someone there has the nous to see what the issue is
That was the same place where the bod behind the desk couldn’t compute me defecting a Scania for a broken front cab mount, and thought his bulb fitter chappie (i kid you not) would presumably have one sitting on the shelf and slip it on with his tool kit comprising of a philips and torx screwdriver
Jesus it’s painful sometimes, thank the good Lord our trainers have their feet planted firmly on the ground and their heads not stuck up their own backsides.
Juddian, fifth wheel is always flat when I drop a trailer, trailer never slides off the 5th wheel. I’ve seen drivers at our place raise the suspension before they even drop the trailer, that causes pins to be missed. Must be 300+ drivers where I am & I see all sorts go on, I’m far from perfect but I don’t cause avoidable damage. Damage is never reported so some drivers never find out the error of their ways, it happens over & over again.
Drop the suspension and reverse part of the way back.
Stop and have alook-see.
Now it depends on the trailer. If it’s a fridge unit then I’ll connect up all the air-lines and electrics before carrying on (that way, you don’t have to squeeze between the fridge unit and the lorry after!)
Raise the suspension and reverse until you hear a gentle click. Quick tug or two to make sure locked in. Raise suspension while I wind up the legs. Reset suspension while I take a wander around and do final checks.
Jobs a good 'un.
selby newcomer:
Juddian, fifth wheel is always flat when I drop a trailer, trailer never slides off the 5th wheel. I’ve seen drivers at our place raise the suspension before they even drop the trailer, that causes pins to be missed. Must be 300+ drivers where I am & I see all sorts go on, I’m far from perfect but I don’t cause avoidable damage. Damage is never reported so some drivers never find out the error of their ways, it happens over & over again.
Ah, you’ve got Mr and Mrs Wasnme there too.
I try to drop the final air out the tractor just as it leaves the front of the trailer, so it tilts the fifth wheel slightly back.
The reason for this is we have a minority of clowns, like everywhere, who just reverse back on the mirrors until the tractor stops, whether that be the back of the cab stoving in, the lights or rear air tanks mashing into the landing legs, or the fifth wheel puncturing the front of the trailer chassis, or any combination of the above ., by tilting the fifth wheel back at least the thing will go under the trailer next time.
Like you i aint perfect, but with a bit of care and not rushing about like their arse is on fire, there would be almost no damage done.
Juddian:
Funny you should mention about redundant methods RobK.Until about 9 years ago i’d spent most of the previous 20 years on car transporters, and we never ever separated or connected the vehicle, that was always left to the mechanics, when i returned to artics everything seemed to be different.
But agreeing with your point, i’d have given my eye teeth for tractor unit air suspension in’t olden days, especially as we had one particular brain donor with a Marathon that sat about 3" higher than the rest of our tackle…oh joy when he wound the legs right down, and then some, when he dropped an empty to be loaded, especially when one of our three flats had only one gear on the landing legs
Tickover time out doesn’t exist on ours, thankfully, what a bore that is.
You still get the occasional trumpet that winds the legs down “and then some” on empty trailers even now, sometimes resulting in you not being able to reach the trailer with your unit even with the airbags fully inflated. It’s rare but it does still happen. I’ve no desire to spend a bunch of time winding the legs up in low gear so I usually have a scout around the yard for something solid like some bricks or metal bar or the chocks from a decent pallet and sit them across the fifth wheel (after making it level of course) and that then creates enough additional height to lift the legs off the deck when re-inflating the airbags, enabling you to wind off half a dozen turns, dump the air, pull out, remove chocks and then couple up normally.
At the other end of the scale you have the trumpets that drop a fully loaded trailer leaving a 3" gap under the legs “because that’s how we did it in 1978” and it’s so low that you can’t even get the lip of the trailer on the end of the ramps where you’d be able to lift it with your airbags so could wind the legs down and get it at a sensible level before coupling to it.
Both lots are as bad as each other but the latter annoys me far more. If they just wound the legs down to the [zb] ground and left them there instead of all this fancy nonsense leaving 3" gaps or giving the legs a bunch of extra turns none of the above would ever be a problem. I also don’t think it helps that modern units seem to have a pathetic level of travel on the airbags now. The Iveco’s and DAFs in particular are notable for this. I remember back in the day with a '94 FH12 6x2 the airbags could be inflated so much that the gap between the mud guard and top of the tyres was nearly big enough to climb in and deflating the airbags fully would bend the mud flaps in half if you were lucky, or snap them off entirely if you were unlucky 
. You could always tell who the trumpets were who’d forgotten to level the ride height before setting off down the road because their drive axle mud flaps would be really short and taper off at an angle to the outside edge with the bottom half of the word ‘VOLVO’ completely gone .
Beef:
Drop suspension, back under, stop, raise suspension and then continue back on to the pin.Sent from my SM-G800F using Tapatalk
^^^^^^ Can’t argue with that. It also covers you when the trailer has been dropped too low/too high as well.
Abosolutely a “Must do” way for split coupling, I’d say.
One of the RDCs that I visit promotes the B.L.A.C.K. method of coupling/uncoupling…B. for brake, L for legs, A for airlines etc.
Guy on the gatehouse was saying how idiot proof it was cos you didn’t have to think about it, until I asked him whether they gave you a new number plate each time cos there was no reminder to remove yours from the trailer you were dropping.
Went a bit quiet after that…
Beef:
Drop suspension, back under, stop, raise suspension and then continue back on to the pin.Sent from my SM-G800F using Tapatalk
This.
I don’t have ramps leading to the 5th wheel (It’s Belgian reg.)
Why do British reg trucks have ramps anyway??
Geoffo:
Beef:
Drop suspension, back under, stop, raise suspension and then continue back on to the pin.Sent from my SM-G800F using Tapatalk
This.
I don’t have ramps leading to the 5th wheel (It’s Belgian reg.)
Why do British reg trucks have ramps anyway??
Many don’t thats true, but i s’pose they might save quite a few fifth wheels being rammed directly into (and puncturing) the front cross member of the trailer plus other damage forcing the fifth wheel reverse slant up the front of a van style trailer will inevitably do.
Lots of clowns do it billy big ■■■■■■■■ stylee by mirrors only, assuming the job is done when the tractor stops going backards then get out and look gormless.