OK, so I picked up a pup (with some warts) to go with my end dump truck. Both loads I have hauled required a pull to get going again. I dump the pup where it needs to go, then when I dump the lead, it seems that I MUST be jacked at 90* or I'm not getting out. The last load I was jacked at about 45* and very much needed a pull to get the pup over the load. How do you guys empty the lead box w/o getting stuck?
Gotta be jacked almost 90. It is just the way it gets done. I never need to assist on a decent site, and frankly try to never "help" a truck that way. As an operator I buy any damage that may occur. We strive to make the site workable and it is up to the driver to get his part done.
I e seen some cool you tube videos of this, well it was a regular dump with pup, but it was awesome to see how he jacked it around to dump both loads without problem.
The guys I watched out west with the long tongue pups always jacked the pup 90degrees to one side to dump the truck, or dropped the pup if there wasn't enough room to get turned the full 90. I've never seen long tongue pups here in Michigan. The pups pulled around here are usually 4, 5 or 6 axle on a dolly, pulled by a high horsepower straight dump. This is called a 'short double'. The only way you're dumping that setup is to dump the pup, unhook pup out of the way, dump truck, and then hook up pup to truck again. They can max out at 11 axles between truck and pup. Smallest I've seen operating was 7 axle set up(3 axle truck, 4 axle pup)
That's nuts!
That's crazy, why would anyone want a setup that requires unhooking the trailer each time you need to dump the truck? Such a waste of time. Here it's a pup with long tongue, or a wagon with a long tongue. The wagons have 2 articulation points so you can turn around tight enough where you could park the truck in one stall and park the wagon is a stall next to it backwards. With a wagon they go up to 5 axles, 3 in the rear 2 in the front. In some rare cases though they dump both while driving in a straight line slowly, like if it's road crush on a road job.
Welcome to Michigan.....its how we roll. Ed
@suladas Because that setup can legally haul 50+ tons into a very confined space with one driver. If you ever watch them pull in to a site, they can dump the pup, drop the pup, dump the truck, and hook back up in about 10-15 minutes. With a fish mouth receiver on the back of the truck, you just have to get close and it feeds the pintle ring right where it needs to go to drop the pin. Then its glad hands, 7 pin connector and roll out. The tongues are held by a spring close the right height for the truck and there's no landing gear to drop because the pup is on a dolly. Bigger contractors pull gravel trains/ Michigan doubles. Still an 11 axle setup, but the longer length gives them better spacing which allows them to gross more on certain axles.
I guess you would call this a 180. I don’t drive enough truck and dog to master it myself but is fairly common to see here.
Having the steering wheel on the wrong side must make it easier!!
I guess it would work, assuming it's a straight road there Here they can get 140,000lbs on 8 axles. Depending on weight of truck and wagon, you'll get over 100,000lbs of payload. Depending on the site, all they need is room to back the wagon close to 90 degrees which for a good driver isn't much and it'll be dumped in 2 minutes. If it's a really long haul like 2-3 hours roundtrip on a straight road I could see where that combo might make sense, but it would need a football field to turn around in, or you'd be replacing tires every week on it. Other setup you see here is a b-train end dump on the rear and a lead side dump, no unhooking or backing up that way can dump both in a straight line. Bit more limited in what they can haul though. I mean if you're doing say 90 mins roundtrip, 5 trips a day, that setup will cost you 1 trip a day and that's without any screw ups, it would negate a bit extra hauled very quickly. I wonder how long the average truck goes before a driver forgets to undo a air line or electrical? Or forgets to hook up electrical? Doing it 5 times a day, it's only a matter of time. I will say i'm glad we don't have those weird setups here. No tag axles, no truck lift axles none of that random axles hanging off every point of the truck. Just straight regular axles that make sense. When I look at those pictures it looks like photoshop, or someone on something who came up with the insane idea.
I have seen drivers do the same thing with A trains ( semi with a trailer) first time every time even with short drawbars similar to the rig above.
Here the pup is on a long drawbar. Dump the pup, the jack knife the pup and dump the truck. On road jobs, tale spread the pup, back up, the tale spread the truck.
Down east, we run pusher axles ahead of the tandems on a tractor. They still run an air lift on the trailer, but you can't adjust the air pressure, it's up for turning, then down. One of our 4 axle floats as an air lift for when you are empty, but no one uses it. When I first got my truck license, you could run an adjustable air lift on the trailer. If your load was 60,000lbs, you ran 60lbs in the air lift, and if it was a turner quick lift, with the upside down springs, you added an extra 20lbs. I remember seeing ontario trucks with lift axles on the rear and middle of the trailer.
When I drove end dumps in early 90's, I would raise and trip the pup, raise the front box time the trip so pup would dribble out roughly three feet past where front box started. Drop the pup box then drop front box and head for the pit.
Years ago blokes I worked with could spread a load of gravel down a road with a truck and trailer and the only difference on the ground was the where the gravel spilled off the drawbar. They were guns compared with the gearjammers of today.
I was thinking back to this truck driver Roy. He was with Olson Brothers and he could spot the pup anywhere within inches for me, first time. He would back into these tight city alley and corner lots with no leeway and put the trailer right where I needed it. I have no idea how he could see that well in the mirrors. I have a moto mirror on the right on my truck but no way can I shoot that tight first time. Sometimes you have to look back to realize just how good somebody was, how helpful.
Did Goodyear and Firestone sponsor that legislation ?
Probably the paving contractors....tear them up while fixing. Ed
I guess Michigan must have a lot of straight roads. Or maybe the drive brings along a swamper to throw sand down to attempt any type of turn? If I saw a truck like that on the road, i'd swear some crackhead fabbed it up and no way was it actually run anywhere. With all those axles down and loaded, I don't think that truck would even stay on the road on a corner on some highways here.
They get along and it's neither flat, nor straight where I'm from. Tires certainly scrub and wear fast. Not everyone runs the multi axle rigs. Around my area, you see a pretty even mix of tandem, triaxle and quad axle dump trucks running around, not pulling a pup. We have a lot of gravel pits all over the region so there isn't s big advantage to pulling a big pup or 11axle gravel train. The guys running the big gravel trains are usually large excavation contractors, or guys delivering raw products to concrete plants.
Nope, That is Michigan!!!
Pipe and Bridge neck tongue pups here get pup dumped, Jacked then Truck. IF in a tail spread is still done as TS had Noted.
Here in Mo we have mud and soft roads you wouldnt roll to good here with your trucks.
Not an end dump, but we run belly dump pups in the woods when the job allows, generally spreading crushed rock on mainlines. When possible while on the roll at 20 mph or however fast the road allows, put the PTO in gear without knocking out the clutch brake (easy once you think about the mechanics of it) start hoisting the box while finding a gear because you were in neutral, trip the gate, wait just so long, and trip the trailer. You can climb a steeper hill than you think when you forget which corner you're at and next thing you know you're climbing it with an empty truck and a trailer that's got most of a load. Or dump the trailer, wait just so long and trip the truck. I can spread a road and you'll be hard pressed to see where a load started and ended. Finding places to turn around is easier than an end dump pup because you just need a spot wide enough to back the truck into with the trailer either alongside the truck or parallel to the road pointing in the direction you'll go. It's faster to wrap the trailer around the truck in an intersection than to try to back it around the corner.