I don't quite understand all the hipe with heavy spec'd trucks with the springs. Take a ride down a rough loggin' road, tooo rough for me!! I've pulled 70 ton, trees out of the Canadian east slope rockies. We're talking mtn. climbin', towin' to the top with Cats, logging. Load you with winter wieghts then find your own way down! Did I mention the 4' snow? The '00 WS heritage, - C-15, 18 spd eaton, 26 K eaton's 12 front, and airbags! pullin' a rack and pole. NowI 'm trappin' in the gravel pits with a'98 378 Pete~ C-15, 18 spd eaton, 26 K eaton's 12 front, and airbags! Knock on wood I haven't had problems. I,ve only actually seen 2 bag blow outs, 1) the dust cover slashed the bag. yea yea "Springs don't slash" 2) Second one of the fellow nascar pit trucks with 20 ton loads (that's 30ton including the truck), that stretched it's stacks only to find out KW don't fly. One bag blew, bag in the shop after being lifted upright, dumping the remainder of the load and drove home. Yea we checked fluids!! I have driven in a similar spec'd 378 Pete and a KW W900 with springs On the other hand an '03 KW T800 broke 2 leaves. And a Mack sheared a center shackle bolt. :beatsme I'm sure I'l hear opposite opinions and your entilted to them, just my experiences over the latter years
Trappin' , you must be working with Gator. Yah, have used air bags all over this continent doing every application a class 8 truck can do and won't have anything else.:bash
I'm trappin out of the Onoway Lafarge pit. I've met Gator!
The drivers seat makes a big difference. If you have a truck with a worn out seat it doesn't matter what type of suspension you have. Spring ride gravel trucks are still the most common on the West Coast or a rubber ride type suspension. You need the stability for dumping the loads and traveling the roads with a loaded truck. When you wear a set of supersingle steer tires in 3-6 months it tells you how straight the roads are. The tridrive trucks get about 4 months out of a set of drive tires a tandem axle dump gets about 6 months out of set of drives. The absolute lightest truck you can get away with would be a Ford L-8000 tandem with 7.8 power 18,000lb front axle and 40,000lb rear axle and a 16'6" box. The truck would only be good for hauling topsoil the truck would be a 20km/h hill climber with low power. The 40 rear axles your taking a chance going offroad because they are not strong enough. Where building lots are nowwadays to get into them you need full axle lock up and 46,000lb rears thats just to get a loaded truck in. Sometimes there is a excavator there to push if need be. We do have one Kenworth tridrive dump truck in the area it has 69,000lb rockwells on neway air ride. The truck has a 19 foot box on it the truck hauls about 23 ton of gravel maybe more. You follow the truck down the road it rolls side to side going around the corners. The driver must have a rug burn on his butt and sore hips from shifting around in the drivers seat. You think the truck is going to roll over it leans so much. He says it does take getting used to the rolling. The truck goes anywhere thou when you lock all three drive axles it will go where tandems can't. A tridrive dump truck is expensive thou its about 160,000-170,000 just for a T-800 Chassis where as you can buy a complete T-800 tandem axle dump for 170,000 with C-15 power. Mack produces a tridrive truck too its a little cheaper I think its 150,000 for a vocational chassis. Out here you need a tridrive for log hauling a tandem axle log truck with a jeep and tandem axle pole trailer doesn't haul enough. Need a tridrive truck with a tridem pole trailer that gives you a gvw of 57,000kgs (126,000lbs). Anyhow the roughest suspensions starting with the worst Hendrickson solid mount walking beam Hendrickson rubber block walking beam Mack Camel Back Hendrickson Spring Hendrickson Spring ext leaf Rubber block (Pad) suspension with a aluminum dump box and slightly out of round tires is one of the roughest dumps I had to drive. Trucks with standard Hendrickson spring isn't too bad the ext leaf rides a little smoother. I got my CDL on a LTL-9000 with air ride I personally didn't notice if the ride was smoother it still bounced the same. Tires do make or break the ride most gravel trucks in the area run the deepest Bandag off highway cap you can get. The Waste Hauler lug is one of them. You get one that is slightly out of round it makes for a rough ride.
One guy tried a tri drive truck with the tandem jeep and pole. Traded it back for the tandems, he said it was a) to long. b) too hard on tires. c) rough. If your goin' in a straight line the truck had traction like a tank
The tridrives eat tires thats for sure but now the rules and regulations are so over regulated log haulers have to run a tridrive. You need permission now to frigging fart
No doubt,LAst year hurt even worse because we got so much snow in October AND IT NEVER LEFT, So all the ground that needed to freeze never did. Trucking was one issue, but we sunk alot of machines!!
I guess thats one thing you guys got to deal with in Alberta is you can only work in some areas when the ground is frozen. From the pictures I have seen on the net trucks in Alberta see more mud than we do on the coast. Some of those oil field trucks are in mud to the chassis I was talking to a truck driver the other night he said he drove on the ice roads. Things like you never wear a seat belt and the door on the truck is never closed. If the front of the truck falls through the ice you jump out and run like heck.
I found it too cold to leave a door open~ maybe in 20-30 yrs ago Like I said in the ice posts, theroad wouldn't be open if it had not passed safe inspection, That being said, Inspected bridges sometimes fall?? And mud we have now better mud machines but I've really come to dislike spring breakup!!