Wagon & Drag.

Punchy Dan:
… sometimes a fare bit of tugging is required …

:bulb: Where’s Dipper Dave? :grimacing:

dieseldave:

Punchy Dan:
… sometimes a fare bit of tugging is required …

:bulb: Where’s Dipper Dave? :grimacing:

In hospital… done one too many tug tests.

peterm:

dieseldave:

Punchy Dan:
… sometimes a fare bit of tugging is required …

:bulb: Where’s Dipper Dave? :grimacing:

In hospital… done one too many tug tests.

Many a true word said in jest!

He has been ‘missing’ a while, so I hope he’s OK.

I drove this in Norway for 10 yrs,i suggest you look up A frame reversing on utube,good luck

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Carryfast:

Punchy Dan:
sometimes a fare bit of tugging is required for the pin to drop all the way leaving the handle horizontal .

Keeping the coupling as clean as possible of road dirt and well oiled also cleaning and pouring some oil into the coupling eye of the trailer before coupling up,all helps. :bulb: Air line couplings also get jammed with road dirt especially in the winter when they are in a permanent salt water bath compared to artics which rusts the couplings up and need plenty of oil/WD 40 etc on them to keep them working.Palm coupling are much better for use with drawbars in that regard.

I’ve been told to never oil or grease the coupling as all the ■■■■ of the day will stick to it. Grease with with grit it in acts as a grinding paste.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

happysack:

Carryfast:

Punchy Dan:
sometimes a fare bit of tugging is required for the pin to drop all the way leaving the handle horizontal .

Keeping the coupling as clean as possible of road dirt and well oiled also cleaning and pouring some oil into the coupling eye of the trailer before coupling up,all helps. :bulb: Air line couplings also get jammed with road dirt especially in the winter when they are in a permanent salt water bath compared to artics which rusts the couplings up and need plenty of oil/WD 40 etc on them to keep them working.Palm coupling are much better for use with drawbars in that regard.

I’ve been told to never oil or grease the coupling as all the [zb] of the day will stick to it. Grease with with grit it in acts as a grinding paste.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Hi happysack,

Thats what i experianced,i never put oil/greese on the actual pin,i think i had two greese ■■■■■■■ on the actual coupling,which went to the arm on the outside of said coupling,the trick for uncoupling was to do it with the brakes off,then put the hand brake on pretty sharpest,this of course was not the correct way to uncouple,just a little trick to stop the “tugging”,

Once one got the hang of reversing it was quite enjoyable,an art in itself, :sunglasses:

Mine says oil before use on a sticker .

Thanks all, it went fine, it was easier to reverse than I was expecting though the enormous turning circle caught me out the first time I tried to corkscrew it. Only real problem is that they sent a muscular young lad to show me the ropes and do the physical side today (handballing 30-40 sofas off the truck) but were expecting me to do it on my own tomorrow so I said “Err, I won’t be doing that”.

You can’t just leave us in suspenders Harry, the $64000 question we all need to know…was it an A frame or normal wag/drag.

Chris62:

happysack:

Carryfast:
Keeping the coupling as clean as possible of road dirt and well oiled also cleaning and pouring some oil into the coupling eye of the trailer before coupling up,all helps. :bulb: Air line couplings also get jammed with road dirt especially in the winter when they are in a permanent salt water bath compared to artics which rusts the couplings up and need plenty of oil/WD 40 etc on them to keep them working.Palm coupling are much better for use with drawbars in that regard.

I’ve been told to never oil or grease the coupling as all the [zb] of the day will stick to it. Grease with with grit it in acts as a grinding paste.

Hi happysack,

Thats what i experianced,i never put oil/greese on the actual pin

It is possible to keep it all clean enough and to provide a film of lubricating oil ( not grease ) to help the coupling process.That applies both regarding the pin and the coupling eye to help it to go in easily and to stop a slightly misaligned coupling eye sticking against the coupling guide jaws and then taking chunks off them.

Juddian:
You can’t just leave us in suspenders Harry, the $64000 question we all need to know…was it an A frame or normal wag/drag.

Sorry, normal type, two fixed central axles. My only previous experience with wagon & drag was having a play with an A frame in Germany over 20 years ago, and I couldn’t even get it to reverse in a straight line.

Thanks Harry.

I did a few trips for Sovereign parcels (part of United Carriers) back in the 70’s with an A frame, bloody nightmare i was all over the shop, not helped by the trailers being much shorter than the Bedford KM :sunglasses: prime movers.
Bet you’re jealous :laughing: , go on admit it :open_mouth: Bedford KM, phwoar :unamused:

:frowning:

I’m still working on getting it to go in a straight line but I can turn it the direction I want now :smiley:. Problem is I am oversteering because I can’t see the rear trailer wheels until I have oversteered.
not getting a lot of time to practice though.

Harry Monk:
I couldn’t even get it to reverse in a straight line.

The one I had on United Transport took me six months to get the hang of to be able to reverse in a straight line, then a further six months to get it to turn in reverse where I needed it to go, once I mastered it there was very few places I could not get it into with it hooked on the back, If I could not get in there, there was very little chance that you would get an artic in there.

Punchy Dan:

irc5468:
If its a vbg coupling, be aware of the relevance of the red button on the side of the coupling.

The red button should be flush with its surrounding after you’ve coupled up, you could do a tug test, think you’ve coupled correctly, but the red button is still protruding. The button indicates the pin hasn’t dropped correctly.

Or even the release handle needs to be horizontal ,most pins go in enough but sometimes a fare bit of tugging is required for the pin to drop all the way leaving the handle horizontal .

Irrespective of the handle position and the green light on the dash - I always get down and looksee that the pin is all the way through

adam277:
:frowning:

I’m still working on getting it to go in a straight line but I can turn it the direction I want now :smiley:. Problem is I am oversteering because I can’t see the rear trailer wheels until I have oversteered.
not getting a lot of time to practice though.

If that’s an A frame type ? it’s a bit like draughts and chess you need to be thinking a few moves of the steering wheel and changes of lock ahead and the A frame won’t start to steer the trailer unless there’s first an offset between the rear and front corners of the prime mover and trailer.Keeping that offset to an absolute minimum on either side is the key and the bigger the offset the more the A frame and trailer bogie are out of line until it’s too late and too much to correct it.On that note it’s a similar but much more critical situation to an artic in knowing when to take off any lock you’ve put on.

As for the rear trailer wheels when turning concentrate on the offset between prime mover and trailer first and you probably won’t see the trailer wheels at the point when it first starts turning because they’ll be hidden behind the offset of the prime mover.That’s when to reverse the lock quick and you’ll only get a clearer view of the turning trailer after you’ve reversed the lock and brought the corners back into line from the start of the turn.

While if you want it to reverse in a straight line you’re not interested in the rear trailer wheels.It’s mostly about making sure that even the slightest amount of offset between prime mover and trailer either side is corrected well before it gets to more and stopping any over correction creating another offset situation on the opposite side as you do so.

a few years back I spent the summer on a farm pulling a bulker trailer on a dolly A frame thing. There was no end of reversing and I soon got the hang of it, even good at it. However the rub was, in learning to reverse this, something got completely fried in my little brain and I could no longer reverse anything properly, struggled to get the car in the driveway let alone reverse a normal trailer. all very very very confusing

I pulled an a frame trailer for Alstons furniture of Ipswich and found reversing down the linkspan for the ferry in Liverpool with a 90 degree bend a bit of a pain, err all right then … a bloody great big pain and one place I had to deliver to in Belfast the lads in the warehouse told me to unhitch it and they man handled it into position but I eventually got it right. Murffits normal wagon an drags were a doddle in comparison.

I had to drive this to frejus in the south of france, flat out 30 mph all the way, moaned all the way , boiled nearly all the way, was happy to load it on the back of one of the others to come home.
I’m a drawbar convert now though, at the time I was strictly artic only, but the F86 had expired the week before.

tony

How did it go then Harry ■■