newmercman:
Count yourselves lucky you don’t work at my place, every single trailer I hook onto has the legs wound down to the point that they are clear of the 5th wheel.
Our units, like all lorries here, only have an air dump on them, they can’t be lifted.
This winding the legs until the trailer is clear of the 5th wheel thing dates back to the pre air ride days, when it’s icy in winter it would be almost impossible to back under or pull out from a trailer unless it was not putting pressure onto the unit.
However, since the 80s there has been air suspension, with an air dump feature, so they could wind the legs down until they hit the ground, dump the air out of the unit and pull out nice and easy, but oh no, because they used to do it like that 50yrs ago, that’s how they still do it.
So because of that, when coupling up to a trailer, I spend 5mins on slow wind freezing my ■■■■ off or getting eaten alive by mozzies, depending on the time of year.
BOCs
I don’t get this. The only way that you’ll keep weight on the unit is by leaving a gap between the legs and the ground anyway,not by winding the legs into the ground,thereby keeping all the weight on the unit,when dropping the trailer.Which is the correct way to drop a trailer to make sure that it’s sitting low enough,without having all the aggro of either having to lower the trailer or raise the unit,when it’s recoupled.That’s always applied the same wether the unit is on air or not.
They wind the trailer clear of the unit so that all the weight and friction is off the unit, so they can pull straight out, it would make sense with mechanical suspension, but we’re on air and the air dump facility achieves the same result.
Blimey we’ve got loads of sheet ice or snow under the drives and they think that they’ll get more traction by lifting weight from the unit by winding the legs into the ground.Rather leaving a gap between the legs and the ground thereby leaving all the weight of the trailer on the drive axles as they pull it out from under the trailer.The only ‘friction’ being the greasy fifth wheel turntable and ramps if it’s got any at that point. While Farnborough Boy probably wouldn’t need to worry about the mudguards because they’re usually clever enough to not put them across the tops of the unit’s rear wheels over there in most cases.
FarnboroughBoy11:
Its so simple.
To hook up to a trailer you dump the air to the ground and go underneath, then raise the [zb] up and then hit the pin.
To drop a trailer, you wind the legs to the ground, pull off the pin, dump the air and then pull out.
And the mud guards are higher than the runner ramps which is why if you look at most fleet trucks the mud guards are [zb] because drivers drop and hook up without using the air.
So let’s get this right because you’re worried about scratching the tops of the mudguards and/or getting any grease on the ramps you go under a trailer with a massive height mismatch which you then sort at the last second by raising the unit to ( what you guess is ) the correct height as the pin goes into the coupling.As I said that’s a recipe for someone to mis couple a trailer.The unit is supposed to ‘lift’ the trailer ‘onto’ the fifth wheel as it reverses under it preferably using the ramps fitted behind the fifth wheel which are designed to do that job without letting the trailer hit the mudguards.The more grease that gets on those ramps the better.
are you taking the ■■■■?? I dont guess at all, the unit lifts the trailer off the ground before i back on to the pin.
Again, the mud guards are higher than the running ramps.
It doesnt matter, its just on your unit there will be grease everywhere and the back end will be battered to [zb] and mine wont.
Its a shame as i think ive agreed with almost every post of yours since the jimmy saville thread, which includes 40mph single carraige ways, cyclists etc etc but not this
Now assume that someone like the driver referred to who is the reason for the OP’s topic has dropped the trailer with the suspension on the unit raised which could therefore cancel out that lifting effect of raising the suspension when coupling up to the same trailer again depending on how high the idiot has actually dropped it.
IE The start of the topic is all about someone dropping a trailer too high by firstly raising the suspension before dropping it then to add insult to injury they’ve wound the legs into the ground.When either in the case of steel or air suspension it should be the same procedure of just wind down the legs leaving a decent gap between the legs and the ground which should,in most cases,result in the correct dropping and re coupling situation of a trailer which is lower than the height of the fifth wheel when it lands on it’s legs as it’s dropped from the trailer and in most cases will provide that same ideal situation as the unit is reversed back under the trailer at which point it lifts it back off of it’s legs again.I don’t ever remember anyone,including me,giving a zb about what happened to the tops of the mudguards or getting grease on the fifth wheel ramps which actually just shows that they’re doing their job and that applied both in the case of both steel suspension and then the later air suspension types.As I said the only time that you’d need to use the air suspension adjustment is if someone has dropped a trailer too low.In all other cases it should be dropped at a height which the unit will lift without raising the air suspension.However if it has been dropped too high then the trailer will still need to be lowered to make sure that it’s low enough for the unit to actually lift it off of it’s legs ‘before’ the unit is reversed under it.
You haven’t got to adjust the suspension at all when dropping a trailer until you have pulled off the pin.
Just stop, wind legs to the ground, pull off the pin, dump the air and drive away.
FarnboroughBoy11:
Its so simple.
To hook up to a trailer you dump the air to the ground and go underneath, then raise the [zb] up and then hit the pin.
To drop a trailer, you wind the legs to the ground, pull off the pin, dump the air and then pull out.
And the mud guards are higher than the runner ramps which is why if you look at most fleet trucks the mud guards are [zb] because drivers drop and hook up without using the air.
So let’s get this right because you’re worried about scratching the tops of the mudguards and/or getting any grease on the ramps you go under a trailer with a massive height mismatch which you then sort at the last second by raising the unit to ( what you guess is ) the correct height as the pin goes into the coupling.As I said that’s a recipe for someone to mis couple a trailer.The unit is supposed to ‘lift’ the trailer ‘onto’ the fifth wheel as it reverses under it preferably using the ramps fitted behind the fifth wheel which are designed to do that job without letting the trailer hit the mudguards.The more grease that gets on those ramps the better.
are you taking the ■■■■?? I dont guess at all, the unit lifts the trailer off the ground before i back on to the pin.
Again, the mud guards are higher than the running ramps.
It doesnt matter, its just on your unit there will be grease everywhere and the back end will be battered to [zb] and mine wont.
Its a shame as i think ive agreed with almost every post of yours since the jimmy saville thread, which includes 40mph single carraige ways, cyclists etc etc but not this
Now assume that someone like the driver referred to who is the reason for the OP’s topic has dropped the trailer with the suspension on the unit raised which could therefore cancel out that lifting effect of raising the suspension when coupling up to the same trailer again depending on how high the idiot has actually dropped it.
IE The start of the topic is all about someone dropping a trailer too high by firstly raising the suspension before dropping it then to add insult to injury they’ve wound the legs into the ground.When either in the case of steel or air suspension it should be the same procedure of just wind down the legs leaving a decent gap between the legs and the ground which should,in most cases,result in the correct dropping and re coupling situation of a trailer which is lower than the height of the fifth wheel when it lands on it’s legs as it’s dropped from the trailer and in most cases will provide that same ideal situation as the unit is reversed back under the trailer at which point it lifts it back off of it’s legs again.I don’t ever remember anyone,including me,giving a zb about what happened to the tops of the mudguards or getting grease on the fifth wheel ramps which actually just shows that they’re doing their job and that applied both in the case of both steel suspension and then the later air suspension types.As I said the only time that you’d need to use the air suspension adjustment is if someone has dropped a trailer too low.In all other cases it should be dropped at a height which the unit will lift without raising the air suspension.However if it has been dropped too high then the trailer will still need to be lowered to make sure that it’s low enough for the unit to actually lift it off of it’s legs ‘before’ the unit is reversed under it.
You haven’t got to adjust the suspension at all when dropping a trailer until you have pulled off the pin.
Just stop, wind legs to the ground, pull off the pin, dump the air and drive away.
That’s more or less what I’ve said.
Except you haven’t got to adjust the suspension at all.
Just wind the legs down ‘but’ having left a decent gap between them and the ground then pull the pin and drive away.After removing all the lines and making sure that the trailer brakes are applied properly of course.
newmercman:
Count yourselves lucky you don’t work at my place, every single trailer I hook onto has the legs wound down to the point that they are clear of the 5th wheel.
Our units, like all lorries here, only have an air dump on them, they can’t be lifted.
This winding the legs until the trailer is clear of the 5th wheel thing dates back to the pre air ride days, when it’s icy in winter it would be almost impossible to back under or pull out from a trailer unless it was not putting pressure onto the unit.
However, since the 80s there has been air suspension, with an air dump feature, so they could wind the legs down until they hit the ground, dump the air out of the unit and pull out nice and easy, but oh no, because they used to do it like that 50yrs ago, that’s how they still do it.
So because of that, when coupling up to a trailer, I spend 5mins on slow wind freezing my ■■■■ off or getting eaten alive by mozzies, depending on the time of year.
BOCs
I don’t get this. The only way that you’ll keep weight on the unit is by leaving a gap between the legs and the ground anyway,not by winding the legs into the ground,thereby keeping all the weight on the unit,when dropping the trailer.Which is the correct way to drop a trailer to make sure that it’s sitting low enough,without having all the aggro of either having to lower the trailer or raise the unit,when it’s recoupled.That’s always applied the same wether the unit is on air or not.
They wind the trailer clear of the unit so that all the weight and friction is off the unit, so they can pull straight out, it would make sense with mechanical suspension, but we’re on air and the air dump facility achieves the same result.
Blimey we’ve got loads of sheet ice or snow under the drives and they think that they’ll get more traction by lifting weight from the unit by winding the legs into the ground.Rather leaving a gap between the legs and the ground thereby leaving all the weight of the trailer on the drive axles as they pull it out from under the trailer.The only ‘friction’ being the greasy fifth wheel turntable and ramps if it’s got any at that point. While Farnborough Boy probably wouldn’t need to worry about the mudguards because they’re usually clever enough to not put them across the tops of the unit’s rear wheels over there in most cases.
On ice you cannot have any weight on the unit or it won’t come out from under the trailer, so what they do is correct, but instead of doing that with the push of a button, they do it by winding the legs right down ffs…
Good God! The more stuff we have to make the job supposedly easier,the more questions and problems seem to arise.How on earth did people manage to drop and pick up trailers before air suspension and forums?
m1cks:
I always lower legs to the ground then back off 1/2 a turn on the handle. If you leave the legs right to the ground it’s sometimes difficult to pull the pin.
Vehicles are designed to run up underneath trailers without using the air. It’s how they were when they ran on springs and why they have guide rails to lift the trailer.
But we dont run on springs anymore and smelly greasy battered trucks should be a thing of the past.
Smelly greasy battered trucks are alive and well in the make-up of most modern fleets.
The best training you could ever get is working for my first boss, if he heard anyone miss the pin or bang into it too hard, he would kick your arse around the yard.
You don’t need to leave the cab, you can just raise the air a tad as the turntable is just out of site of the landing plate. Then the only thing you should hear is a satisfying click as the jaws snap shut.
Most modern trailers sag a little in front of the landing legs when they are loaded, they are designed to do that.
Indeed. You should either get in the real world where we have air suspension or STFU. All this crap about only winding the legs half way down so that the next guy doesn’t miss the pin is a load of UTTER BOLLOX. It is not needed at all and as FB has said many times, only serves to damage the mud guards and ramps. In all the years I’ve done agency, s/e and employed work I’ve only ever come across 1 trailer that I couldn’t reach the pin on and that was quickly remedied by raising the trailer air suspension. And these are dropped by people that wind the legs to the ground, not do them only half way like you. There’s nothing more annoying when hooking up to a trailer than not being able to slide under it without the trailer hitting the ramps as it deposits all the grease from the underside of the trailer onto the front edge which then builds up, falls on your catwalk, ends up on your feet and then you’re clearing grease off your rugs, mats and carpets for days. Oh and also covers your lines in grease as well .
It’s really very simple :
Dropping empty trailer -
Wind legs to floor at normal ride height and pull out.
Dropping heavy trailer -
Wind legs to floor with ride height raised up a few inches and pull out. Front end of trailer will settle to a height still lower than an empty trailer and will make it much easier for the next guy picking it up and will also prevent damaging the ramps or mud guards.
Much of my work is shunting trailers about and I’ve done it that way ever since tractors and trailers on air became the norm. No-one has ever missed a pin and no-one has ever had any problems coupling up to them.
Sir +:
Good God! The more stuff we have to make the job supposedly easier,the more questions and problems seem to arise.How on earth did people manage to drop and pick up trailers before air suspension and forums?
There are lot driving trucks now who would never get a steel sprung unit under a heavily laden trailer that had settled a bit over night. For the benefit of those who have never done it: You has to fairly push under it to compress the trucks road springs. If you gave up & declutched at the wrong moment you’d shoot back out again like a cork from a bottle.
It was even more interesting on loose stone surfaces.
Indeed. You should either get in the real world where we have air suspension or STFU. All this crap about only winding the legs half way down so that the next guy doesn’t miss the pin is a load of UTTER BOLLOX. It is not needed at all and as FB has said many times, only serves to damage the mud guards and ramps. In all the years I’ve done agency, s/e and employed work I’ve only ever come across 1 trailer that I couldn’t reach the pin on and that was quickly remedied by raising the trailer air suspension. And these are dropped by people that wind the legs to the ground, not do them only half way like you. There’s nothing more annoying when hooking up to a trailer than not being able to slide under it without the trailer hitting the ramps as it deposits all the grease from the underside of the trailer onto the front edge which then builds up, falls on your catwalk, ends up on your feet and then you’re clearing grease off your rugs, mats and carpets for days. Oh and also covers your lines in grease as well .
It’s really very simple :
Dropping empty trailer -
Wind legs to floor at normal ride height and pull out.
Dropping heavy trailer -
Wind legs to floor with ride height raised up a few inches and pull out. Front end of trailer will settle to a height still lower than an empty trailer and will make it much easier for the next guy picking it up and will also prevent damaging the ramps or mud guards.
Much of my work is shunting trailers about and I’ve done it that way ever since tractors and trailers on air became the norm. No-one has ever missed a pin and no-one has ever had any problems coupling up to them.
Blimey I think you might be the type of driver who nmm is moaning about.
Indeed. You should either get in the real world where we have air suspension or STFU. All this crap about only winding the legs half way down so that the next guy doesn’t miss the pin is a load of UTTER BOLLOX. It is not needed at all and as FB has said many times, only serves to damage the mud guards and ramps. In all the years I’ve done agency, s/e and employed work I’ve only ever come across 1 trailer that I couldn’t reach the pin on and that was quickly remedied by raising the trailer air suspension. And these are dropped by people that wind the legs to the ground, not do them only half way like you. There’s nothing more annoying when hooking up to a trailer than not being able to slide under it without the trailer hitting the ramps as it deposits all the grease from the underside of the trailer onto the front edge which then builds up, falls on your catwalk, ends up on your feet and then you’re clearing grease off your rugs, mats and carpets for days. Oh and also covers your lines in grease as well .
It’s really very simple :
Dropping empty trailer -
Wind legs to floor at normal ride height and pull out.
Dropping heavy trailer -
Wind legs to floor with ride height raised up a few inches and pull out. Front end of trailer will settle to a height still lower than an empty trailer and will make it much easier for the next guy picking it up and will also prevent damaging the ramps or mud guards.
Much of my work is shunting trailers about and I’ve done it that way ever since tractors and trailers on air became the norm. No-one has ever missed a pin and no-one has ever had any problems coupling up to them.
Blimey I think you might be the type of driver who nmm is moaning about.
If you’d bothered to read what he had written you would have seen that they have a different set up over there which requires a different method, but as usual you’re too busy frothing about redundant and irrelevant stuff from the 70s.
Sir +:
Good God! The more stuff we have to make the job supposedly easier,the more questions and problems seem to arise.How on earth did people manage to drop and pick up trailers before air suspension and forums?
There are lot driving trucks now who would never get a steel sprung unit under a heavily laden trailer that had settled a bit over night. For the benefit of those who have never done it: You has to fairly push under it to compress the trucks road springs. If you gave up & declutched at the wrong moment you’d shoot back out again like a cork from a bottle.
It was even more interesting on loose stone surfaces.
Like a full load of paper products for example.
That’s what I meant about the unit needing to lift the trailer having left ‘enough’,( but not too much which seems to be the case in the pics ),space under the legs when it was dropped.
Indeed. You should either get in the real world where we have air suspension or STFU. All this crap about only winding the legs half way down so that the next guy doesn’t miss the pin is a load of UTTER BOLLOX. It is not needed at all and as FB has said many times, only serves to damage the mud guards and ramps. In all the years I’ve done agency, s/e and employed work I’ve only ever come across 1 trailer that I couldn’t reach the pin on and that was quickly remedied by raising the trailer air suspension. And these are dropped by people that wind the legs to the ground, not do them only half way like you. There’s nothing more annoying when hooking up to a trailer than not being able to slide under it without the trailer hitting the ramps as it deposits all the grease from the underside of the trailer onto the front edge which then builds up, falls on your catwalk, ends up on your feet and then you’re clearing grease off your rugs, mats and carpets for days. Oh and also covers your lines in grease as well .
It’s really very simple :
Dropping empty trailer -
Wind legs to floor at normal ride height and pull out.
Dropping heavy trailer -
Wind legs to floor with ride height raised up a few inches and pull out. Front end of trailer will settle to a height still lower than an empty trailer and will make it much easier for the next guy picking it up and will also prevent damaging the ramps or mud guards.
Much of my work is shunting trailers about and I’ve done it that way ever since tractors and trailers on air became the norm. No-one has ever missed a pin and no-one has ever had any problems coupling up to them.
Its a simple procedure and following robs advice wont leave you stuck.
Most of my artic work in the UK has been on 6x4 landfill tractors on springs which can be different but not a situation 99% of drivers will encounter
lankyphil:
'… lad, not long passed his test, drops a trailer … With the suspension all the way up on his unit … just got a shrug and a “so what?”
That’ll be a progressing by-product of Blair’s brilliant idea of Cool Britannia type of diversity in the late 1990’s and a reality behind Cameron’s ongoing 2013 version of ultra-liberalism, mate
Why bother ‘giving-a-stuff’ - it’s his right
I blame Gordon Brown. After all he’s just as to blame in my eyes for people not dropping trailers properly as Blair, Cameron, The EU, Stalin and Mao. But the worst culprit in my opinion for the decline in standards amongst truck drivers is Richard Nixon.
lankyphil:
'… lad, not long passed his test, drops a trailer … With the suspension all the way up on his unit … just got a shrug and a “so what?”
That’ll be a progressing by-product of Blair’s brilliant idea of Cool Britannia type of diversity in the late 1990’s and a reality behind Cameron’s ongoing 2013 version of ultra-liberalism, mate
Why bother ‘giving-a-stuff’ - it’s his right
I blame Gordon Brown. After all he’s just as to blame in my eyes for people not dropping trailers properly as Blair, Cameron, The EU, Stalin and Mao. But the worst culprit in my opinion for the decline in standards amongst truck drivers is Richard Nixon.
Rubbish! Everyone knows that the lowering of driving standards is down to Gerald Ford! You giant idiot!
lankyphil:
'… lad, not long passed his test, drops a trailer … With the suspension all the way up on his unit … just got a shrug and a “so what?”
That’ll be a progressing by-product of Blair’s brilliant idea of Cool Britannia type of diversity in the late 1990’s and a reality behind Cameron’s ongoing 2013 version of ultra-liberalism, mate
Why bother ‘giving-a-stuff’ - it’s his right
I blame Gordon Brown. After all he’s just as to blame in my eyes for people not dropping trailers properly as Blair, Cameron, The EU, Stalin and Mao. But the worst culprit in my opinion for the decline in standards amongst truck drivers is Richard Nixon.
Poor show. You forgot Hitler, Churchill, Thatcher and the integrationalist American southern states.
Indeed. You should either get in the real world where we have air suspension or STFU. All this crap about only winding the legs half way down so that the next guy doesn’t miss the pin is a load of UTTER BOLLOX. It is not needed at all and as FB has said many times, only serves to damage the mud guards and ramps. In all the years I’ve done agency, s/e and employed work I’ve only ever come across 1 trailer that I couldn’t reach the pin on and that was quickly remedied by raising the trailer air suspension. And these are dropped by people that wind the legs to the ground, not do them only half way like you. There’s nothing more annoying when hooking up to a trailer than not being able to slide under it without the trailer hitting the ramps as it deposits all the grease from the underside of the trailer onto the front edge which then builds up, falls on your catwalk, ends up on your feet and then you’re clearing grease off your rugs, mats and carpets for days. Oh and also covers your lines in grease as well .
It’s really very simple :
Dropping empty trailer -
Wind legs to floor at normal ride height and pull out.
Dropping heavy trailer -
Wind legs to floor with ride height raised up a few inches and pull out. Front end of trailer will settle to a height still lower than an empty trailer and will make it much easier for the next guy picking it up and will also prevent damaging the ramps or mud guards.
Much of my work is shunting trailers about and I’ve done it that way ever since tractors and trailers on air became the norm. No-one has ever missed a pin and no-one has ever had any problems coupling up to them.
Im with Rob K and Farnborough Boy. Run up ramps are a licence for bad drivers to couple up badly and roughly and cover everything in grease. Nolan Transport used to cut all theirs off. I have run up ramps but they don’t get used, and my mudguards dont have a mark on them.
On the poorly dropped Ferrymasters trailer, an easy fix is to drop the air out of the trailer bags, that will raise the front of the trailer. It is often a good idea to do that anyway if the trailer is a bit nose heavy like what happens when using a 3 axle unit.
In the early days of air suspension many units were converted from springs to bellows, some still used both systems and a low powered unit could struggle to raise a badly dropped rulley.
In those cases you had to use the manual labour button and wind up the trailer using low gear. I have had drivers tell me they didn’t know they had two gears.
Wheel Nut:
On the poorly dropped Ferrymasters trailer, an easy fix is to drop the air out of the trailer bags, that will raise the front of the trailer. It is often a good idea to do that anyway if the trailer is a bit nose heavy like what happens when using a 3 axle unit.
In the early days of air suspension many units were converted from springs to bellows, some still used both systems and a low powered unit could struggle to raise a badly dropped rulley.
In those cases you had to use the manual labour button and wind up the trailer using low gear. I have had drivers tell me they didn’t know they had two gears.
Wheel Nut:
On the poorly dropped Ferrymasters trailer, an easy fix is to drop the air out of the trailer bags, that will raise the front of the trailer. It is often a good idea to do that anyway if the trailer is a bit nose heavy like what happens when using a 3 axle unit.
In the early days of air suspension many units were converted from springs to bellows, some still used both systems and a low powered unit could struggle to raise a badly dropped rulley.
In those cases you had to use the manual labour button and wind up the trailer using low gear. I have had drivers tell me they didn’t know they had two gears.
I had a guy I work with (driving artics for ten years, he says) tell me that about three weeks ago.
The only way that you’ll keep weight on the unit is by leaving a gap between the legs and the ground anyway,not by winding the legs into the ground,thereby keeping all the weight on the unit,when dropping the trailer.Which is the correct way to drop a trailer to make sure that it’s sitting low enough,without having all the aggro of either having to lower the trailer or raise the unit,when it’s recoupled.That’s always applied the same wether the unit is on air or not.
are you taking the ■■■■?? I dont guess at all, the unit lifts the trailer off the ground before i back on to the pin.
Oh and also covers your lines in grease as well 
Nearly had to belly dance to get under this one. Look at the height of the next trailer.
